Institutionalising inclusion

BENGALURU: Bharatanatyam was considered to be the domain of a particular community in Tamil Nadu until legends like Rukmini Devi threw open the doors of Kalakshetra to young girls and boys belonging to different communities. Still, the fact remains that sabhas or the organisers of the dance festivals in Chennai continue to avoid giving prime time slots to these dancers. It is in this scenario that dancers like Narthaki Nataraj have to swim against the tide and stay afloat. It has been a long struggle for her. She got her first national recognition with the Padma Shri in 2019. Now there is another feather in her cap.

In a surprising announcement on Sunday, Chief Minister M K Stalin included her in the newly constituted Tamil Nadu State Development Policy Council (SDPC) which includes economists, professors and corporate honchos. She becomes the first transwoman on the council. “It is important to accept our similarities and differences – man, woman or third gender, we are all searching for a glimpse of divinity in everyday life,” says Nataraj. One of her favourite varnams in her performances have been ‘Thiruve, Thirumagale, Thaaye’ in Ragamalika. She composed it herself and it shows conventional gender equations by focusing on the female, rather than the male deity. Nataraj refuses to talk about her childhood. Her early foray into dance began with an emotional search for happiness.

“My only happy memories of childhood are of dancing secretly to cinema songs,” she once said. “My friend Sakthi Bhaskar and I have been together since we were five years old. Padmini and Vyjayanthimala were our role models. I am not sure whether I dreamt of dancing like them but I do remember that only when I danced did I feel free, beyond any limitations,” she says.

On her journey in dance, Nataraj says, “No one wanted to listen to us, support us, or understand our struggles.” Nataraj and Bhaskar went to K P Kittappa Pillai – the doyen of the Thanjavur Bani – requesting him to teach them. But at first he refused. “We were so used to rejection by then that we took it in our stride. I thought we were rejected because of not fitting into the ‘normal’ gender identities. But he was only testing whether we had real passion for dance.” For over 14 years they trained with their “very rigorous teacher” who taught them the rare repertoire of Thanjavur quartet compositions.

“My basic question was, who am I? In literature, and in dance, this is an open question, unlike fixed gender stereotypes that form our social norms,” she says. She found the answer while delving deep into dance. “The Nayaki Bhava is a divine transgender state. The soul is neither male nor female, and travels through infinity. While watching me dance, the audience mistakes me to be a beautiful woman. While I may be playing a nayika or heroine, I am not only that.

Being the third gender is also a spiritual identity,” she says. She strongly feels the third gender has been created specially for society and humanity. “We don’t have any bond in this world since we cannot have progeny.” Nataraj, whose life is included as a lesson in the Class 11 Tamil text book of Tamil Nadu, is seen as a role model by the transgender community for having braved social ridicule and exclusion for the success and acceptance she achieved in the world of dance. Now, a new role awaits her. (The writer is a senior dance critic)