Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hello and welcome to Wikipedia. In this episode we speak to Radhe Jaggi. We spoke about Bharat Natyam, about her time in Dubai and many other things. So let's get started. And now we have in our studios Radhe Jinke, Bareme, Ham Batarite Subha Saad Bajese. And this entire weekend I must say that you know, I was so looking forward to meet you. I remember it was quite a while back at World Trade center when I got a picture with Radhe and I was so happy. And now seeing Radhe in front, I am amazed.
[00:00:33] Speaker B: Exactly.
[00:00:33] Speaker C: I'm spent out.
[00:00:34] Speaker A: Come to talk for a day.
[00:00:36] Speaker B: Namaskaram. Thank you. Thank you so much. I'm so embarrassed by this slight fanning because I'm just like, I don't understand the excitement to meet special as well.
[00:00:48] Speaker A: You know, we follow you on Instagram as well. And the reels that you make with Sandeep, mind blowing. You know, it is so good. It is so funny. And one reel. I must ask you about that as well where he's talking about ragams and you're correcting him.
[00:01:02] Speaker B: No, that was definitely a joke. He can say all those words properly.
But I think a lot of, a lot of interviews Sandeep gets asked this question of oh, how is it to come from LA to Chennai? But he moved to Chennai like 16 years ago. So he's like, I don't even remember when I moved. It's been so long ago. And I've spent almost more than half his life in India now. And so it was just one of those things. People are always like, how do you speak Tamil? How come you can pronounce Indian words properly? So it was a little bit of a running joke in the family.
It became a very public joke after that.
[00:01:39] Speaker A: But yeah. Radhi, what brings you to Dubai? You know, Dubai shopping festival is on. Have you come here to shop?
[00:01:44] Speaker B: No, unfortunately not. I was not aware of it when I came until I landed in the airport and I realized I was here for this extravaganza. But no, I had a performance yesterday evening for Margali Utsaham. I think it's their third season that they're putting this up. So they have a lot of local artists who perform through the day and then in the evening they have artists from India and they have, I think yesterday I performed. But the previous day they had Anahita Apurva who are also fantastic singers, their sisters.
[00:02:15] Speaker A: Right.
And you've performed a lot of places as well, around the world as well.
[00:02:19] Speaker B: I perform anywhere you invite me.
[00:02:21] Speaker A: So Dubai, have you performed before or was this the first time?
[00:02:25] Speaker B: So this is the first time I'm performing in Dubai and it's also the first time I'm performing a solo performance in Dubai. But we did come as part of the Save Soil journey. We had come, but I think unfortunately his Highness at that time had just passed and so we had the event but you know, obviously we couldn't.
But it was such an experience to come here and be part of the event and meet all the people from Dubai. And we also got to meet a lot of the officials who are helping. We got to meet people who are involved in like environmental policy creation. So we also got to spend a little more time with them because we were not worried about a show or like trying to get on stage. It was very nice actually, the last trip to Dubai and we got to see a lot of the work that they're doing in the city. So it was quite an experience this time. Unfortunately I came yesterday, I had a show and I have to leave immediately because December is a very busy season for us in Chennai. Sandeep has back to back concerts, I have shows and we're bringing our Project Samskriti troop for the first time to be a part of the big Margili celebration in January. So I have to quickly rush back for ourselves.
[00:03:34] Speaker A: But yeah, I'm sure that you know that busy and it's what you love doing as well.
[00:03:39] Speaker B: Absolutely.
[00:03:40] Speaker A: Project Samskriti, you must tell us about the dance, the culture and so many things you teach over there. Martial arts as well?
[00:03:48] Speaker B: Yes, of course. So Isha Samskriti is a school that's been envisioned by Sadhguru and it's an arts based school. So all we teach there are classical art forms. So we teach yoga, of course, in its most classical form. We teach Bharatnatyam, we teach Carnatic music, Hindustani music, and we teach Kalaripayatti, which is a martial art form. We teach samskritam and most of our children can still speak samskritam. So it's hopefully it's a language that they will keep because it will work as a secret language for them when they leave the school. But then they also, once they get a little bit older, are exposed to Ayurveda Siddha. So they have the option of choosing any kind of subject that they would like to do. And because it's an entirely art based school, they live with us. They, you know, they spend their entire childhood there. And it's Such an experience to work with these children. They come as these tiny little tots who don't know anything about anything but just full of enthusiasm at the age of seven. By the time they're 18, they're so grown up and polished. They're all dancers and singers and they.
[00:04:52] Speaker A: Do they call you Aunty? Do they call you Radhe Aunty? Because you know, we were doing this topic as well.
