Navtej, who is currently touring Punjab, showcasing his concept ‘Fanna: Ranjha Revisited’, says, “By bringing together dance and theatre I wanted to show the world that Punjabi culture is very rich and we are just not about giddha and bhangra. Our folk tales, Sufi music and poetry traverse boundaries.”

Navtej wove together the tale of ‘Heer-Ranjha’ with a southern love story, which flows on Sufi music rendered by Dr Madan Gopal Singh and dance performance by Johar and Chao dancer Anil Panchal.

“When it comes to culture, the southern states score way above Punjab.

We may have bhangra troupes touring the world but then the reality is that it is not a dance form. bhangra is a community dance. Whenever people are happy they break into bhangra, but expressing all emotions through bhangra is not possible. When we count the Indian dance forms, the list runs as Bharatnatyam, Kathak, Manipuri, Oddissi and so on. As a Punjabi, this pains me,” he says.

Johar adds, “There are no cultural experiments going on in Punjab. Punjabi cinema is routine and music dead. There is pop music all around us.”

Johar— who learnt his Bharatnatyam at Rukmini Arundale’s Kalakshetra, Chennai, and then with Leela Samson at Shriram Bharatiya Kala Kendra, New Delhi— says, “Not getting an opportunity to perform in Punjab also saddens me. Punjab has never invited me to perform.”

Going down the memory lane, Navtej says, “When I started learning dance and then adopted it as a profession two decades ago, the society in Punjab could not take to a Sikh doing such a thing. Punjab, at that time, was going through the dark days of terrorism, so I kept a low profile. But now things have changed and I have done two shows already and am being sufficiently heeded.”