Hastamudra

Shivpuri Colony

Varanasi

The stomping of Kanchan’s feet transports me back to my 17-year old being. Kanchan is my landlady. She is an accomplished Bharat Natyam dancer, teacher, and incidentally has a masters in music from BHU, as well as training in conflict resolution and political science.  She moves her hands perfectly, reflexively gesturing with one of the 28 mudras, or hand gestures, used in classical Natya, or dance.  She is an elegant, beautiful lady, and her laugh is captivating.

Dhai. Dhai.  She demonstrates. Her feet hit the ground evenly, creating a gentle but thunderous clap that is practiced and perfect.  I wander back to the pink mosaic-tiled floor of Jhorna-di, my teacher in Kolkata, and her demands that we place our feet properly to get the requisite sound. After one week of steady practice, I had learned how to sit on my haunches and pound my feet for the even thunder that is strong.

Kanchan smiles and explains the asanjukta hastadimudras.  Asanjukta means unjoined, or in this case, a single hand.  Hasta means hand and mudras are hand gestures.  

She tells the first, Hast-bhinaya (hah-stah-bin-a-yah), hand gesture. Pahtaka
(Pah-tah-kah) is the most basic position and has many uses: a flag, rain, a shower of flowers, cutting, pride, patting the arm, happiness, cutting a creeper.  Depending on the pointing of the fingers, different meanings are indicated.

Written as early as 100BCE, the NatyaShastra is the earliest known dance text and is designed in its 36 chapters to cover all aspects of medieval dramaturgy - dance, music, acting, costumes, stage construction and many other theatrical techniques. There are slokas that teach us each of the hand postures, their meanings and their uses.

Kanchan, who I now will call Bou-di, demonstrates the Utpalapadma, or Sola-padma, the full blown lotus.  Her lotuses are perfect. My hands, 30 years later, require some practice to remember what they knew so well.  The gesture enquires, 'who are you?', or indicates emptiness of information. The gesture is made by imagining you are encircling the underside of a watermelon. 

There are more to learn, she promises.  In time, I will show you them all.  Mridula, the protagonist of the novel I am completing, awaits… with open hands.