Sonal Mansingh lives with her naayikas: How her 60 plus years of dancing has changed her

“Kanya is someone who has had a trial by fire and forged through it to become gold. She is the most resilient and the strongest being. Her fiery spirit is eternal. That’s why men are threatened by her.

Unfortunately, we have reduced her to being a fragile young girl who needs to be chaperoned in a patriarchal world,” says the student of Sanskrit literature, who has enacted naayikas from ancient texts for over six decades and drawn strength from them.

People usually celebrate shashthipurti, a ceremony to cross 60 years of their lifetime, but Mansingh recently chose to celebrate the 60-plus years of her evergreen naayikas with a show.

With her heavily-kohled, sparkling eyes, berry-red lips and animated gestures, she explains that the representation of the feminine form has got lost in semantics and been simplified to suit societal hegemony. “There’s so much emphasis on the virginity of the ‘Kumari’.

But originally, ‘Kumari’ meant an unmarried girl who could be passionate and accomplished. Sati is just not a monogamous woman but a sage first, equivalent to male gurus. Then comes Kanya, who has been tested by life.

Devi is the ultimate efflorescence of womanhood, the sacred feminine. Look how we have trivialised the meanings,” says Mansingh, whose mission in life is to explore the multi-dimensional nature of women in both mythology and contemporary life.

Her life itself has been about breaking boxes. Though born to privilege – Mansingh is the granddaughter of one of the first governors of India, Mangal Das Pakvasa, and daughter of noted social worker Poornima Pakvasa – she ran away from home as an 18-year-old in 1963.

“I trained in classical dances with the best teachers in Bombay. But I was told dancing couldn’t be my calling, just an added skill. So I took my scholarship money, went to VT (now CSMT) station and boarded a train to Bangalore where my Bharatnatyam teachers Prof US Krishna Rao and Chandrabhaga Devi lived,” says Mansingh.

“Those days people couldn’t believe that a girl could run away to pursue her passion. Most asked if there was a boy,” she adds, laughing.

Although she was constantly referenced as a subject of male admiration, she committed herself to diplomat Lalit Mansingh whom she met during a show in Delhi in 1965 and she blended with his family in Cuttack. Her father-in-law introduced her to guru Kelucharan Mohapatra and Odissi dance.

While she became an exponent of the dance form, their relationship didn’t last as they parted ways within a decade. “My husband was a wonderful person who always encouraged me but once I had to face expectations of a family life, I was not ready to compromise. I needed marriage to understand myself. That old voice in my head nudged me, ‘Come on, what are you doing? Dance with abandon.’ My husband understood the fire in my belly and though separated, remained my greatest friend,” says Mansingh, of her second turning point.

Her third turning point came in the 1970s when, after a car accident in Germany, doctors told her she couldn’t dance again. As she laboured through physiotherapy, she drew strength from the Panchkanyas she researched on, namely Ahalya, Draupadi, Sita, Tara and Mandodari, metaphors for the wind, fire, earth, sky and water elements.

“Everybody idealises their family roles. But they were much deeper. Ahalya was the daughter of Brahma, had supreme wisdom and could see through Indra, who disguised himself to seduce her. In the Ramayana, Tara, the wife of Bali, married Sugriva, who willingly let her be the queen because she was a better administrator.

Mandodari married Vibhishana after Ravana’s death out of political necessity. With her astute skills in statecraft, she stepped out of her wifely role and prioritised her public life. Then there are Kunti and Draupadi from the Mahabharata.

Kunti was impulsive when she tested the boon of immaculate conception with the devtas on herself. She birthed the Pandavas the same way but became a fierce mother.

But I have loved enacting Draupadi, who stuck to her guns although she was not consulted during her swayamvara or her public disrobing,” says Mansingh. She herself stuck to her guns when she won a false eviction case against her landlord after 10 years, one that involved public shaming as a naachnewaali and some ink-throwing on her belongings.

“Draupadi fought from within the confines of male impositions. She never got what she wanted but made
her way regardless with her own boundaries intact,” says Mansingh.

Over the years, she made her Panchkanyas more relevant. So there was Bhikaji Cama, Kasturba Gandhi, Sarojini Naidu and Indira Gandhi. Justifying her choices, she says, “Bhikaji Cama, the only child of a Parsi family, hoisted the first Vande Mataram flag, which she cut out from her sari at Stuttgart in 1907.

Sarojini Naidu articulated the female voice through her poetry and activism, despite facing challenges in her family life. Indira Gandhi brought a spiritedness to leadership and Kasturba Gandhi made Gandhiji’s satyagraha a success.

In fact, my mother was her cellmate and testified to her wit. Asked if she ever worried about being crowded out by Gandhiji’s admirers, all she said was, ‘What to do, he has the word Mohan (Krishna) in his name, so he has to be a beloved of the world. What a beautiful way to shut mouths.”

Mansingh doesn’t want to burden anybody with her legacy. That’s why she lives in rented homes and doesn’t own one. She would rather be a woman bard, performing at the Rampur fair, Etawah, on the banks of Narmada, and in Arunachal Pradesh, where she and her troupe once crossed Brahmaputra by boat.

“Some in school that time still recognise me from my performances, remember the stories I’ve enacted. There goes your legacy,” she says, wiping off the beady sweat on her forehead, her chintan factory.