Debotar Grash

The Presentation-

Vaibhav explores the motif of the beautiful, fragile and enigmatic relationship between a little boy and his mother through Tagore’s poem ‘Debotaar Grash from Sanchaiti. Vaibhav further imaginatively integrates ‘Bir Purush/Hero’, ‘My Song’ and ‘The End’ from The Crescent Moon collection which is written from the perspective of either the child or the mother.
In ‘Debotaar Grash’, the mother decides to go on a pilgrimage leaving her child with her sister. But, the child is determined to go with her. Angered at the insistence, the mother curses the child that she will assign him to the sea if he persists. So, she goes ahead with her pilgrimage with the child. As the sea gets engulfed in a storm and there seems to be no way out, someone on the ship suggests that one of the travellers had promised an offering to the sea and unless that offering is made, no one would be spared. The mother gets pangs of guilt and horror as she remembers her words and is eventually forced by the fellow travelers to offer her son to the sea. Vaibhav tries to portray this poignant dilemma of the mother through his performance.

Performers note-

There has been for long a deep desire to explore the mother-child relationship through my medium of art-classical dance. To explore something much more deeper in its emotional content than the usual songs used in dance. Thus was born 'Debotar Grash"- a solo dance drama on the saga of a mother and her child.

Debotar Grash becomes the frame within which is painted the emotional landscape of a child's innocence and mothers love. The original poem is translated into visual poetry of movements. The idiom, ofcourse, is that of Bharatanatyam. But the free spirit of Guru Rabindranath Tagore, an artiste whose expressions though articulated in the Bengali language has the unique energy to touch the innermost chords of universal human emotions, has influenced and affected the design of this endeavour. Hence spoken works interspersed within the narrative texture of Bharatanatyam, the flavour off English poems juxtapositoned against his original Bengali, Hindustani music and Karnatic percussion ensemble have been woven into the audio-visual texture of this Debotar Grash.

Credits:
Choreography and performance - Vaibhav Arekar
Music - Manoj Desai
Percussion design - Kalishwaran Pillai
Light and costume design - Sushant Jadhav
Special Thanks - Subodh Potdar