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| Edited By: Dyuti Basu |Source: DNA |Updated: Mar 17, 2019, 06:05 AM IST
The first time I meet Shashikala Kalkar, both of us are standing in the walk-in poets line for an open-mic night organised at the Habitat (Khar, Mumbai). Her salt-and-pepper hair and wrinkled face set her apart from the 20-and-30-something crowd. The younger crowd makes way for her so that she can sit on the high stairs as everyone waits for walk-in registrations to open. Since both of us get turned down for a slot to perform our spoken-word pieces, ‘Kalkar aunty’, as she insists I call her, regales me with her story.
She sure knows how to tell one – after all, at 72, she has been sharing her short stories on many a storytelling stage across Mumbai, and even Bhopal, for the past six months and writing for over 25 years as a hobby.
“I performed poetry at Habitat, then at Prithvi Theatre two years ago. My third performance was at an event organised by a poetry outfit called Potli in Kalyan, where they loved my poem so much that they uploaded a video of it on YouTube,” she recalls. “That gave me the encouragement I needed to continue to perform my poetry at different venues. This was around two years ago. I got into storytelling more recently (last September) but I already have a number of stories to tell.”
While most youngsters are wowed not just by Kalkar’s verses but also her confidence and unwavering smile at every performance, this conviction in her own talent was hard won. Getting up on stage the first few times was a struggle, despite the fact that she regularly took part in declamations and debates in school. “All that was so long ago,” she smiles, her eyes crinkling. “At first, when I used to go for these events, I’d ask to go towards the beginning because too long a wait would cause palpitations.” Eventually, with tumultuous applause greeting her at the end of performances, she gained the confidence she’d needed.
This, however, was not the only problem that Kalkar had to face. The second, a more logistical issue. “I think the toughest part of performing is travelling by trains,” she adds.
Her efforts have paid off. Many spoken-word poetry and storytelling outfits across the city now call her as a guest performer, while at others, she is a known, much-awaited face.
Despite her rocky confidence at the start, this septuagenarian poetess and storyteller doesn’t write down her stories in their complete form. She only outlines the broad aspects of the story-line and practices the telling of it in front of the mirror before she goes onstage to perform. “So each telling is different,” she explains. “I gauge the audience and the ambience and speak suiting that and my own mood. Sometimes, I may forget some nuance or add some new tidbit. It’s all a part of the performance.”
Though she has lived most of her life in Gujarat and only moved to Mumbai a decade ago, Kalkar finds neither Gujarati nor Marathi to be her strength. She also admits that, though she can converse in English, her writing and poetry only comes to her in Hindi. Apart from stories, she prefers muktaks (short poems) to shers (longer poems). So it is in this language that she treats me to one last muktak before she signs off, about the encouragement and peace of mind that the resounding applause the end of a performance brings her:
Sabko badi achchi lagti apne liye bajti goonjti yeh taliyan
Par,yun sahaj hi toh nahi milti taliyan
Sachkaho to taar ki kasrat hai yeh taliyan
Jokuch mehnat, lagan, samarpan se boya
Uskareturn gift hai yeh taliyan.
(Everyone loves the resonating sound of applause
But it remains elusive to many
Honestly, it is more like a balancing act on a tightrope.
When you sow the seeds of hard work and dedication,
You are gifted by applause in return.)
