11 September 2001. A sad and tragic day, filled with horror-stricken people asking themselves questions they could not find answers to. Is life certain? Do I want to die doing what I am doing now? What direction is my life
taking? A female Singaporean Indian corporate lawyer looked out of her window in the comfortable offices of Morrison & Foerster in Singapore. The multi-million dollar corporate deal she was working on was put aside.
November 2001. Arul Ramiah left behind her family, friends and a cushy job in Singapore and boarded an airplane to Chennai, the capital of South India, which she last visited 14 years ago. Like many parts of India, Chennai
remained unchanged — noisy, dirty streets filled with slums and congested traffic. In a society where women’s rights and progress are undermined by men and tradition, Arul, a strong, determined, articulate foreigner eloquent not
only in English and who spoke Tamil in a different accent, but dared question and clarify, must have turned many Indians’ heads her direction in Chennai.
‘At the surface of all the physical ugliness that meets a tourist’s eyes, South India has so much to offer a Singaporean tourist’, she tells me authoritatively. Two thousand years ago, the classical dance, Bharata Natyam, was
celebrated in the temples of South India as the highest form of worship to God. ‘Bha’ refers to Bhava or expression, ‘Ra’ refers to Raga or melody and ‘Ta’ means Talam or rhythmic syllabus. ‘Natyam’ means dance. Due to its divine
origin, Bharata Natyam focuses on explaining the Hindu mythology through stylised hand gestures, facial expressions and bodily movements performed to karnatic music. A student of Bharata Natyam since the age of four, Arul, in
revisiting Chennai, spent her time refreshing her basic dance skills and learning advanced Bharata Natyam under a renowned dance teacher, KJ Sarasa. ‘In Chennai, I realised that although Bharata Natyam is an ancient art, it has to
change with time. I felt that I needed to learn it in its original form and then re-invent it by giving it an interpretation to suit the modern context. When I shared this with my teacher, I am not sure whether she agreed with me,
but I proceeded with my interpretation of the dance’, said Arul.
According to Arul, Bharata Natyam is a rich man’s art in Chennai. ‘From engaging a good teacher to booking a concert hall and staging a dance show, you need to fork out lots of money. I truly enjoyed myself in Chennai. It was
very enriching to pursue Bharata Natyam full-time at its birth place and in the company of the great dance professionals and dedicated students.’ Arul was also significantly inspired by the passion and dedication shown by her
70-year-old teacher who spent every day practising Bharata Natyam.
In a scene from a famous Tamil movie of the 1980s that depicted the life of a classical singer, the main leads showed how it is the duty of the art practitioner to convey
the meaning of an art form to the ordinary people. Following suit, in Singapore, Arul collaborated with her friend, Tan Siok Siok, a documentary maker, and Ken Seet, a fine arts photographer, to create a multi-media presentation
of Bharata Natyam, ‘Abhinya — My Journey of Return’ in April 2002 at the Asian Civilisations Museum. A first of its kind in Singapore, Ambassador-at-Large, Professor Tommy Koh, and members of the audience, were treated to an
insight of Bharata Natyam through Seet’s fine black and white photographs and Tan’s film documentation of Arul’s dance postures in the background of famous Indian temples in South India, complete with Arul’s post-dance
explanations. The trio will be doing a second presentation at The Substation in September 2002.
Having studied and worked in the USA as well as lived in multi-cultural Singapore, this ‘child of the global village’ fits her own description of a modern Singaporean Indian woman — ‘one who is articulate and demanding,
enriched by Eastern and Western values, with a great interest in culture and who retains a sense of ethnic identity’.
Citing her role models as Hillary Clinton and Madonna, Arul describes her current lifestyle as ‘getting off the treadmill to be the best in a different way. In Singapore, more of us are beginning to realise that success can also be measured by pursuing your dream and living a rich life which is emotionally and spiritually satisfying’. Arul is rich. She has much of a valuable commodity that many of us would love to have more of — time — to spend being, talking and actively listening to friends and loved ones. ‘What is one year off in your life of say, 70 years? In the Indian community, being a lawyer is a very respectable and honourable profession.
I gave it up to discover myself. I do not have an answer to your question as to the fruits of my journey of discovery’, she says in a direct and serious manner.
Rajan Chettiar
Allen & Gledhill