[00:04:56] Speaker B: They call me Akka. So Bharatanatyam dancers have this advantage that we call everybody Akka irrespective of the age. So somebody as senior as Padma Subramanyam or in even Vaijanti Mallabali we call all of them Akka so they never have become auntie.
So my dance teacher Leela Samson, she has been Akka to me from the day I met her. And now she's like 70 plus but she's still Akka.
[00:05:24] Speaker A: So you never came across this, you know, anybody calling you auntie ever?
[00:05:28] Speaker B: People have called me Aunty since I was very young because I started wearing sarees when I was 16, 17. So you automatically look a little older. So I've had people very close to my age call me auntie but it's not a regular thing because the minute they know you're a dancer somehow it's just become natural that you call everybody Akka which is strange but it's convenient also.
[00:05:51] Speaker A: So at what age did you start Bharatanatyam, Radhe?
[00:05:55] Speaker B: I started when I was nine, when I was in school. But it was a very.
I was not a great student.
We in our school, luckily we had three extracurricular opportunities so we could study classical music, we could study Imradangam which is a percussion instrument and Bharatanatyam. And I was there for seven years but somehow I managed to do four years of all three subjects. So you can imagine how terrible a student I was that I was going to this class. And then after a few weeks when I had some issues I would go to another class and I was a terrible student.
But it gave me a wonderful base because I did have some very good teachers.
And what it did is it kind of made art a part of my life without me really thinking about it. It's only when I went to Kalakshetra at the age of 16 that I really started to learn dance. So usually when people ask me when I started learning, like in a casual conversation, I tell them it was 16, which is quite late for a Bharatnatyam dancer. But really that's when my training started.
Yeah. And there's really been no looking back since then.
[00:07:04] Speaker A: And yoga, I'm sure you must have done from day one as well, you.
[00:07:08] Speaker B: Know, so yoga, I think has just been around me. I really thought of it as something that you have to learn. Not. Yeah, I mean, learn. Yes. You have to learn how to do the practices in the correct way. But I never thought it was something that somebody discovers at some point in their life. You know, people were like, oh. And then I started going for yoga class and I'm like, okay, I don't know. Yeah, right. And I don't know what to say to that because we don't go for class because I've just done it my whole life.
But having said that, it was never something that I was made to do except when I was young, some Surya Namaskar my father and mother used to do. So I had to do it with them. There was no choice in that. But the more like the meditation practices and all of that, it's very much something that I came to on my own. It was not something that anybody ever said I have to do, but it seems to work for everybody around me. And I would just have to be quite stupid not to do it.
And that's how I started really practicing yoga for myself was when I did the inner engineering program when I was about 18. And before that, I think the people around me, just the quality of the people around me was so wonderful that I think I kind of absorbed how to be, how to sit, how to stand from them more than I did from any class. It's just that everybody around me, it was a huge part of their life. And so because of that, it just became a part of my life. I don't think it's something.
Nobody made me do it. It was just around me, you know.
[00:08:52] Speaker A: We'll talk more about that as well. We've got Pranali on the line. And Pranali wants to speak to Radhe. Pranali. Hi. Good morning.
[00:09:00] Speaker D: Hi. Good morning. Vicky. How are you?
[00:09:02] Speaker A: Very good. Aapka Suba Suba Yoga hua.
[00:09:06] Speaker D: In fact, yesterday Chalrite. So ABHI Filal.
[00:09:13] Speaker A: Very nice. We've got Radhe in our studios. You want to speak to her? Pranali?
[00:09:18] Speaker D: Yeah. Good morning.
[00:09:20] Speaker B: Akka Namaskaram.
Oh. So the convenient thing is it also between dance and also between all Isha volunteers. Everybody is Akka and Anna. So really I'm not going to be aunty in this life.
[00:09:38] Speaker A: Nice one. Yeah. Pranali, you can ask a question.
[00:09:40] Speaker D: Yeah, yeah. Good morning, Akka. How are you?
[00:09:44] Speaker B: I'm good. How are you? I hope you enjoyed the performance yesterday.
[00:09:48] Speaker D: Oh yes, absolutely. And it was such a pleasure and honor to just be with you around. So I think it's just wonderful. And Alak Niranjan's performance, I think the song itself and your expressions, I think it just got tears. I mean, I would talk personally so it was so touchy and so mesmerizing. I think if the song would have just continued, we would have just kept watching you. So you are such a beautiful dancer and there's so much elegance and your expressions. It just doesn't come like. It comes out of like from your soul. So I think it's wonderful to see you perform every time and it's always pleasure to be always around every time and it's always pleasure to be always around you. So it's such a great person personality. You are a.k.a. i mean, we are blessed to have you. Thank you.
[00:10:47] Speaker A: And you thought I'm your fan. Radhe thought, I know. Listen to Pranali. Now she's even embarrassed more now Radhe is like, what is this fan moment happening?
