A dance production brings to centre stage the life and teachings of Sant Janabai – the simple woman helped in her chores by none other than Lord Vitthala – through traditional dance and music fusion.
Like most traditional Indian homes, stories of illustrious figures of the past – of famous saints and local seers – constitute a major chunk of the tales that grannies narrate to the little ones in Maharashtrian households.
The stories also figure in formal gatherings such as bhajan performances and theatre shows. Sant Janabai’s life is a recurring theme in many of them.
I was first introduced to Sant Janabai in similar settings.
Janabai is known among the followers of the Varkari sect as the humble helper and disciple of Sant Namadeva, a saint revered even outside Maharashtra. The stories revolve around how none other than Vitthala – the deity worshipped by the Varkaris – helped this seemingly ordinary woman in household chores like cooking, and cleaning and grinding millets.
A year ago, I had the sudden inspiration to revisit her story, as narrated in her own words in the form of abhangs, which are hymns written in Marathi. The Janabai I got to know about this time was much ‘vaster’ than the simple refugee of God whom I had heard of as a child.
Hers is a story of unconditional love, devotion and unflappable strength.
“Do not regret being born as a woman,” she tells her fellow peasant women struggling against the drudgeries of life in the mediaeval society. “Rest your faith in the ‘real’ God and be fearless.”
Also read: Marathi women keep alive poet Sant Janabai’s songs of life
Janabai, believed to have been born into a low caste, fearlessly proclaims her love for the ‘real’ Vitthala, who is “just like the sky: any attempt to conceptualise Him as ‘saguna’ (god with form) or ‘nirguna’ (god without form) is like trying to plaster the sky with mud!”
The philosophical depth of her abhangs has gripped my mind for the last one year. As each day passes, my awe for the saint-poetess gets stronger.
A few months later, I was fortunate enough to meet Navia Natarajan, a well-known Bharatanatyam artiste from Bengaluru.
With her and my talented friends, dhrupad vocalist Dhani Gundecha, and narrators/ storytellers Pratibha Pant and Chinthu Sachindran, I have been trying to explore the life and teachings of Sant Janabai, in the form of a production called ‘Namayachi Jani’ (Namadeva’s Jani).
We will be presenting our first show at the Bangalore International Centre on 15 March, 2023. This production happens to be a ‘melting pot’ of various musical genres: some pieces have been composed in the dhrupad style, while some others draw inspiration from the traditional tunes of the Varkari sampradaya.
All these will be presented through Bharatanatyam by the creative and versatile Navia Natarajan. Accomplished Pakhawaj artistes Dnyaneshwar Deshmukh and Hirdesh Chopra will accompany us.
The unique feature of the group is that all of us belong to different parts of the country: Vitthala and Jani belong to everyone!
This last one year has brought to us all a deeper understanding of an important role that artistes are capable of playing: that of invoking the distant past to speak to the present.
Indeed, Guy Poitevin and Hema Rairkar’s book The Stonemill and Bhakti uncovers the story of several women from rural Maharashtra who perform almost the exact household chores for which Janabai is known.
While doing so, they even compose insightful poetic verses (called ovis), pouring out not only their emotions, and at times fears, but also their strong resolutions to continue serving their households, providing a strong and nourishing support to the members of the family.
Poitevin and Rairkar record anecdotes testifying to the fact that the stone-mill songs of their mothers were largely responsible for maintaining the emotional balance of the family.
Although one cannot trace a definite ‘lineage’ between the great saint-poetess and these women, in my mind, I picture her to be a grand banyan tree, of whom these simple women of great resolve are offshoots.
Our project NĀMAYĀCHI JANI is thus a tribute not only to Sant Janabai, but also to each of these unsung ‘heroes’ of the rural households of Maharashtra.
“Dnyanadeva (Sant Dnyaneshwar) built the foundation of the Varkari temple, while Tuka (Sant Tukaram) became the temple dome,” says a famous Marathi song.
Interestingly, this song itself is attributed to another great saint-poetess, Bahinabai. Aren’t these extraordinary women-saints, then, the binding material that keeps the entire temple structure intact?
The lead image at the top shows the Bharatanatyam performance rehearsal for the theatre production on Sant Janabai (Photo by Janhavi Phansalkar)
Janhavi Phansalkar is a law graduate and a performing artiste in the Hindustani vocal music styles of Dhrupad and Khayal. She is working on a project to present the songs of Sant Janabai in a contemporary format, combining her music with Bharatanatyam dance.
