Mission Suhani

Nautanki is a famous folk theater and operatic drama form of northern India and is marked by lively dancing, pulsating drumbeats, and full-throated singing. Before the advent of Bollywood, used the be the only source of entertainment for the village folk. Like many other traditional art forms , it slowly is losing its popularity. :-(

Last year, I had an opportunity to get introduced to this art form through, Dev Sharma, son and disciple of a renowned Nautanki guru Pundit Ram Dayal Sharma. I was part of his production "Mission Suhani" that was performed as a part of "Performing Diaspora " festival hosted by Counterpulse of San Francisco.

"Mission Suhani" is a contemporary Nautanki - a creation of Pundit Ram Dayal Sharma and Dev Sharma -an attempt to revive the art form as well as use it for a good social cause.It follows a confident young Indian bride, and her Non-Resident Indian groom, who marries her, takes her dowry and leaves her in India. Against familial and social pressures, Suhani travels to the U.S. to find her husband and recover the dowry…

Thought provoking and entertaining at the same time, I had loads of fun participating in this piece. We had unique challenges, while traditional Nautankis are almost always in Hindi or similar dialects, we were performing to an international audience. So, we decided to make it bilingual - Hindi and English. Not to mention, singing style was completely alien to me.

It was an enriching experience to say the least. Attached are a few snippets from our show at the Counterpulse.

Yeh Hai Reshmi

After a long hiatus, got some respite to record . So here goes.

Asha ji is one of my favorite singers and this song epitomizes her style.I got introduced to it fairly recently and fell instantly in love with it. I would say this is my own version of it and most definitely not an attempt to be like the original, which I am pretty sure I can never match in a million years...:-)

Though this song isn't my cup of tea w.r.t to scale and range, this again is an experiment. :-)

Song : Yeh Hai Reshmi
Original Singer: Asha Bhosle
Music: O.P. Nayyar
Movie: Mere Sanam
Cover version: Kavitha Nagarajan


Yeh Hai Reshmi | Musicians Available