'DNA' special: Teaching kathak to Zindziswa

Gan Gan Ganpati Siddhi Vinayak...” he chants, his ankle-bells keeping time with the beat, his graceful hand gestures, vigorous footwork and mesmerising chakkars invoking Lord Ganesha as he practises. The Kandivli home of kathak maestro Vinod Hasal, 45, is a study in contrast. Instead of the classic Indian look with a mandatory Nataraja idol, South African masks, shields, spears and animal-print upholstery evoke the Dark Continent.

“I feel as South African as Indian after the years I’ve spent there,” laughs Hasal, a 20th generation Jaipur gharana kathak dancer.

He runs nine kathak schools across South Africa (SA), and among his 5,000 students is Nelson Mandela’s eldest daughter Zindziswa. “Madiba (Mandela’s Xhosa clan name by which he’s referred to in SA) attended a 1994 performance of mine. He came up on stage and hugged me. He was very moved with the ballet I’d choreographed: Blacks, coloureds, Indians and whites danced together to ‘Krishna Nee Begane Baaro’ by Colonial Cousins. In the audience, people across religions were holding hands and weeping. It will always be one of my favourite performances, especially since Madiba himself praised it,” says Hasal.

But how did this Rajput from Mumbai land in SA in the first place? “In 1990, I was invited by the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISCKON) to conduct lecture demonstration sessions on Indian classical dance in Cape Town,” he says. “Years back, my father Acharya Ganesh Hasal had performed for the first president, Rajendra Prasad, and had taught kathak to actress Sandhya,” he says.  

“But this was being held against me by a politics- and pettiness-fraught dance fraternity. Fed up, I decided to do my own thing,” he says. So when the invitation arrived, he travelled to SA. “I was astounded at the thousands who’d gathered to cheer me.” He was asked to stay back and continue with his dance in SA.

Two years later, his heart yearned for India and for his Bohra college sweetheart Aliya, so he returned to Mumbai. Much against his family’s wishes and the growing communal cauldron of the times, Hasal secretly married her and the couple eloped to Mauritius in March 1993.

Since India’s strong anti-apartheid policies made a direct visa to SA impossible, the couple had a prolonged ‘honeymoon’ on the island nation. “While we were awaiting our visa, money was running out. The visa finally came through after two months, and when I landed in SA with Aliya, all I had was 50 rand (Rs 500),” he chuckles.

Hasal helped strengthen India-SA ties culturally through kathak, says former Director General of the Indian Council for Cultural Relations, Himachal Som, recollecting his visit to SA. “We generally see funds end up being used for diasporic activity in every other country. But in SA, we found that large numbers of locals had actually enrolled and followed Hasal’s work.”

Hasal’s nine schools in Durban, Cape Town, Johannesburg, Alexandra, Tembisa and Soweto are largely managed by 29 graduates trained by him. A give-and-take with local styles is encouraged and this has led to many fusion pieces with ballet, Zulu, gumboot dancing, Pantsula, tap dance and Flamenco.

“There is already such a rich socio-cultural resonance with the Indian subcontinent that South Africans find it easy to relate to the emotions being portrayed in a performance. Once I narrate an episode from the legend, they take to it immediately.”

One of his SA students, the Tswana-speaking Brain Sekoko, 25, not only mastered the art from his guru but was also given a scholarship to train under kathak maestros in India. “Today, he is a name to reckon with in the kathak fraternity,” says a proud Hasal.

Sounds from a television in a neighbour’s flat float in, and there’s a visible change in Hasal’s mood. “We have such an ancient tradition of dance. While the world is looking to us to learn this tradition, our reality dance shows highlight only Western forms.

This is a desecration of our legacy. I want this to change.” He wants to bring to India his experiment of working with underprivileged children in ghetto townships. “I want them to feel proud of their roots as Indians.”