The deer, the man and the trap: A Kathak recital turns allegory into atmosphere at Jindal Lit Fest

With poetry, smoke and a looming spider web, Pandit Birju Maharaj's granddaughter Shinjini Kulkarni ensnares audience with a Kathak recital that tells a cautionary tale of greed and illusion.

Shinjini Kulkarni mesmerising the audience with her Kathak recital at the Jindal Lit Fest | Niyati Kothiyal | ThePrint

New Delhi: The stage glows in shades of blue and red, musicians poised to one side, and at the centre hangs a massive spider’s web—gothic, ominous, impossibly delicate. It looks like the prelude to a horror show, but what unfolds at Vidya Devi Jindal School’s auditorium during the first Jindal Literary Fest is something far more haunting: Kasturi Mrig, a Kathak recital steeped in allegory, illusion and desire.

Shinjini Kulkarni, ninth-generation Kathak dancer and granddaughter of Pandit Birju Maharaj, steps into the light as the first notes rise. Ghungroos chime, vocals unfurl, and poetry weaves itself through the air. On stage with her are vocalists and musicians—Janaab Zakir Hussain Warsi, Shri Aryav Anand, Shri Shambhuvan Debnath and Janaab Waris Khan—creating a soundscape that makes the performance feel less like dance and more like a myth being retold in real time.

The verses, recited with a lot of emotion by the artist, juxtapose a naive deer with the ignorance of man. The deer, so naive it is unable to understand that it is trapped in an illusion. And the man, who surrenders to his greed, wanting more and more, till he is entrapped in the vicious cycle of desire that can never truly be sated.

Kulkarni embodies two figures at once: The naive deer unable to recognise illusion, and the man consumed by greed. Her movements, at first fluid and searching, tighten as she circles the giant web—the maya jaal—symbol of desire that ensnares both innocence and ambition. Smoke curls around her feet, reiterating the point: Whether wealth or love, the chase is often nothing more than a shimmering trap.

At the performance’s emotional peak, she slips behind the web and collapses. The lights snap off. A scream tears through the darkness. The auditorium freezes.

Shinjini Kulkarni mesmerising the audience with her Kathak recital at the Jindal Lit Fest | Niyati Kothiyal | ThePrint

When the lights return, the deer/man figure rises again—but not freely. Her body moves as if pulled by invisible threads. The web of desire refuses to let go.

Talking to ThePrint about the art form, Kulkarni said, “The thing is that anyone who is doing classical dance or music starts it with the understanding that this is not going to fetch you a lot of money. It will fetch you the most amount of respect possible. But you do this for your own joy. If you want to join the 9-to-5 rat race then don’t do it. You have to forego certain things in order to be creatively happy internally, and satisfied.”

“The joy that I get is from being on stage with 5,000 people watching me at a moment. I command their attention. If I look left, they look left. It is a very empowering feeling. So you have to have that little bug in you which allows you to think a little cuckoo. You know the world is chasing material, but you are chasing something else. That is what my first piece was,” she adds.

Shinjini Kulkarni mesmerising the audience with her Kathak recital at the Jindal Lit Fest | Niyati Kothiyal | ThePrint

For the second segment, she shifts from metaphor to pedagogy, addressing the hall filled largely with schoolgirls. The performance turns into a masterclass—breakdowns of rhythms, footwork, tempo, and the math of Kathak. The audience leans in, now not just witnessing a story, but understanding the craft behind it.

In the end, the web on stage may have trapped the characters—but the audience walked out willingly ensnared by the art.

ThePrint is the official media partner for the Jindal Literature Festival.

(Edited by Viny Mishra)