I was shocked by the news of the death of the eminent Indian scholar Kapila Vatsyayan, at the age of 91, in Delhi on September 16. I immediately shared that news with a few academics and my erstwhile students who had known her and read her works. I quickly browsed through the news sites and came across these words said by prominent Hindi writer, courageous creator and friend Ashok Vajpayee quoted by PTI, ‘I deeply mourn the passing away of Kapila Vatsyayan, a great scholar, a sharp mind, a creative person and a great institution-builder. The world of culture in India loses a doyen, a tireless promoter and a bridge-maker amongst the arts, thought and imagination. Also a personal loss to many like me’.

Vajpayee’s words present a picture of Vatsyayan. He was referring to her role in the establishment of Lalit Kala Akademi, Sangeet Natak Akademi, Sahitya Akademi among others. When I first met her in Delhi I had some idea about her blazing trails. I forgot the exact date and year of the meeting that happened in the 80s. The occasion was a seminar at the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts of which Vatsyayan was the first director. I was introduced to her by the Nepali Cultural Attaché in Delhi, poet Tulasi Diwasa, and his friend the prominent Hindi poet, novelist and a Jawaharlal Nehru University Professor Ganga Prasad Vimal. He has written a novel based on Garhwal where he came from by alluding to the historical connections of the conquering Gorkhali soldiers whose actions are mentioned in folklore and memories, all of which are not pleasant. As Vimal’s tragic death occurred during a trip to southern India, I sadly missed that chance of sending him my reactions after reading the novel.

I met Vatsyayan a number of times after the above incident. Every time I went to Delhi to attend some literary seminars or on personal visits I managed to meet her. On one occasion I could meet her with great difficulty because she had become a member of the Upper House of the Indian Parliament in 2006. Meeting her was like getting inspired to do something towards developing a system of approach to the studies of performative, folkloristic and epistemological nature. It was very easy to talk to her because she was a scholar of English literature, and inter-art subjects including theatre, which was, and is, my principal passion. She was a literary critic who has written about literary works by making a very unique blend of her knowledge of the Western and Indic traditions. She had a deep sense of theatricality and power of performative culture and traditions. As one dedicated to the study of performance studies, I find her interpretations of dance, of which she was a great scholar, art and sculpture as well as music, explainable productively only in terms of performativity.

I met her at the International Theatre Symposium, on ‘Theatre in the World Today: Individual and Collective Visions’, at the Golden Jubilee Theatre Festival in Delhi from October 9-12, 2003. She attended my presentation on ‘Playwright in the Waste Land’. What she commented on that paper changed my perspective of aridity in theatre. She said, a playwright should turn the wasteland into a theatre, which means he or she gives life to the aridity through performance. I mentioned to her about a student of mine named Shiva Rijal who was doing a PhD on cross-cultural theatre under my tutelage. I got that dissertation sent to her as an external examiner in 2005. She sent a long review and approval of the thesis, which reads like an article. I recall that with a sense of pride because that was my first PhD supervision.

I had discovered Kapila Vatsyayan, alias Kapilaji, while working towards creating a system of South Asian Studies through some of her major interventions. Her major publications like ‘Traditional Indian Theatre: Multiple Streams’, ‘Classical Indian Dance in Literature and the Arts’, and ‘Traditions of Indian Folk Dance’ in addition to a great body of her articles and papers contribute to that. We were looking for an alternate system of explaining the South Asian cultural heritage, achievements, and some academic perspective while working towards developing a South Asian component at the postgraduate level at the Central Department of English. Some years later, when I was the Chair of the Department of English, we developed a syllabus that included South Asian Studies as one component. Learned colleagues and brilliant students who had just graduated with their MAs, senior professors now, worked very seriously to develop that. Vatsyayan's works were very much there for the following reasons.

Kapila Vatsyayan, who was also a linguist and historian, saw the integration and reinterpretation of the cultural past as a valid subject that should be studied in the present and should prepare a vision of interdisciplinary studies for the future. For that reason, her writings and her perceptions can be relevant components in the corpus of academic studies. We have continued to include her articles in the graduate studies about performance and cultural studies. She presented a keynote speech at the invitation of the Nepali Folklore Society in 2003. Other than addressing our International Folklore Congress, she met students and scholars, gave a speech on theatre and launched a play. That speaks about the nature of our relations with her.

In the end, I must mention one very important seminar that she had organised as President of India International Centre in Delhi from March 24-26, 2014. The title of the seminar was ‘Traditional Cultures: Study in Continuity and Fluidity’. She had personally chosen that very eloquent title. This seminar of writers and academics from different countries was the reflection of her scholarship, personality and worldwide contacts. They ranged from novelists from Egypt, a young Confucian scholar from China, dissident writers from African countries and authors and cultural experts from South America, Europe and naturally writers from South Asian countries. Diwasa and I were also invited to that conference where we presented papers. When I saw the compiled book of those papers after getting the news of her demise, I was struck by the plurality of her connections, her humanity, secularism and the sheer strength of this great scholar who always embraced diversity, tolerance and freedom of academic and artistic quests.

We should write more about the nature of sharing with the Indian scholars of calibre and height like her and with other writers of South Asian countries. Happily, such sharing with the creative writers and academics of South Asia continues to grow. We become more aware of that at this moment when we are paying tribute to Dr Kapila Vatsyayan.

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