A BRIDGE TO THE PAST

                                                               

                                                                                                                      Ankur Bora

Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Theater was packed with a sold-out crowd with attendees from cities as far as Detroit and with guests as far away as France. They had come to watch the “Cloth of Vrindavan” and Sattriya performed by monks of Assam, a 500 years old classical Indian dance form that has a shared history with the cloth. As the curtain came down upon the final act, there was tremendous applause, touching and heartfelt response,  curtain call after curtain call, bow after bow to the entire cast of the dancing monks (bhokots) of Majuli, still more applaud, until the curator, a courageous young lady, came to the center stage to yet more intense applause. It was the culmination of a stirring tale of this Assamese entrepreneur, her journey beginning with a moment of awakening, adventure after another, propelled by her love for roots and motherland.  

Madhusmita Bora grew up in Madhabgaon, a village in Sonitpur District, named after Sattriya creator Sankardev's foremost disciple. Her childhood was a magical place filled with songs and music of drums, cymbals, flutes, violins, conch shells and a wonderland to play with mask-making, yoga, and dance. While she adored everything about the idyllic rhythms of the village, her education took her to faraway Delhi and then hurled her into America. Madhusmita arrived Chicago in 1999 for a Master’s program in Journalism at Northwestern University. She later began her career working in newsrooms as technology columnist and reporter. But wherever she went, she always felt a tug between her career and Sattriya. When she was residing in East coast, she came into contact with American Kathak Guru Janaki Patrik. Ms. Patrik, a teacher radiant with curiosity, compassion and love of truth, encouraged her to follow her passion – to find the place where her greatest love meets the world’s greatest need. Those words freed Madhusmita and set the first step with which journey of a thousand miles began.  

Madhusmita would take her once a year pilgrimage to the river island, drawn back to the inescapable charm of the place where she truly belongs. Life is not a place where one learns it from a book- she believes that one has to go out and get it. Thus, for the next ten years, she spent months, away from her dear family in America, staying at Vaishnavite monasteries learning Srimanta Sankardeva’s philosophy and experiencing how he created this amazing art form nearly 600 years ago. She shares her wonder and astonishment “Sankardeva’s skill in different performing arts is unparalleled in human history – his versatility can only be compared with Leonardo Da Vinci”. Madhusmita would spend hours every day practicing, she fondly recalls the life of a Majuli bhokot  “I wake up at 5 a.m., study and rehearse until 7, then, in the afternoon, after  back home from the field, we go for our classes in music, dance and theater.” It was an amazing period, guided by the tremendous creative work done by the monks as well by the great masters and Gurus of Sattriya traditions. She faced each experience with the strength and wisdom she had gained through past experiences. It was like a river of cultures merging and it was all deep. She saw the bigger picture, “Gurujona has left a rich legacy and treasure of texts to draw from.”

Cloth of Vrindavan (Vrindavani Vastra) showing Scenes from the Life of Krishna , Philadelphia Museum of Art 

The performing art, when one’s soul is uncovered and opened to public, is one of the most profoundly intimate and courteous human endeavors. Back in United States and in her adopted home city of Philadelphia, Madhusmita along with her dance partner and sister-in-law Prerona Bhuyan, took that leap of faith and launched the Sattriya Dance Company - to tell the story of a sacred tradition and raise awareness about the river island of Majuli and its Vaishnavite monasteries. Within a short time, she garnered a widespread audience as Sattriya has been embraced in mainstream showcases and festivals. With relentless determination, she is taking the classical dance, to classrooms, libraries, festivals, old age homes, college cafes and any place in the United States that offers a platform. Sattriya is appealing to the locals because of its unique storytelling tradition, narrative style and the deep current of humanity inherent in the dance form.

The Dancing Monks of Assam teach at Drexel University

Madhusmita Bora is an entrepreneur who loves to devise new and creative strategies. She is someone who wouldn’t  sit down and wait for the opportunities to come , rather she would get up and make them. Her initial success after founding Sattriya Dance Company, was forging a partnerships with Philadelphia-based organizations Leeway Foundation and the Philadelphia Folklore Project. “The Philadelphia Folklore Project gave me space initially to teach the dance. Pennsylvania Council on the Arts and Leeway Foundation have funded my trips to India to record music, document the dance, and train in it.” Then came the next breakthrough. Always in search of something new, Madhusmita stumbled upon a 17th-century textile from India, held in the collection of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. After poring over archives, journals, Internet sites and checking facts, dates she was able to connect the elaborate silk cloth, once woven through stylized images and ancient Assamese text, to the living practitioners of Majuli. Immediately, she consulted the museum's curator of Indian and Himalayan art, Darielle Mason and head of costume and textiles, Dilys Blum and submitted a proposal to the Pew Center for Arts & Heritage. Her proposal titled “Threads of History: Resurrection of a Textile—a classical Indian dance performance in collaboration with the Dancing Monks of Assam” was accepted and apart from grant, the Center also committed in audience engagement, connecting her to additional resources in the field. With the financial support, the bhokots of Majuli were able to travel to Philadelphia, Washington DC and New York and as part of their first United States tour.   

The best way to create value in twenty-first century is to connect creativity with entrepreneurship Madhusmita Bora’s insights in interpreting the cloth, her mastery in illuminating its history and her ingenuity in connecting the dots to the present is a masterstroke. There are so many gifted people who deserve a chance for success but would never be able to get near it because of lack of support. If Madhusmita, only with power of a pen can do it, so can you and so can us!

                                                                                                            ankurbora@hotmail.com

Updated

Madhusmita was trained by the monks of Uttar Kamalabari Satra and also with Padmashree Jatin Goswami, Guru Ramkrishna Talukdar, Naren Boruah, and SNA awardee Anita Sharma and she would like to acknowledge their guidance and support throughout.