[00:10:58] Speaker C: Thank you so much.
[00:11:00] Speaker D: Sometimes, you know, it's always good to tell the truth. It's not a fan moment but she is as a person. She's such a wonderful person.
I mean, you are right next to her, right? So you know what I'm talking. I'm not just talking just for the sad moment.
[00:11:15] Speaker B: Ranali is just being nice. She was so helpful yesterday because when I went there, I needed help with just setting up my things backstage and all of that. I just handed my bag over to her and she took care of everything.
[00:11:27] Speaker A: No, but when she says that, you know, the performance was amazing, we have no doubts about it because this is what you've been doing. You enjoy doing it and it shows. And for an artist, this is what you look forward to as well. A little bit of appreciation from people.
[00:11:40] Speaker B: But yeah, no, no, of course. I mean, we get on stage because there's an audience.
Otherwise we just stay at home and dance. Which is also wonderful. But I mean, being on stage is obviously an entirely different experience. And I think a part of that you feel here also because when you're talking, you're talking to people whether you can see them or not. And it's the same on stage. I think musicians that way actually see their audience.
Dancers. We don't actually get to see our audience because once the lights are on, you can just see lights. You can't really see the people there, but you feel them there. You know, they're there. So appreciation, I mean, yes, of course. Especially appreciation for the art form and appreciation for how it can be executed.
Always welcome, but also always embarrassing, I think.
[00:12:27] Speaker A: So what happens before the show, Radhe? You must tell us, you know, the preparation and everything. And then after the show, well, before.
[00:12:34] Speaker B: The show, I think we kind of get a lot of time to prepare because it takes us some time to put on our makeup and costume. And you kind of almost.
You're almost not really yourself at that point because you're not thinking about, I should be doing this or I should be doing that, or I feel like at that time, my personality kind of slowly takes a back. Take a. Takes a back seat. And then I put on my makeup and my costume and you kind of become a dancer. And I'm a little. I'm a little less patient, unfortunately, when.
[00:13:08] Speaker A: I get back after so many years of yoga. Radhe.
[00:13:11] Speaker B: Well, the thing is, I said little less patient, I don't get, you know, but I'm a little less patient only because if you're not in a certain.
If you're not in a certain space, then when you get on stage, you don't give your best. And that's a waste of everybody else's time. And that's just not okay. So Pranali was very sweetly, you know, handling just a few things for me yesterday, which was very nice of her. And I think recently somebody was asking me, you know, it must be strange, you meet so many new people. But even though I just met her yesterday, I don't feel like I met her yesterday. And this is the thing I think about, Isha volunteers is that I meet them for the first time, but I feel like I've known them forever.
But backstage, you kind of. You settle into this very quiet space and usually people will ask you, can you do this? Can I help you with this? Can I do that? And you just. I just. I just ask everybody to leave me alone. And before the show starts, I make sure there's nobody backstage so that it's just me and my space and my dance. So that when you get on stage, you don't take anything with you from backstage. Because if you're doing, let's say, a character or you're doing a performance or you're doing a particular kind of expression, you don't take anything from your outside life into it. You don't take anything from your outside life onto the stage. You may use it, you may be inspired. By it, to include it in your choreography or you may be inspired to. To draw from an incident or draw from an experience and show it on stage. But you don't. You don't take yourself, you know, from the side stage. I don't know how it's.
[00:14:47] Speaker A: I can relate to this so much because this is what we are taught in radio as well. When you are on the show, whatever happens in your family, in your personal life is out. You are here to entertain, you are here to address the issues and, you know, talk about it. And that's what I relate to this so much.
[00:15:02] Speaker B: And it also helps you kind of get into it. And I think being a Bharatanatyam dancer, it's so.
It's such a experience, it's such a wonderful thing because I can be anybody and I can experience any kind of experience. I can create any kind of situation and go through it not the way my personality would but I can choose today to be. How would Vicky handle this situation? Let's say something has happened and his beloved has come and has walked away. How will Vicky handle the situation? Very different from how Nikita would handle it. Very different from how I would handle it. And the advantage I have is I can take one. One reaction from you, one reaction from you, two reactions from me, three reactions from somebody else and make an entirely new character which somebody else in the audience will relate to.
So you have this advantage of living almost any kind of life or multiple personalities and you leave it there on stage because when you step off the stage, you just leave it there. And you don't bring that character back home with you either. It doesn't play in your mind immediately after a show. I don't think the character plays in my mind so much as I sometimes think if there is a sensitive moment, if there is a sensitive nuance that I didn't handle in the right way.
