Retired as Associate Professor in English, University of Delhi. A classicist, theatre theorist, sitar and surbahar player, musicologist, cultural analyst, and newspaper columnist, he is trained in both Western and traditional Indian educational systems. He was awarded the McLuhan Fellowship by University of Toronto, and the Senior Onasis Fellowship to research in Greece on classical Greek theatre. He has lectured extensively at universities in India, North America, Europe, and Greece. He was a Visiting Professor to Greece and member of jury of the Onasis award for drama. He serves on the visiting faculty at the National School of Drama, Delhi, and as resource scholar at the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts and several other major centres and academies of the arts. He also gives annual public lectures in New Delhi at the Habitat Center and several other forums. His published books include: Dramatic Concepts Greek and Indian (1994), Natyasastra, Chapter 28: Ancient Scales of Indian Music (1996), Twelve Greek Poems into Hindi (2001), India: A Cultural Decline or Revival? (2008).
Abstract of the talk
PERFORMING ARTS: DANCE, MUSIC AND THEATRE
Dance, music and theatre in India have been considered as sacred arts since most ancient times. They have also been regarded as morally uplifting, providing refined entertainment and enjoyment. They are meant to develop the personality of the artist and the art lover as a gracious and socially admirable citizen (nāgarika).
All Indian performing arts are covered by the generic term natya, which means communicating through body gestures, movements, words, signs, musical notes, costumes and stage properties. A very thorough theory of performance or nātya was developed as early as 5th century BCE in the work of Bharata Muni called Nātyaśāstra. It has been the basis of music, dance, drama, literature and sculpture and allied arts. It has influenced the arts of China, East Asia, Japan and in the Far East in the ancient times, and in the modern age those of Europe and America. The aims of nātya are clearly spelt out in the Nātyaśāstra of Bharata Muni. For the ancient Indian society it was a sacred art. Nātya was called the Fifth Veda as it made the esoteric knowledge in the four Vedas available to the masses. Nātya as theatre propagated the Vedic values or traditionally called śruti-smriti concepts, through the enactments of traditional myths and other popular stories. Originally, nātya, so says the Nātyaśāstra, was given to the gods by Brahma for the well-being of the world.
Readings