Is there any other music so starkly simple, yet so quintessentially Indian, like that in an alarippu -- where there is no melody sung, just the spoken rhythm syllables, accentuated by the nattuvangam and the mridangam? The crisp sound of the consonants executed like a drum machine, exact to the T (pardon the pun): Dhi tam taiyum taka tam, tat tai taiyum taka tai, or some rhythm like that. It is the sound of pure rhythm, manifesting in dance as some of the simplest yet most precise movements: the atami, head movements to the right and left, a subtle contraction of the shoulder, rotating the straight arm and turning the palm out. Is there any other dance in the world like that, exalting the elegance of pure mathematics through such minimal but precise movements? For sure in terms of sophistication in musical rhythms, there are other cultures in the world to speak of, most notably polyrhythmic African music played on various instruments simultaneously, which allows one to dance freely to any beat as one likes. But that's a different kind of dance, emphasising more on the torso and lower limbs, something more instinctive than decorative. There is of course also Balinese dance, with dazzling fast movements involving the head, the arms and the hands. But nothing is so deceptively simple like how an alarippu unfolds in Bharata Natyam, going increasingly demanding from first speed to second and third speeds, from standing and half-sit to positions on the knees and toes. It is so much more than just a warm-up for a dance recital. From the rhythm syllables alone it may all sound simple. I was trying recently to learn an alarippu in a cycle of 17 beats, or kanda jathi druva talam to be more accurate; I got so confused along the way I did not know when I should be doing the right side or the left side. After that I wondered if somebody had invented such a rhythmic cycle just to make life difficult for an Indian dancer.

Well I wouldn't really want to complain that Bharata Natyam is too mathematical. But I would take this opportunity to say the way we learn theory in Carnatic music is sometimes too obsessed with mathematics. For example, do we really need to learn the names of all 72 melakartas, just because a man by the name of Venkatamakhi told us there are 72 schemes of ragas theoretically possible? Apparently he himself dealt with only 19 of these 72 melas. The 72 melas are mathematical possibilities but that doesn't mean all are of aesthetic interest to us! Similarly, we would learn according to theory that there are 175 talas. This is derived from the sapta talas, multiplied by the 5 varieties of jathi, and then multiplied by 5 nadais. But how many of these talas would we really use? And it is not as if 175 are all the rhythmic possibilities existing in our universe since the world was created. Prior to this 'classification according to the suladi sapta talas popularised by Purandaradasa, there were other schemes of classification like the 108 classical talas. Another classification had 5 Margi talas and 120 Desi talas. Margi music for religious rituals and Desi music for the masses were ancient traditions that eventually blended into one classical system. Ultimately the rhythmic patterns used in music and dance are just a matter of convention and popularity, much like the form of metre used in poetry. Certain forms become less popular and are all but forgotten, for example the Navasandhi talas from as early as the 6th century, used in dance rituals in temples for nine directions, namely Brahma at the centre and above, Indra in the East, Agni in the Southeast, Yama in the South, followed by Niruthi, Varuna, Vayu, Kubera and Isana.

A woman in a man's world may be considered progressive, but a man in a woman's world is pathetic. That's like the key line in the movie Dance Like A Man starring Shobana, Arif Zakaria and Anoushka Shankar. It's a story about the struggles of a dance couple, in particular the social prejudices one faces as a male dancer. Initially I was less than impressed by the movie because it feels too much like a stage play, as if the director simply took a stage production to film in real houses and real streets and that's it; some of the actors were too theatrical while performing their lines, as if following directions in a play, when to laugh, when to raise the hand and so on. (Well actually the film is adapted from a play, written by Mahesh Dattani.) I was also wondering what's Ravi Shankar's daughter doing here trying to be an actress here instead of practising her sitar to carry the torch of her father. But the story slowly picks up momentum as it recounts the story of her screen father, Arif's character as a dancer when young. His father, a so-called progressive politician, finds it a disgrace that his son chooses to spend his life as a dancer instead of finding a career deemed respectable by conventional society. He disapproves of his son's dance guru whom he finds effeminate, and finds it scandalous that his daughter-in-law, Shobana's character, is learning dance from an old devadasi, no more than a prostitute in his eyes and in his neighbours' eyes.

