The First Annual "Indiclad"

BY: BASU GHOSH DAS (ACBSP)

Feb 26, BARODA, INDIA (SUN) — International Indian Classical Dance Festival, organized by ISKCON, Imphal, Manipur, 2010.

On Thursday, February 18, 2010, the first International Indian Classical Dance Festival, "Indiclad", was organized at the ISKCON Sri Sri Radha Krishnachandra "Manimandir" at Imphal, Manipur.

Manipur, is a State in the far Northeast of India, bordering on Myanmar (formerly "Burma") on its east and southeast, Nagaland on its north, Mizoram on its southern border, and Assam on its west. The erstwhile Kingdom of Manipur came under British rule during 1891.

Alongside Indicald, ISKCON Manipur organized a convergence seminar entitled "A collaborative and holistic approach to address the issues of HIV infection and drug abuse prevention" on the temple premises.

The "Indiclad" festival, which featured dancers from India, Malaysia, France and Bangladesh, ran for four days from Thursday February 18, through Sunday, February 21. The convergence seminar was held on February 19 and 20. ISKCON sannyasis H.H. Hanumat Preshaka Swami from the USA, H.H. Bhakti Vinoda Swami, Zonal Secretary for ISKCON for parts of Tamil Nadu and Kerala, and H.H. Vyasa Tirtha Swami, resident 81year old native of Manipur, graced the occasion with their presence. Basu Ghosh das, President of ISKCON Baroda, Lila Purushottam das, Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering at IIT Kanpur, Dr. Krishnapriya das of New Delhi, Sakshi Gopal das from Singapore, Brajendra das of BI Kolkata, Dharmaraj das and Prahlad das from Spain, Madhavapriya devi dasi of Mauritius, and devotees from Mexico, Peru and Australia.

Indiclad's was inaugurated by Manipur's Chief Secretary, Sri D.S. Poonia, who is married to a native Manipuri. He spoke in praise Manipuri culture and ISKCON's activities in Manipur.

H.H. Hanumat Preshaka Swami, H.H. Bhakti Vinoda Swami, Basu Ghosh das, and Ajit das, President of ISKCON Imphal, all addressed the gathering at the inaugural function.

The festival got underway with a traditional Manipuri "harinam sankirtan" party consisting of one hundred and four artists, dressed in traditional white dhotis, "harinam chaddars", and Manipuri turbans, playing the Manipuri mridanga, (locally known a "pung"), which resembles the Bengali "Sri Khol", but has a wooden body. Besides the twenty or thirty "pung" players, there were fifty kartal players! The kirtan program, with elaborate dance arrangements went on for more than half an hour.

Thereafter, there were introductory dances by several featured performers. Sri Kalamandalam V.R. Venkitt of the Uma Memorial Kalalayam of Calcutta performed a Kathakali dance with his troupe in traditional Kerala style. An Odissi dance number by the "Sutra Dance Theater" performers from Malaysia, a solo Manipuri dance by Kumari Th. Ibemubi devi and Sita dasi, from France, performed an Odissi solo dance.

The "convergence seminar" began on Friday morning. ISKCON's H.H. Hanumat Preshaka Swami, H.H. Bhakti Vinoda Swami, Dr. Pramod Singh, Technical, Director, Manipur Aids control Society, Sri P. Sarat Sharma, Director Social Welfare for the Government of Manipur and Dr. Jayenta Singh Director, RRPC, Manipur, were present.

Dr. Jayenta Singh explained the efforts of the government to address the problem of drug abuse by counseling and rehabilitation. He said that Manipur forms part of the Golden Triangle of drug and narcotics peddlers, and express grave concern about youth who have taken to drugs and were being used to peddle drugs by unscrupulous international gangs.

Dr. Pramod Kumar, expressed the desire that ISKCON will organize more seminars to discuss the problem of drug abuse and AIDS in Manipur. He presented an overview of the present scenario in Manipur and what could happen with more NGOs involved and opined that much needs to be done, and the government's involvement should expand. He presented technical statistics regarding these problems being faced by Manipur.

Bhakti Vinoda Swami showed the gathering a powerpoint presentation. He explained that "attraction to meat eating, intoxication, illicit sex and gambling is an age old malady of the conditioned souls, and this fact is mentioned in the ancient Srimad Bhagavatam. Swargaraj Indra gets intoxicated with Soma Rasa and an ant gets intoxicated with honey! Lord Krishna, in Bhagavad Gita says that such habits can be changed only with a higher taste - "param drstva nivartate". (Bg 2.59)

"ISKCON Founder-Acarya Srila Prabhupada gave the Holy Name to youth who were searching for happiness by misusing drugs, when he went to America. ISKCON will be happy to work with the NGOs and the government, this proven spiritual solution, drawn from the rich Vaisnava culture of Manipur, to help alleviate the acute problem of drug abuse in this wonderful land."

H.H. Hanumat Preshaka Swami in his concluding remarks quoted several famous scientists and their outlooks, and strongly advocated a spiritual dimension as being the best way to solve both the problems.

In the evening of the second day, the program was inaugurated by welcoming speeches by H.H. Bhakti Vyas Tirtha Swami, Manipur's "resident sannyasi", who is a disciple of the late Bhakti Swarup Damodar Swami, and Professor Samaresh Bandhopadhyay, retired head of the department of Ancient Indian History and Culture at Calcutta University, and Dr. Sunil Kothari, Padma Shri and Sangeet Natak Academy awardee, and retired Professor of Dance at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.

