Going the distance

                                                                                 Ankur Bora

When you push out to new frontiers, you will inevitably gain new insights and perspectives on the world around you and within you. The odds are in your favor when you take daring chances and when you step out of yourselves. When you extend your horizon and become more productive allowing yourself to grow and push yourself to do things you wouldn’t normally do, life surprisingly becomes more interesting.  There are people who have incredible zest for life, willing to go that extra mile in following their passion and henceforth make life worth living.

 Such is the story of Anwesa Mahanta. Dedicated to the tradition of Sattriya  at a very young age, she met her mentor Shri Ghanakanta Bora Muktiyar , a Sangeet Natak Akademi Awardee, when she was only 9 years old.  Her teacher was deeply influential in the early life of Anwesa and his mentoring led her to a new mission. “He is a different kind of teacher – a maestro who inspires student to think and learn. I still marvel at how well his teachings have held up over the years”,  Anwesa joyfully shares her anecdotes on her formative days. “Belonging to a sattra , I had been groomed with its philosophical content by my parents and grandparents, and I perceived the world and its surroundings with that. I was blessed to have the revered teacher as my Adhyapak who had helped me in every step to explore and understand the nuances of the tradition in a different light.” Her teacher imbibed in her with a strong belief on the sacredness of Sattriya  dance – “Every space in which you perform is sanctified by your dance and hence it transcends into a sacred space where Gods are implored and you as devotees offer your salutations to the Divinity through the testaments of great saints.”         

This very essence of Sattriya  and the great ideals of the tradition set the stage for Anwesa’s greater work. Her PhD thesis titled "Traditions of Performing Arts in Assam and the role of Sattras" is based on her close association with these premier centers of Vaisnava art and learning. Her research takes a holistic view of this performance tradition: its sustenance, practice, changing contexts and the social appreciation of the art form. Anwesa has come to recognize that  Sattriya  is not just a dance form – it is a way of life. The rich histories, philosophy, literature, the wide range of artistic practices associated with the Sattriya dance are the roots holding the art form over five centuries. The bhakats (monks) of the Sattras are the pillars who as the practitioners and exponents brought the tradition to the masses. As she saw it, the Sattriya dance is a social phenomenon and it is integrally connected to the land, to the heritage and to the community. Thus ,Anwesa brings forth a new dimension in the pursuit of her doctoral progarmme.   Anwesa is also a prolific writer and she has been a blog author since 2008. A keen observer of  Bhakti tradition ,she is at home with the languages of their melody and rhythm , movement and cadence at both physical and conceptual levels. In one section, in lively writings, she describes a sequence in exquisite details ; she  then moves on with seeming effortlessness to an analysis of the dance significance in the education and socializing of young children at the Sattras.  

Anwesa has been raised to think that exploration, observation and perception are crucial to living a full intellectual and artistic life. Shri Ghanakanta Bora was her mentor, not so much in what he said, but in how he lived his life and looked at the world. Paced at the monastic order of the Kamalabari Sattra when he was only 4 years old, her teacher was elevated as the ‘Barbayan’, the highest honor that the Sattra can offer to a practicing percussionist cum dancer. The devastation that the Kamalabari Sattra was subjected to, due to erosion by the riotous Brahmaputra and its translocation brought him to Guwahati. The disruption, though, took him to carve new lines in the horizon of  Sattriya dance. Of epochal importance to young Anwesa were these ideals of her teachers which she would carry with her for the rest of her career - that an artist’s greatest success is not found in a single rave performance,  but , instead , in the way he or she uses that experience to keep moving forward – to evolve , learn  and work.     

Over the next twenty years, Anwesa continued to follow the trajectory that had been launched under the able guidance of her teacher. She has been an active performer presenting Sattriya dance in its solo form as well as in choreographic presentations of her own. She has performed extensively across India and also made a series of trips abroad including Malaysia, Hong Kong, U.K, Sri Lanka, France, New Zealand appearing at many prestigious dance festivals. She has also been conducting workshops and also presented scholarly research papers in various prestigious symposiums and conferences of the country and outside sharing the aesthetics and poetics of Sattriya dance, music theatre and allied traditions. Anwesa has been awarded with the prestigious national award, Ustad Bismillah Khan Yuva Puraskar from Sangeet Natak Akademi for the year 2013-14 for her contributions in the field of  Sattriya . She is also one of the founders of Kalpa – an organization for the advancement of literature, art, culture, and social harmony. Through Kalpa , she has been working for the promotion of Indian dance and its relevance amidst the youth, who are not acquainted with the classical music and dance traditions. It has been a spiritual quest for  Anwesa as Sattriya  dance has  become a chosen path of devotion.

Her career in Sattriya dance, music and theatre has dazzled when Anwesa was recently selected for the  Charles Wallace fellowship at the Queen's University Belfast.  The Fellowship is among the most coveted of scholarly honors and provides a golden opportunity for researchers, artists, students, academicians to pursue their work in the UK.  For Anwesa, it is the pinnacle of an incredible journey. Being among other artists at Belfast gave her a deeper sense that what she was doing mattered and was actually worth doing.  At Belfast, the University organizes India Lecture series delivered by distinguished personalities from India in their respective area of specializations.   This year she has become a fixture in this program  “It was a great honor for me to present my work here in this series and most importantly refer to cultural artifacts of Assam in relation to Performance Aesthetics. As a token of my sincere thanks to my land and its rich culture, I strive to bring into light some of the lesser-known art forms of Assam to International platform”. Last month , Anwesa was  honored at the prestigious Nehru Centre, London for her illustrated demonstration and narrative  of  Sattriya  dance tradition passing through several generations.

A person can reach the zenith of any profession or avocation she/ chooses , if she/he is willing to keep striving towards her his destination. There is window of opportunities out there for everyone. Anwesa Mahanta was captivated by the beauty and magnificence of Sattriya  dance at a very young age; focused and determined, she has been able to reach far away shores  to carry the message of her teacher through her spell-bounding performance all over the globe. She set her sights high, as high as the stars – this year, she is soaring to new heights, and inspiring everyone around her along the way.