Politician Tejasvi Surya married Carnatic singer Sivasri Skandaprasad earlier this month with great fanfare and predictably some controversy. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MP does not shy away from social media. He speaks his mind and does crazy things like opening an aircraft emergency exit. He doesn’t seem to court controversy but doesn’t shy away from it either. When he said not to bring bouquets, the florists took umbrage. In a video that he posted on X, he talks earnestly in Kannada about people waiting for hours to attend his wedding reception to bless him and his new wife. Surya is ambitious and wears his Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) opinions on his sleeve. He seeks attention and makes good choices, the latest being his choice of wife. All of which led me to wonder about ambition and adaptation.
In order to achieve anything in life, you need a few things: ambition, effort, persistence and luck come to mind. But one quality that is equally important is not spoken about as much. Ambition requires nimbleness and adaptation. You need to change your stance, quite literally sometimes.
Consider Bharatanatyam dancer Malavika Sarukkai who premiered “Beeja: earth seed” at Chowdiah Hall in Bengaluru. The bravura performance, supported by Rohini Nilekani Philanthropies, connected the flora and fauna of planet earth with story, song and dance. Lots of senior Bharatanatyam dancers, including Praveen Kumar, founder of Chithkala School in South Bangalore, were in attendance. All spoke about how “Mala-akka” as she is called adapts and evolves the dance form that is her metier to suit the circumstance and time.
Dance, like sport, is physically demanding. Most sportspeople retire and become commentators or coaches to propagate their art. In the performing arts too, there are dancers who become equally renowned teachers, training legions of students in their gurukuls. Malavika takes a different approach. Through her trust, she endows and supports other dancers. But more than anything, she is a dancer. She has adapted the art to suit her body, age, and cultural zeitgeist that values themes of sustainability. Beeja is not traditional in its content and approach. Yet, at the same time, it is resolutely grounded in the Bharatanatyam paddhati or tradition.
It is not just individuals or artists who need to do this. The best hotels of Bangalore continuously adapt their menus, approach and events to stay one step ahead of the game. The big hotel brands: the Oberoi, Taj, Leela, JW Marriott, Conrad and others are equally adept at dancing in various ways to whet the appetites of their customers. They do pop-ups with visiting Michelin-starred chefs and change their approach to ingredients and execution. This involves imagination.
One of the cutest names that I’ve come across in recent memory is Kempe Gouda cheese from Melchior. I heard about this cheese brand from Anirban Dasgupta, executive chef of the Oberoi Bengaluru. Since his arrival at the hotel, Chef Dasgupta has championed local artisanal brands, including with cheese. This is not common. The best hotels have access to global ingredients that are of consistent quality and therefore risk-free. To opt for local Indian brands like Eleftheria, Melchior and other cheeses may come at a lower price but also means more work for the kitchen to ensure consistent quality. The good thing is that such Indian artisanal products whether it is Under the Mango Tree honey or local cheeses like Vallambrosa and Begum Victoria lend themselves to storytelling.
Now that she is married to a popular politician, Sivasri Skandaprasad also needs to think about excellence and adaptation. For lovers of music and dance like me, Sivasri is a rock star – a bigger one than her husband. Her explanation of esoteric Oothukadu Venkata Kavi’s compositions helped me when I learned one recently (Sadananda Mayi). She is already famous in music circles but now she traverses the challenging and occasionally dirty field of politics as well. How will she change? How will she adapt and yet retain the essence of who she is? One thing seems sure from her past career: she colours inside the lines, by which I mean that she follows the rules and stays true to tradition. To adapt, she may have to lose this earnestness that marks her public persona and opt for some level of risk and playfulness. The best way to achieve that is through creative collaborations.
Bangalore in particular seems to encourage this ecosystem of collaboration as Vinay Varanasi has proved with his wildly popular MadRasana. He collaborates and combines his storytelling with different musicians, including Sivasri. The lightness of touch Varanasi brings to storytelling lends itself to the mood of the moment. He adapts tone and text to circumstance.
Adapt or die says the quote, itself an adaptation of the original by HG Wells. The same could be said about gifted artistes, be they chefs, cheesemakers, singers, storytellers or dancers.
(Shoba Narayan is Bengaluru-based award-winning author. She is also a freelance contributor who writes about art, food, fashion and travel for a number of publications.)