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Odissi Dance at Mukteswar Dance Festival 2020, Bhubaneswar |
The Mukteswar Dance Festival, conducted by the Department of Tourism, Government of Odisha is a three-day annual event (usually held in the month of January) at the open air auditorium of Mukteswar Temple in Bhubaneswar. First held in the year 1984, the dance festival has now become one of the premier events of the Temple City (Bhubaneswar) and since 2004, has been held every year. The dance festival features Odissi dance performances (two solo performances followed by two duet performances and concluding with two group dance performances on each of the three evenings) and is certainly a great effort to promote the rich cultural heritage of Odisha. Several connoisseurs of classical music and dance forms, including those from across the world, come to the Mukteswar Dance Festival to witness the enthralling performances.
Odissi is one of the two oldest classical dance forms in India, the other one being Bharatnatyam. And I have a strong emotional connection with Odissi since my mother too was a formally trained and acclaimed dancer herself during her teenage and adolescent years. She had won several prizes while representing her school and college. But her passion for Odissi was cruelly snatched away by her in-laws after marriage. She pleaded with everyone but didn't get support, not much from Papa either. She belonged to an era when dancing wasn't considered socially respectable for women, especially among conservative Hindu families (not even Odissi, a dance form that is primarily devoted to Lord Jagannath). She could do nothing then but cry. Gradually her life got steeped in domesticity - juggling between motherhood and family responsibilities.
But she still kept alive a faint hope that someday she could still start dancing again. However, to her luck, she had a freak accident once, due to which her right ankle got a crack in the bone. If that wasn't enough, a faulty plaster cast by the support staff of the doctor who first administered her, only deteriorated her situation. Even after keeping the leg wrapped in plaster cast for almost a month, nothing improved and she was still in pain. We visited another orthopaedic doctor thereafter who once again put her leg in a plaster cast. The bone did heal but the doctor said that there was no way the crack could be set right completely, since so much of time had already elapsed. As per him, mummy could never ever dance again. Indeed, she would feel unbearable pain when she tried dancing. And thus ended her dream of dancing again. Therefore every time I come across someone dancing Odissi on stage, I get emotional thinking about Mummy's unfulfilled aspirations.