If Manish Pathak takes the stage, the Indians turned within seconds into Nataraj himself, the king of the dance. To modern Indian music, he lives by love, hate, fear, joy and sorrow with such intensity that the feelings of the viewers skip. "New Indian Dance" is the name of this style, the Manish, who has also prescribed the abstract painting, practiced in Berlin. "My art is not the painting and dancing to live my art," says Manish. How is itself a work of art? "It's simple: with the help of my two gurus - God and my grandmother, "says Manish. "And of course with the support of Ganesha," said he smiling, and pointed to the small copper statue of the elephant-headed god in space.
grew up first with Manish grandmother said in Patna, the capital of Bihar state, northeastern India. Why his parents had left him behind when she moved to Calcutta? "I do not know. My mother was a housewife, so there was no reason, "he says. "But I am very grateful to her for this decision."
Beyond the conventions
For the first five years of his life he spent under the care of an extraordinary woman. His "Maa," as he called her grandmother lovingly, was a liberal-minded, devout Brahmin who cared about conventions.
"Maa rode a bike, what is befitting for a woman of her rank at all at that time." She also loved to swim across to the holy river Ganges - also a rather exaggerated activity for a woman. After a meeting with the Italian educator Maria Montessori reform the mother of seven followed up on a Montessori school in their own house.
Before her marriage she was an artist and with her student nurse by Rabindranath Tagore, the Bengal all-rounder and the first Asian Nobel laureate. As opposed to the traditional school system that had its own school for his children - Shanti Niketan-- founded, is also intuitive and still learned by example. The special talent of Manish grandmother was a spiritual song.
"The sister was far more talented than Maa," says Manish. She could not sing very well, but also painting and dancing. When she was married and had children later, she asked her husband one day before a crucial decision: Family or art. "She decided immediately to the arts and left the family," said Manish. What a scandal! But that's another story.
An idyllic childhood
"Maa was not so obsessed with art." After her marriage she sang only in the family and inherited her artistic genes of some of their children - as well as Manish. "Music was for me from the start as the air we breathe," he explained.
He loved the time on the large estate of his grandparents. "It was a beautiful garden with typical Indian food, but also a guava plantation, where I played as you wish with my friends," he recalls.
took after five years of this idyllic life to an abrupt End. Manish parents brought her son to the capital of West Bengal - "for me it was like an exile from paradise," he describes the first major change in his life.
In the next two years he became ill again and again. "So Maa had come regularly and get me for a while to Patna." By the time he got used to living in Calcutta, however, his family and friends to whom he vortanzte always welcome. "Painting and dancing were part of my everyday life". To the annoyance of his father, a teacher, he also decorated the school books and folders with his drawings.
The father's sake
His father was also the one who insisted that the son is studying at the University of Calcutta "economics. Manish did him the favor, however, wrote immediately after the examination in an Institute of Languages.
1995, he then tried his luck abroad. "I did not have the strong feeling of love I had in my early childhood in Patna. And so he set out first in Singapore to search. Since he was able to get a work permit, this trip was short-lived. Three months later he had returned to India.
waited there, "the worst years of my life for me" he recalls. "I felt really down in Calcutta. Every day was an ordeal for me and I felt that this situation would never end. " He went to Delhi and Bangalore, to find work, "but somehow I knew that I had to leave India."
But where? Australia, Russia or Italy? "My friends made fun of me already, you'll never make it to the jump," she said, "recalls Manish.
A new life
1998, he finally applied for a residence permit in Canada and "three years later, I was lucky Owner of a Canadian visa. For him it was the beginning of a new life.
lived in Canada, he first in Vancouver, then in Toronto. His money he earned in a large bookstore. "One day, Linda saw a colleague and friend, my pictures and said, 'Manish doing what you doing here? You are an artist and not a book dealer, you have to paint! "This he could not imagine at that time. "I had never thought to be an artist."
But the words of his girlfriend left him no peace and he devoted more and more of the painting. Maybe it was because that during this time he often felt very lonely. "Canada I liked very much, but it was not my home. I still lacked that perfect feeling of love, the feeling of security - or shelter, "he says. He found his pictures. About 200 works he created a few years.
Every picture is the expression of his current mental state. All they arise by the same ritual. "As a Hindu priest, I put the material before me on the floor," he explains. While Hindu priests the gifts in fire, Manish brings it "times quietly, sometimes screaming or crying" on canvas, wood or paper. "By the time a picture is finished, it can take hours, days, but even months - I am exhausted at the end and empty, "says Manish. India only to visit
followed exhibitions in Toronto and New York. After the tsunami in 2004, he organized an impromptu show and donated the proceeds of sales of pictures. "If something bad happens in India, then it's just me bad," he says.
A life on the subcontinent, he can not imagine anymore. "As soon as I am in Calcutta, I get nervous after a few days," he describes his mood. The town he describes as "too loud and too intense, because I think it is never too long."
However, he is thoroughly Indian. "I dream often in Hindi, can only cook Indian, and feel the Indian music as the most intense music of the world, "he says. Of course, he also loves Indian literature, especially the novels of Salman Rushdie. "His language is so vibrant, dynamic and colorful - just like life on the streets of India."
2005, he visited Calcutta for the first time met, while his great love, a native of Potsdam. And so began a new chapter in life, Manish, "though this love was not returned. He began to learn German and two years later landed in the capital of Brandenburg. As his knowledge of German is not perfect, were, he came immediately to the dance school "factory". "I just knocked, pre-cut -. And it was good"
At home
arrived Today he lives in Berlin, and feels finally arrived home. "Berlin was the 12th Stop on my search for love, "he says. Soon after his arrival at the Zoo Station, "came over me suddenly this intense, wonderful feeling that was lost to me since my childhood." The Berlin understood his questions right away and helped him find the desired address. "From the first moment I found my way around the city."
Dance as an active art form thus fits exactly to its current Phase of life. "Loneliness can I best express himself in painting and love dancing." About the Germans by surprise early on only positive. "My friends had warned me, but I meet only at a very nice and open people," he stressed.
He particularly like the direct way to meet with him to Berlin. His experiences on the immigration authorities are more reminiscent of a good conversation with good friends than to a government appointment.
"My wife Ditting clerk showed great interest in my life here. She always wants to know how it goes with the dancing, my praises progress in German, and wishes me at parting each time lucky, "he says with a smile in his eyes. Such meetings are very important to him because "I need people around me."
light and shadow
But where is light, shadow and known - and so Manish response is not only enthusiasm. "Of course there are people I go deliberately out of the way - maybe it scares my intense charisma". These extreme reactions to them can be best experienced in its interpretation of the Beedi song from a Bollywood movie.
The mixture of (an indicated) Striptease and classical Indian dance has done it to his fans. "After each performance they want this dance as a bonus, "says Manish. Many Indian viewers - especially older people - usually other hand, react in horror.
Although there is no lack of requests, Manish occurs relatively rarely. "When I dance, I forget the audience and everything else around me," he says. "I see only bright light and turn me into the dance." After such an intense experience, he felt not only physically, but mentally exhausted completely.
Since it costs much less energy to teaching. "But this is art," says the 40-year-old. "If my students appear tired and worn out from working in the dance studio and go two hours later with glowing eyes home, I feel quite satisfied. "
Contact: Manish Pathak
www.manish1313.blogspot.com
© Marlies Moser
