Reminisces with My Father, A Nautanki and Ramlila Master Artist

Abstract

Pandit Ram Dayal Sharma (the author's father) is a nationally famous Nautanki artist, who has performed in theatre, including Ramlila and other North-lndian styles of theatre since the 1950s. He was born in the village of Samai, near Mathura in 1946. He is now based in both his village in the Braj region, and the capital Delhi. Pandit Sharma comes from a long line of actors and musicians in the Samai Khera gharana (musical lineage or school). In the nineteenth century, his ancestors used to perform for Indian royalty, in the court of Nawah Wajid Ali Shall (1822-1887) in Awadh, and helped establish the Rahas form. Rahas, which is closely associated with its chief patron and participant, the Nawab of Awadh, involves singing, dancing, and play-acting stories about Lord Krishna and his beloveds. His father Pandit Khubiram Sharma (1919-1995) and uncle Pandit Ramswaroop Sharma (1928-1997), through their work in their dramatic troupe, played a prominent role in popularizing the Braj style of Nautanki and Swang in the Kanpur- Lucknow area.