What made me uncomfortable initially was also the fact that the movie is entirely in English, a little artificial and an apparent attempt to target an international audience. But on a more positive note, I suppose an international audience would be able to learn quite a bit about Indian society from this film. Things like Anoushka's character's future father-in-law saying outright that he has checked on her family background and is happy to know about her grandfather's social standing; or a musician asking Shobana's character for her favour when she is in a selection committee for overseas performances. The ending of the story may seem like unnecessary drama that is hardly enlightening or inspiring, even distracting from the issues about being a dancer, but the movie has already made its point about difficulties that Indian dancers go through, particularly the irony that we have Hindu gods said to be dancers, yet the little respect and support given to dancers in our society just do not correspond to that, in fact for a long time the art has been kept alive only by dancers equated with prostitutes. Those of us who are in the arts 'industry' today may have more stories to tell and may think the movie has not covered enough of all the misunderstandings and exploitations that an Indian dancer has to face, but you can't expect a single movie to cover everything. And if you are watching the movie expecting to see some dance, well there is enough in quantity to satisfy you. Unfortunately for Anoushka, even in this fiction, she has to stand in the shadows of an illustrious parent. While she is quite presentable in her dance sequences, the more exciting dance scenes all belong to Shobana, like the scene where she is dressed in a red blouse and dancing against the red walls of a mansion. My favourite is another dance performed to sitar music, with more creative or fusion dance movements than pure Bharata Natyam. Maybe she gets too dramatic in the role as a seductress, opening her eyes big in wonderment while doing hand gestures of flowers and bees in dazzling speed, but at least she is anything but boring. (Actually it reminds me of her performance in Singapore last year, where she was dancing to a remixed version of Thaaye Yasoda; everything went so fast it was over in a flash before you could really made head or tail out of it.)

Music for this film is composed by violin duo Ganesh and Kumaresh. It is in fact their instrumental music in the non-dance scenes that gives the movie a sensuous touch. Incidentally this violin duo has an interesting philosophy; they feel that artistes are limiting the scope of their instruments when they play only vocal music on them, and they have composed many purely instrumental raga-based compositions that they term as 'ragapravaham'.

British composer Gustav Holst (1874-1934) has been known until today for one single orchestral work: The Planets, a suite of seven movements dedicated to different planets of the solar system. He composed it during World War I, years before Pluto was discovered in 1930. In 2000, a composer by the name of Colin Matthews added an extra movement of "Pluto" to the suite. Poor fellow, he must have been very disappointed last week when the International Astronomical Union reclassified Pluto as a dwarf planet, bringing the number of planets in the solar system down to eight. Anyway, Holst's composition was in fact not so much motivated by astronomy as by astrology. Inspired by Indian spiritualism, Holst, incidentally of Latvian-Russian descent, learnt Sanskrit in his lifetime and also composed a number of works based on stories from Ramayana and Mahabharata as well as hymns from Rig Veda. He was also a vegetarian. One reference he used while composing The Planets was a book by the astrologer Alan Leo, known for introducing Indian astrology into western astrology.

And talking about Indian astrology, let us now turn to another musical work that came to the world long before Holst composed The Planets - I'm talking about the Navagraha Kritis by Muthuswamy Dikshitar. It uses all the suladi sapta talas that carnatic students have to learn by heart in their theory lessons - dhruva, matya, rupaka and so on. I don't know what to say about the ragas since they all sound unfamiliar to me. And I'm anything but an expert in astrology, I can't do an in-depth comparison between the astrological meanings in Holst's suite and the Navagraha kritis, but I shall make a few interesting observations on similarities. First of all, Mars represents a god of war in Roman astrology as well as Vedic astrology. The song Angarakamasrayami sings of the one with red limbs, red dress and red eyes, bearing the sword and trident. Holst opened his suite with the dramatic and militant "Mars, The Bringer of War". Secondly, the popular piece "Jupiter, The Bringer of Jollity" with its fanfare evokes magnificence of a cosmic space like a sci-fi movie. Guru in Indian astrology is the most auspicious planet and the exultant song Bruhaspathe sings of the bestower of vigour and an ocean of compassion. Mercury is the Winged Messenger in The Planets and what corresponds in the Navagraha kritis is the song Budhamasrayami describing the one with book in hand, bestower of the sweet art of poetry. It happens to be a favourite piece of mine here, seems to evoke a mystical or contemplative sense of wisdom.

Incidentally scholars have come to believe with regards to the Navagraha kritis that the last two songs in rupaka talam on Rahu and Ketu are spurious additions to Dikshitar's original Vara kritis. To me they are not so interesting anyway since they do not represent astronomical planets, but the north and south nodes of the moon - go figure out their significance only if you are charting your horoscope.