When one hears the word KATHAK - just by itself, in all its purity - images of great dancers begin to flash on the screen of one's mind. Sights and sounds and silences, distilled from magical performances that one might have had the privilege of seeing, surface: the melting grace of movement; the filigree of gestures; the little anklet-bells that make not a collective sound but tinkle almost in a disciplined manner, one following the other, the sudden pauses; the lightning- fast pirouettes that leave one bedazzled; the rise and fall of the rhythm, the chhanda, of it all: sound and movement and emotion. Rasa pervades. Those 'magical flowers' that old texts speak of, begin to bloom in one's awareness.
But then, if one is not careful, one can spoil it all by getting caught up in endless debates that rage among scholars as much as among practitioners. Questions keep being tossed about, thrown at one another like darts of rancour. How old is the art form? Truly, how far back does it go? Was it inspired, initially, by devotion. or by the desire to entertain? Is the experience it leads to sattvika or rajasika? Where did the dance form originate, in which region or court or temple? Which ghanana of Kathak takes precedence over others?
Who would have imagined that a chance meeting in Khajuraho would become a mission for the next almost six years? Two friends, one a classical dancer with a background in Physics, the other a civil servant with a background in Indian culture and history, ended up travelling thousands of kilometres across the length and breadth of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Rajasthan looking for villages named Kathak.
An innocuous mention sparked our curiosity and prompted us to unravel layers upon layers of history. Our first task was to determine the authenticity of the existence of Kathak villages and to see if they were linked to Kathak dance. This led us to the Kathak Lok, which prodded us to study communities, their vocations, caste structures and impact of external influences on their traditional role in society. Several challenges came our way, which included claims of proprietorship relating to the origin of Kathak dance. Our focus, however, was not to refute or prove whether any state was the point of origin of Kathak dance nor to glorify any gharana or undermine the contribution of any other. Our mission was only to understand the existence of Kathak villages and what Kathak and Kathak Lok represented.
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