TRIALOGUE 2025: THE INTERPLAY OF SHRINGARA AND SHANTA IN INDIAN PERFORMING ARTS, A REVIEW
On Sunday, June 1st, CPPA hosted its yearly Trialogue, an online event dedicated to exploring the theme of peace as conveyed through the performing arts.
The 2025 symposium featured two renowned artists, Chaiti Ghoshal and Lokeshwari Dasgupta, who shared their perspectives on the dynamic relationship between Shringara rasa (love, beauty, desire) and Shanta rasa (peace, serenity) within the framework of Indian performing traditions. Through our guests’ words and dance demonstrations, we sought to explore fundamental questions: Can love lead to peace? Does desire disturb serenity—or fulfill it? How do classical and contemporary performance practices negotiate these emotional states through movement, voice, rhythm, and gesture?
Our first speaker was the acclaimed actress and director Chaiti Ghoshal, in conversation with CPPA member Pratiti Ghosh. Ghoshal reflected on how Rabindranath Tagore’s Dakghar and Raktakarabi masterfully intertwine the two rasas. Her personal connection to these works—having played Amal in Dakghar at just five years old under Sambhu Mitra’s direction, and now directing Raktakarabi—offered profound insight into their emotional and societal resonance.
In Dakghar, Amal’s innocent longing for freedom transcends his physical confinement, blending heartbreak with spiritual serenity. Ghoshal noted how this duality mirrors maternal love—Shringara’s fierce protectiveness softening into Shanta’s acceptance. Beyond the personal, the play speaks to everyday struggles, revealing how hope can endure even under oppression.
Her recent production of Raktakarabi confronts false peace with Shringara’s fiery defiance. Nandini’s rebellion against exploitation becomes a rallying cry, illustrating that true peace demands justice. Today, this message resonates deeply amid India’s challenges—censorship, environmental crises, and silenced voices.
For Ghoshal, performance is a bridge between emotion and activism. Whether through a child’s imagination or a rebel’s resolve, art transforms love’s passion into peace’s clarity—reminding us that both are essential to meaningful change.
Then, we welcomed our second speaker, Lokeshwari Dasgupta, an eminent dancer in both Kathak and Rabindranritya.
In a conversation led by CPPA member Dr. Karine Leblanc, the artist began by clearly defining the two rasas according to pan-Indian treatises on dance and theatre—the Natya Shastra and its commentary by Abhinavagupta, as well as the Abhinaya Darpana.
Her central point was that while referencing ancient texts is essential, she emphasized that this highbrow theoretical framework is by no means disconnected from everyday life. For her, art is one of the ways people can realize they carry both Shringara and Shanta within themselves. She explained that love and passion—whether directed toward a person, an animal, a country, or a spiritual force—can, when well channeled, lead to peace.
Lokeshwari Dasgupta also reflected on how love has evolved in the modern world, taking on new and often more transient dimensions. This, she said, makes performing for a contemporary audience an act of love in itself—one that stabilizes Shringara, allowing it to be fully experienced and appreciated by spectators.
She continued her presentation with a breathtaking live demonstration of Rabindranritya. Her dance and expressive performance were living proof that the Shringara and Shanta rasas described in the Sanskrit texts resonate deeply with the Prem (love) and Puja (devotion) central to Rabindranritya.
While reflecting on the excerpts she performed, Dasgupta introduced the influence of Sufism, which plays a significant role in Rabindranritya. It allows her to move beyond the traditional narratives of Indian mythology when portraying the rasas. One segment, for instance, depicted the peace attained through contemplation of the moon and sun—and the silence that surrounds them.
Though she deeply values the traditional repertoire, she sees great potential in exploring more abstract themes to convey rasa to a modern, international audience.
For Dasgupta, Shanta rasa is something to be savored only after experiencing all the other rasas—it must come at the end of the emotional journey. In her view, this sets Shanta apart. According to Dr. Karine Leblanc, this perspective aligns with the fact that Shanta rasa is not explicitly named in the Natya Shastra, though glimpses of it can be found in certain aspects of Shringara. And in today’s complex world, Shringara rasa itself has become richer—but perhaps also more distant from Shanta.
The speakers and hosts then engaged in an open discussion on how the arts—and the rasas they express—reflect, often critically, the current state of the world, marked by conflicts erupting across various regions.
They emphasized the urgent need to reconnect with the emotions that lie at the very heart of our shared humanity, calling on artists and audiences alike to seek meaning, empathy, and peace through creative expression.
Contributors: Dr. Karine Leblanc and Pratiti Ghosh
