Teejan Bai at the workshop. Picture by Aranya Sen

Teejan Bai has found ?Chhoto Teejan Bai? in Calcutta.

The guru of the Pandavani style of performance, recently in the city to conduct a workshop hosted by theatre group Kasba Arghya, said she had great expectations from her most recent disciple, Seema Ghosh, a mathematics teacher and member of Kasba Arghya.

?Times have changed, the restrictions of caste and gender are falling away and many are coming to me for training. Among my chelas across India are quite a few housewives and schoolchildren? People seem to be realising the richness of our traditions,? said the singer, who had to swim against the tide and endure hardships for her passion for these songs of the Pandavas.

?Nothing can be achieved without hard work. Even Rama and the Pandavas had to struggle and suffer before they could wear the crown,? she said, looking at Seema busy memorising the Chhattisgarhi narrative songs she has jotted down in Bengali.

Apart from the songs, Seema will have to pick up the stance and actions ? the magic that turns stout, dark paan-chewing Teejan Bai into a powerful narrator, whose enactment of multiple Mahabharata roles is mesmerising.

Kasba Arghya, planning a Pandavani-based play, had hosted the three-day workshop to give its actors a chance to interact with the genre?s greatest exponent.

The training session began in Bhilai, Chhattisgarh, last October and had gone off so well that Teejan Bai gifted the organisation one of her precious red tamburas with peacock feathers. Apart from providing musical accompaniment, it can be used to suggest a ?gada, bow and arrow, horse, chariot?, et all.

Director Monish Mitra said: ?We have been working with folk forms for a long time because we feel that doing plays with no first-hand knowledge of our roots is meaningless. We have studied Mansha, Chhau, Jhumur, Yakshagaana? and incorporated some of these in our plays.?

Two episodes from Mahabharata that Teejan Bai and Seema have gone through are Cheer harana and Abhimanyu Vadh. ?The final play script will evolve from the workshop,? said Mitra.

Commenting on the experiment, Teejan Bai said: ?I don?t care what language is used to communicate these Mahabharata stories, because the gods have left them for us to educate ourselves.?