Archives

by Afreeha Jawad

If there was grandeur in simplicity, the world saw it in Rukmini Devi Arundale - the legendary Indian artiste whose eternal struggle to de-nationalize, universalize and finally spiritualize her efforts in reaching out to perfection was missed out on by globalists due to sensory limitations and intellectual stunting - a result of global agenda diffusion itself.

Rukmini Devi Arundale

Certainly Rukmini was no mundane person - the sort we meet in day to day life - the system's products. Legitimizing her elevated mindset, she even rejected her name into India's 'highest office' of President and preferred a life of total commitment to the arts and the creation of a progeny who would live the kind of life which she thought was dignified and elegant - creative and lofty. However, the system saw in her a threat to its institutionalization programme and was quick to project her as a nationalist, hailing her as a truly coy, orthodox, traditional, convention-bound, conservative Indian woman - that sort of nation state product.

This vulgar presentation of woman by the social constructs that followed the current global order has undermined her potential, relegating her to low levels of social acceptance.

The broad concepts of universality that were Rukmini, deliberately overlooked by the system, was an attempt to keep her this side of the fence and misrepresent her ideas to widen and foster the gap between accepted nationalism and disowned 'utopian' universalism. To rule becomes easy with more and more divisions even of class, power, caste and ethnicity - let alone nationalism and universalism.

To talk of such a personality, one needs to have a good grasp of what lay deep down inside Rukmini. Dr. Avanthi Meduri from New Delhi perhaps is one such personality who held the small but keen audience awe struck while speaking on Rukmini's life and times at the International Centre for Ethnic Studies recently.

Dr. Avanthi Meduri

'' A world university for the arts was Rukmini's goal. She forged the link between the past and present,'' said Dr. Meduri.

She met Anna Pavlova twice - first in 1925 and purely by chance in 1928 on board a ship to Australia. She even referred to Anna Pavlova as her spiritual teacher not to forget it was Pavlova who triggered off Rukmini's dancing career. Born in 1904 her early marriage at 16 in 1920 - an year after her father's demise, to Dr. George Arundale created a hornet's nest. Along with him, she traversed the ocean- travel became her life's metaphor.

Her archives now dispersed throughout the world from California, Chicago to Australia are proof of her global stature.

A one time parliamentarian - she even brought forward a bill against cruelty to animals.

Rukmini studied classical music under her mother - a talented musician in her time.

To Rukmini, culture was not restricted nor bound. As Dr. Meduri said,'' she thought culture not to be within territorialized framework but dynamic, moving, dispersed and fragmented.''

Regretting the wrong projection of Rukmini, she also said, "We have fetished her as the dancer and adorned woman. She saw the connection between art, dance, music, painting, sculpture and philosophy. The one in the many and the many in one".

Listening to Dr. Meduri this writer perceived the mystic element as well in the illustrious artiste. She would often refer to numbers such as 5, 7 or whatever in her life cycle. She even had three mirrors in all her 'temporary abodes'. According to this writer's understanding, the three mirrors are an external symbol representing the triple force within man - the Father, Son and Holy Ghost in Christianity, the Buddha, Dhamma and Sangha in Buddhism, Allah, Muhammed and Rasool, not to forget the Vedantic finding of man's composition of Vaa, Pith and Sem (fire, water and ether). One who is 'self ' understanding is an evolved being, in full control of such eternal truth which Rukmini deemed essential for her students to reach higher realms.

Rukmini set up the Kalakshetra - a multi disciplinary institution to resuscitate art's true spirit devoid of vulgarity. This Gurukkul institution saw teachers and students living together, sharing one another's experiences and looking ahead with visionary zeal. They lived art and enjoyed themselves to the fullest over here. It developed into a multilingual, heterogeneous school where diverse nationalities the world over assembled, lived art and left the place after self-discovery. By 1940 the Kalakshetra was offering its own diplomas.

In referring to this institution as a cultural heritage, one cannot withhold mentioning the old gigantic banyan tree which Rukmini herself planted that encapsulated what Kalakshetra meant to the students. The tree's magnificence seemed to grow with the institution. It soon became a place of universal prayer and language - Tamil, Teligu, English and so on. The birds perched atop understood the goings on. They escorted the students to their classrooms, stayed there and flew back to the tree after a while. ''This tree, the spirit of the age was the ear behind the ear, eye behind the eye and mind behind the mind,'' said Dr. Meduri.

The slides shown of Kalakshetra and the indomitable banyan tree impressed everyone in the audience. The thatched mud structures where students gathered to gain mastery over what was offered, Rukmini's crafts and weaving school from where hand woven cotton clothing was provided for students - the clay jugs and goblets - all icons of plain living and high thinking were noteworthy indeed.

To those who believe that schools of art must necessarily be a structure of brick, wall and modern roofing, Rukmini's non-conformist ideology is thought worthy.

Upon reflection of this great personality and her keenness in exposing students to so much of nature, this writer concluded it was only when man is in unison with nature that the best in him is drawn out - not in tiled ivory towers, offices and factories. The Buddha was enlightened under the Bo tree and not within his father's palace.

The Prophet of Islam realised God in a cave atop Mount Hira. Moses witnessed the fire of spirituality in the Sinai desert.

Perhaps this was what Rukmini intended education to be when she taught them under open skies and shady trees. She even referred to it as 'education without fear and art without vulgarity'.

Dr Meduri - herself hailing the old banyan tree pleaded thus:

'Behold the tree

what are you to us?

Global branches

reaching out to the world

Aspiration and burdens at your feet

You become something less

You become something more

Give us eyes to see universal vision

That the world's greatest saw this universal vision and directed humanity as well towards such is seen in the success story of Rukmini and those of her ilk.

Listening to Dr Meduri - this writer was reminded how very close Rukmini was to Tagore in the common quest. She, through art, dance and music almost equates Tagore in her universal vision and reach. The earlier mention of Rukmini's proclamation - 'education without fear' should necessarily remind us of Tagore's vision.

'Where the mind is without fear and head held high

Where knowledge is free

Where words come out from the depth of truth

Where the clear stream of reason does not run into the dreary deserts and of dead habit.

Where the world has not been broken into fragments by narrow domestic walls....

Words are restricted mechanisms for man's limitless experiences of what he really feels deep down within him. Language after all is only a social construct.

Allama Iqbal - another spark in the universal flame, at one time asks, 'How could words express the storm inside the house'. Tagore has come off unscathed in his verbal utterances and so has Rukmini in her artistic expressions.

News | Business | Features | Editorial | Security
Politics | World | Letters | Sports | Obituaries |

Produced by Lake House
Copyright 2001 The Associated Newspapers of Ceylon Ltd.
Comments and suggestions to :Web Manager