.png)
Dzieci Maharadży: Maharaja’s Children — A Living Memory of Compassion Through Dance
- Style Essentials Edit Team
- 2 days ago
- 2 min read
History is often remembered through documents and monuments. Dzieci Maharadży: Maharaja’s Children – A Passage of Kindness and Respect approaches it differently, by placing memory in motion. Conceived by Bharatanatyam dancer and cultural storyteller Apeksha Niranjan, the project translates a lesser-known humanitarian chapter of World War II into performance, allowing it to be experienced rather than recounted.
The Bhopal presentation of the project takes place on 18 January 2026 at Khayal Kala Premiyon Ka, following earlier stagings in Delhi, Poland, and the United States. Each iteration adapts to its context while retaining the core narrative: the actions of the Maharaja and Maharani of Nawanagar and Kolhapur, who offered refuge, education, and dignity to Polish and Eastern European children displaced by the war.
Apeksha’s work does not attempt to recreate history literally. Instead, it engages with the emotional and ethical dimensions of those events. Through Bharatanatyam, gesture, rhythm, and spoken storytelling, she traces ideas of exile, hospitality, resilience, and belonging. The performance avoids spectacle. Its strength lies in restraint and clarity, allowing the audience to focus on the human relationships at the heart of the story.
What makes Dzieci Maharadży distinctive is its cross-cultural construction. The project brings together Indian classical dance with Polish literary and visual material, creating a layered narrative that moves between geographies and generations. The collaboration with Polish author and screenwriter Monika Kowaleczko-Szumowska adds depth through literature, film, and photography, expanding the performance beyond the stage into a broader artistic dialogue.
Rather than positioning the Maharajas as distant historical figures, the work centres on the impact of their choices. The children who found safety in India are not presented as symbols, but as individuals whose lives were reshaped by compassion. In this sense, the project resists nostalgia. It treats kindness as an active, consequential force rather than a moral abstraction.
The performance also draws attention to shared cultural values between Poland and India. Ideas of hospitality, respect, and collective responsibility emerge organically through movement and narrative, without being stated explicitly. Art becomes the medium through which these values are recognised rather than explained.
In the current global climate, where displacement and conflict continue to dominate headlines, Dzieci Maharadży feels particularly timely. Without drawing direct parallels, the project invites reflection on how societies respond to humanitarian crises. It suggests that memory, when carried forward through art, can function as both reminder and guide.
Apeksha Niranjan’s approach situates Bharatanatyam not only as a classical form, but as a living language capable of holding historical complexity. By weaving together dance, storytelling, and cross-cultural collaboration, Dzieci Maharadży: Maharaja’s Children becomes less about the past alone and more about how empathy travels across time, borders, and cultures.
Event Details
Date: 18 January 2026
Time: 6:30 PM
Venue: Khayal Kala Premiyon Ka, Bhopal
You May Also Like