Niki, from Manipur, performed "Das avatar", the famous Sanskrit poem of Kavi Jayadev, in Manipuri dance style.

Thereafter, there was an elaborate performance by the Sutra Dance Company from Malaysia, entitled "Spellbound" that lasted for one and a half hours! The Director of the Sutra Dance company, Sri Ramli Ibrahim of Malaysia, a highly trained and well known exponent of Odissi dance at Malaysia, was introduced by Sri Lalit Verma of "Aurodhan", Pondicherry. Sri Lalit has been instrumental in arranging programs for Sri Ramli throughout India and abroad. Sri Ramli expressed his love for Indian culture and Indian traditional dance and his delight at visiting Manipur for the first time! The Sutra dancers, all from Malaysia, include ethnic Indians, Chinese and Malays - truly a multi-cultural troupe!

This was followed by a solo Odissi dance by Sita Dasi of France, who spent twelve years of her young life at Bhubaneshwar, Orissa - many of those studying dance!

On day Saturday, February 20, the concluding session of the convergence seminar began with a powerpoint presentation on the subject by Sriman Lila Purushottam das, (aka Dr. Laxmikant Behera), Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering at IIT, Kanpur. He presented collaborative and holistic approaches to HIV and drug addiction prevention and data regarding HIV/AIDS. "The present society is facing many related problems, and solutions must be found based on the root cause of the problems. The key to understanding the root of a problem is to ascertain the problem through right knowledge." The Vedantic approach to knowledge acquisition was presented. Then elements of collaborative and holistic approaches, such as right education, the role of spiritual organizations, Government patronization, mass awareness campaigns, seminars and retreats, health camps and youth participation were all discussed, on the basis of Gaudiya Vaisnava teachings. In conclusion he proposed three important steps to tackle such problems: no to factories, i.e. village and farm centered life, compulsory gurukula education for Indian kids and rehabilitation of HIV/drug addicted people in spiritual health camps.

This was followed by a presentation by Dr. Krishnapriya das of ISKCON New Delhi, Prof. Samaresh Bandopadhya, and the session concluded with a presentation by H.H. Hanumat Preshaka Swami. On both days there were interactive sessions where the attendees to the seminars asked questions of the presenters, and open discussion on various points followed.

On the third day of the Indiclad, Sriman Ajit das introduced Smt. Tamanna Rehman of Dacca, Bangladesh to the audience, and she spoke of her excitement of being able to visit Manipur for the first time, in view of her years of study of Manipur classical dance. Her arrival was delayed due to flight cancellation, which resulted in the rerouting of her flight to Imphal via Agartala, where she had to spend a night, enroute. Also, it was fortuitous that permission for he "inline pass" was granted just that very day, and so she was allowed to enter Manipur!

Thereafter, Kalamandalam Sri V.R. Venkitt and his Kathakali party performed two lengthy and elaborate dances. The first dance, "Poothana Moksham" is from the Dashamaskanda (tenth Canto) of Srimad Bhagavatam. Sri Venkitt, in "strivesham" (dressed as the woman Putana), portrayed this Krishna-lila as a solo dance. This was followed by the multiple performer number "Kiraatarjuna", depicting the scene from Mahabharata where Arjuna, performing penance in the Himalayas to please Lord Shiva confronts Lord Shiva and Parvati, who disguise themselves as hunters ("Kiraatas").

After this performance got underway, there was a sudden drop in the already wintry air, and it was amazing that the musicians accompanying the Kathakali dance went shirtless, as per the ancient traditions of Kerala!

After the scintillating Kathakali performance, lasting almost two hours, the twins from New Delhi, Divya and Diksha Upreti, performed three Kathak dance numbers. The evening ended with "Harinam prachar" a Manipuri dance number by Lianda Classical academy.

On Sunday, February 21, 2010, there was a "mega concluding program" that included seven dance numbers from the various Indian classical dance styles. The first performance was "holi nama sankirtana" by Guru N. Shyamchand and his party of 124 musicians and dancers. The highlight of the lengthy and intricate performance was the "twirling drum dance". The audience highly appreciated this grand performance!

Then ISKCON Manipur's own Ranga Niketan dancers - who perform an annual world tour - presented "Vasanta Rasa" dance, depicting Lord Krishna's spring "Rasa-lila". This multi- performer dance was also well received by the large crowd in attendance!

Then Smt. Sangitabali devi performed a solo Manipur Dance.

Sriman Ajit das, Chairman of the Indiclad Organizing Committee then addressed the audience and also sang a Manipuri song glorifying Harinam sankirtan, Srila Prabhupada and Srila Bhakti Swarup Damodar Swami, the inspirer of ISKCON Manipur.

After his address and song, Smt. Tamman Rehman of Dacca, Bangladesh, performed three intricate Manipuri solo dance numbers, and quickly changed costumes for each performance!

Thereafter, Dr. N. Nara Singh, the Chief Guest for the concluding program, and ex-Minister of Culture for the Government of Manipur introduced Sri. R. K. Sanatan, a Kathak dancer, who performed a Kathak dance, himself dressed as a woman! The audience was stunned by his presentation.

At the end of the night Kumaris Malabika Sen, of Calcutta and Mahima Sandoval, of Spain, performed Bharatanatyam dance numbers, both solo and then a combined number, with live musical accompaniment and "natuaangam" by their guruji from Calcutta.

See many more photos at our gallery, here and here.