And so like yesterday I did a piece on Death which can be quite scary for a lot of people. But it's a conversation between Death and Ravana. And it goes back and forth between being a little funny, not funny, but a little teasing and also being a little serious. So he says death kind of looks at Ravana as his friend. He's like, what? What is the big deal?
Everybody's my friend, everybody's coming to me, you know, what's the big deal? Why are you thinking about your life and going through this trauma of you know, I did this, I did that. I'm such a great man, it's okay, just come and Be my friend, which is a. But I have the freedom to do this on stage. And because I have a grammar, because I have a classical grammar, it makes it also easier for other people to relate. If I just came on stage and said I am death, that would be a little scary for people. But if I say it's a conversation between two friends, why can't death and life be friends? You know? So I'm saying you can think of all these things and do all of these things on stage and it may be something that somebody has thought of, it may be something that somebody hasn't thought of. I'm sure hundreds of people have done pieces on death and handled this in very beautiful ways.
But I can add to that library.
[00:17:36] Speaker A: This is amazing, Radhev, what you just said. You know, I could probably experience or probably feel, you know, what must have been, you know, stage.
[00:17:44] Speaker C: This is my first day and Radhaka here.
[00:17:46] Speaker A: I'm so happy the first time you're speaking.
[00:17:50] Speaker C: I've been absorbing everything that she's been speaking and it's really so enlightening seeing Radhyaka here and you know, seeing her from, you know, from all the shows that Isha has been doing for such a long time now and from the Maha Shivratri, you know, that they have every year I maintain doing that, I do that and I've been inspired by Sadhguru Ji and by Radhi. And it's so nice that you have, you know, encapsulated the young minds to come and join you all to understand what spirituality is. Because that, that is a gap that even is then. And with this digital world, I don't know how it's going to be in the future, but at least now they've. They've handled us like literally, you know.
[00:18:26] Speaker A: Absolutely. Agreed.
[00:18:27] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:18:27] Speaker A: And we've been speaking a lot about Bharat Natyam, about the art form, about Radhe's performance in Dubai. Radhe would love to know what does Bharat Natyam do to your body. Of course we know, but what about the mental health, the mental space?
[00:18:43] Speaker B: I think any classical art form helps with any. At least to settle a certain aspect of your mental health. There is a lot of discipline involved in classical art forms. And so if you get into practicing it, then no matter what the situation is, and I think we handled it to a certain extent, no matter what the situation is, when you come there to dance or you come there to sing, you have to find a space and it becomes, as you practice more and more, of course it Becomes easier to make that switch between everything that's going on in your head and finding a space for yourself and just dancing or just singing or just practicing your music.
And I think that little space that you create for yourself on a daily basis definitely, I think will help a lot with mental health. And if you're not somebody who is maybe looking to learn the classical arts, even listening to classical music, you have to of course pick and choose, maybe depending on your mood. But even listening to classical music in a disciplined way can definitely settle a lot of things in your mind. There are a lot of. And I'm saying if you listen to just a concert, if you just listen to how a musician handles a raga and you just get lost in it, you'll find a certain settling. And of course, sound has such a strong impact on your mind, on your emotions, on your well being. So classical music is curated in that way. It is made in such a way that it's beneficial for the body, it's beneficial for the mind. And with classical dance also, it's the same thing. We do so much geometry in Bharatanatyam with our body. And if you do it in the right way, I feel at least for me personally, that's been a very easy thing to fall back on. If I have too much work and too many meetings all kind of back to back, sometimes I will just find an hour to just practice and really sweat it out. And you know, I think a lot of people work out, right?
[00:20:46] Speaker A: A lot of people do that as well. And also for mental well being, a lot of people go out and shop as well. They spend their money and it's a good mental therapy. Are you planning to shop something?
[00:20:56] Speaker B: I think that might be a Dubai, that might be a Dubai specialty.
[00:21:01] Speaker A: But Radhik, we're running out of time and what a pleasure it's been. You know, we didn't come for the show, but now we are definitely going to make it. Every time you perform on stage, be there to cheer you as well.
[00:21:11] Speaker B: Thank you very much. We are coming back January 11th with the entire group to perform for a conference and hopefully we'll come back to Dubai more and more often. Thank you so much for coming to you anytime.
[00:21:22] Speaker C: My one question to you as young minds, when they are trying to transform themselves, how do they keep that mental balance between what the traditions and the new reality of life is? So when you talk about all the Bharatanatyam and all that you've been doing with mindfulness, what is that one tip that you will give to the young minds.
[00:21:38] Speaker B: You should do inner engineering. Really.
[00:21:40] Speaker C: Okay, done.
[00:21:42] Speaker A: We hope you enjoyed the conversation with Radhe Jaggi. Please do like and subscribe.
And thank you for listening.
Stay healthy, stay happy.
