Shrimati Hutheesing- A Daughter of the Dawn

I first heard of her, while alighting from my train at Bolepur on my way to Santiniketan. ‘Have you ever met Shrimati?’ asked an artist pupil of Tagore who came to receive me at the station., During my brief stay of two days I had glimpses of her. Nandalal Bose, her art-master, was full of her praises. She was, I found, the pet of the Poet and a favourite of all. She was from Gujerat, the first girl to visit Santiniketan as an artist-pupil from that province, (though today half the students of Kalabhavan are boys and girls from Gujerat and Kathiawar), and she enjoyed certain privileges. Shrimati was the best, dressed young lady in the compound and easily the most beautiful looking. She moved about the place like a Kangra miniature come to life. Hers is not a common type of beauty but rather a classic one: face like that of the Madonna, eyes large and dreamy as those of Ajanta. Shrimati was studying painting under Nanda Babu, music under Dina Babu, and dancing under Nabhakumar, and she was showing great progress and much promise in all these arts.

This was nearly a decade ago. Since then she has blossomed into one of India’s foremost dancers and is making a name for herself as an artist of rare genius. She has travelled widely both in India and in Europe, studying, sketching, dancing, enriching her mind and arts. She went ‘afoot’ through the Himalayas for a while, and later visited the salons in Paris and Berlin, eager to see, learn and understand. ‘Who is this Miss Hutheesing, a dancer from India?’ wrote a friend from Europe. Returning to India she started giving dance-recitals on her own. Rabindranath Tagore felt proud of his pupil and encouraged her to interpret some of his poems in her own way, and she delighted him with her dances. Thus was born ‘The Spirit of Rhythm,’ one of Shrimati’s favourite dance compositions. To Rabindranath she is the best exponent of Indian dancing and he is never tired of singing her praises. Calcutta welcomed her heartily when she gave her first public show in that city; Colombo applauded her art to the skies; Madras and Bangalore opened their eyes to a new vision of dance-art.

Dancing is not a mere matter of mastering the technique or blindly conforming to traditional forms; it is the joyous expression of life’s moods, passions, aspirations and anguishes. It is not a vocation or a hobby but the life-throb of sensitive souls, the creative expression of the surging life within. Rhythm is the basis of life, as it is of the universe, and this law of rhythm is behind all manifestation, behind all Nature’s phenomena, behind all creative arts. Indian dancing, as a science and an art, is based and built upon this inner rhythmic significance of forms. Its motifs are highly conventionalised, and their mastery is a matter of years of devoted learning and practice. In its present decadent state it is all science and no art; all form and no life; all tradition and no creation. But fortunately there is a tendency today for more freedom of expression and for more creative compositions, and it is here dancers like Shrimati, Menaka, Uday Shankar, Rukmini, Jamuna, Nandita, Ghosh and others can give the necessary lead and save Indian art from a tradition that has lost its soul. Of course, there is a danger in this as well, but every born artist, like Shrimati, is so attuned to rhythm that she could not feel, think or express herself other-wise than rhythmically, and that is what distinguishes a born dancer from a spurious one.

Shrimati may not have, in fact has not, any profound knowledge of the theory of Indian dancing, but she is, being an artist, no stranger to the Rasas and Bhavas inherent in the art itself. She lives these moods while Pundits only talk about them. To her the birth-pangs of love, the pain of separation, the joy of freedom, the agony of captivity, the frustrated hopes and unfulfilled desires are not so many mental imageries, like the flight of the birds or babbling brooks, but part of emotional experiences which ever feed and nourish her artistic expressions. Shrimati is one of the most representative of modern Indian dancers, and her art is a treat of the rarest kind. An artist to her finger-tips, a dancer to the very core of her being, she creates magical moods with her genius. You see them not only in the rhythm of her dances but also in the atmosphere of her productions.

Nothing tinsel or tawdry about her art. Everything is genuinely beautiful. Her costumes, ornaments, ground and accompaniments are not just stage accoutrements to deceive the eye but objects of art that ought to and should surround one’s daily life. The settings, with their simple coloured cloths and embroidered Sind and Cutch works, cannot be improved upon or more beautified by costly mechanical contrivances or gaudily painted screens and curtains. The costumes and draperies are creations of a cultured artist, and she has shown how to create chaste, simple, beautiful grounds for stage performances. It is in these little details that you discover her true genius.

Her dances are visions of rhythm, grace, beauty, poise and movement. Her body, supple like a tender willow, sways and moves from a centre deep within her and the musical accompaniments merely give the time-beat and the melody-setting. She does not dance to music; music keeps time to the rhythmic beat of her soul. And this is the secret of all great dancers. It is not enough to possess a supple and sensitive body and a mastery over technique, but the soul of the artist must be aflame with the fire of life. A Pavlova cannot be produced in a studio; she is born. Shrimati shares this great soul-quality with that incomparable dancer who had the world at her feet.

Shrimati’s dances include simple folk-dances like the Garba Pot Dance and classical dances like the Kathak. ‘Devotee’ is a beautiful rendering of a type of Manipuri dance which the Tagore Players have made popular through-out India. In ‘Bondage’ and ‘Freedom’ we see other moods of Shrimati and her versatility. Some of these dances are strictly conventional and follow traditional forms, and others are original compositions inspired by the mood and the theme. Her latest creation is an interpretation of Nataraja’s dance inspired by that famous bronze.

Shrimati is strangely modern and ancient; sensuous and spiritual. Intensely practical and business like, she is yet dreamy and other-worldly. In her attitude, outlook, behaviour, culture, she is a modern among the moderns, but has withal all the gracious charm and tender gentleness of the old world, and reminds one of those bewitching women created and immortalised on the walls of Ajanta by the un-known masters of ancient India.