Traditional Art in the Time of Electronic Entertainment

Aishwarya Nair is a bharathnatyam dancer who first adorned the chilanka (ankle bell) when she was just 6 years old. Currently doing her masters in clinical psychology at Delhi University, she now teaches the dance that she has mastered in the past 16 years. At a music and dance school in Vikaspuri, Delhi, 12 young girls from the age of 6 to 14 years follow Aishwarya’s every bhava (expression), tala (rhythm) and natya (theatrical) accompanied by the raga (music) playing in the background. She is one of the few gen-next youngsters who find pride in promoting the rich art of India.

“Art will die”, she says, “unless we adapt to the changing times. There is no sanctity in any art form”. Her statement is more or less true. Like the language of Bo that died with its last speaker, Boa Sr in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, many art forms are dying with little or no takers. Some like the Katputhli ka Khel (string puppets) from Rajasthan, Chavittunadakam (foot stamping dance drama) from Kerala and Chhau dance from West Bengal are easily being looked through due to the development of the electronic entertainment industry. Villages that were once cut off from the intricacies of cable channels and pirated CD’s and DVD’s are quickly catching up, leaving the traditional art forms in lurch.

Mr. Jayaprakash Kulur, a noted playwright and winner of the Kerala Sahitya Akademi Award for Drama says, “Naturally popular art may be film, cinema industries. We cannot compare the history of 5000 years of theatre and the history of the popular arts like cinema and television, which has a history of less than a century. There might be a slight decline, but it is not uprooted completely.”

The only hope to preserve these art forms is with the involvement of the youths and inclusion of these dying art forms in various syllabi at college and school levels. At least if the individual states with which the art forms are associated with preserves it, there is higher chances of it reaching the artistic generations to come. The Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts is currently conducting an exhibition on the masks, puppets and showmen tradition of India, which showcases art forms from all over the country. More shows like these can invariably bring traditional art forms to the general public.

Art forms are not for people with acting skills or creativity or flexibility or any of the thousand and one norms people associate it with. According to Mr. Kulur, “Even a layman can associate himself with the settings and characters of a play or a dance or merely even a puppet. All one needs to do is, take the effort of indulging in the arts.”