Rajgir, December 22, 2025
One of the most absorbing and contemplative sessions at the Nalanda Literature Festival 2025 unfolded when Sonal Mansingh sat down in conversation with historian and author Vikram Sampath to discuss her autobiographical work A Zig-Zag Mind. Framed as a book review session, the dialogue soon transcended its formal brief, evolving into a profound meditation on discipline, art, nationhood, memory, and the ethical demands of a life devoted to classical tradition.
Held in the reflective atmosphere that has come to define the Nalanda Literature Festival, the session drew a deeply attentive audience. There was little performative spectacle. Instead, what emerged was a rare instance of artistic self-examination, marked by emotional honesty and philosophical depth. Mansingh’s measured, resolute presence anchored the conversation, while Sampath’s probing yet respectful interventions ensured that the discussion retained both intellectual structure and narrative flow.
The conversation opened with Sampath’s question about the book’s title. A Zig-Zag Mind is an evocative phrase, one that appears to resist the linear narratives often expected of autobiographies. Mansingh responded with characteristic candour and a quiet sense of humour, acknowledging that the description suited her well. The human mind, she observed, is rarely linear, particularly in the modern world, where attention is constantly fractured by competing demands. Drawing upon the well-known episode of Arjuna’s unblinking focus on the bird’s eye, she reflected on how such singular concentration has become increasingly difficult to sustain.
Yet, she was careful to clarify that the zig-zag is not a metaphor for confusion or lack of purpose. Rather, it signifies perseverance. Mansingh offered the image of a mountain train that appears to wander, moving back and forth and gradually ascending through bends and loops. Though its path may seem indirect, it reaches its destination unfailingly. The metaphor resonated strongly with the audience, setting the tone for a discussion that repeatedly returned to the idea that dedication does not always follow a straight line, but must always remain purposeful.
As the discussion progressed, Mansingh revisited key moments from her international career, recalling an extensive twelve-country tour in the late 1990s. Among these memories, her journey to Machu Picchu in 1997 stood out. She described it not as a tourist indulgence, but as a conscious personal reward, an encounter with another ancient civilisation that expanded her understanding of human creativity and endurance. These recollections functioned as more than travel anecdotes. They revealed her belief that an artist must engage with the world, observe other cultures, and yet return repeatedly to one’s own roots with renewed clarity.
Sampath then turned attention to the thematic breadth of A Zig-Zag Mind, noting how the book moves fluidly between reflections on art, selfhood, discipline, and the idea of nation. Mansingh explained that she has never consciously set out to write on specific themes. Subjects, she said, emerge organically from lived experience and sustained contemplation. Writing, for her, is not an act of performance but of listening. Much like dance, it requires attentiveness to inner rhythms rather than an external desire to impress or persuade.
One of the most arresting moments of the session arrived when Mansingh spoke about her formative years within the guru-shishya parampara. With disarming honesty, she recalled being subjected to severe physical and mental discipline, including being “kicked and slapped” by her gurus. The remark, delivered without bitterness or dramatisation, held the audience in silence. She was quick to contextualise it, explaining that these acts were not expressions of cruelty, but manifestations of an uncompromising pedagogic ethic.
Within the guru-shishya relationship, Mansingh emphasised, there is no space for privilege, entitlement or celebrity. The shishya must arrive stripped of ego, prepared for complete surrender. Discipline, she argued, is not negotiable. The aim must be singular. Not dance as one pursuit among many, but dance as the only pursuit. She described herself as having been passed through “the flame of preparation”, a process that tempers rather than destroys. The metaphor captured the essence of her artistic philosophy, where endurance and humility are inseparable from excellence.
When Sampath asked whether classical dance is the last surviving bastion of the guru-shishya tradition, Mansingh initially resisted the idea. She cautioned against romanticising or absolutising any art form. Integrity of body, mind and soul, she observed, can exist in many disciplines if practised sincerely. However, in a later reflection, she conceded that classical forms such as Bharatanatyam and Odissi may indeed be among the final spaces where this ancient pedagogic tradition continues to function with rigour and seriousness.
The conversation then expanded into a broader philosophical reflection on dance itself. Mansingh described classical dance as four-dimensional, a living philosophy rather than a decorative art. Through movement, rhythm and expression, dance makes abstract concepts accessible. Scriptures, myths and epics are not merely narrated but embodied. They are rendered intelligible through beauty. In this context, she asserted that India may be unique among civilisations in the way its spiritual and cultural inheritance is directly expressed through classical dance traditions.
The emotional peak of the session arrived when Mansingh spoke of her relationship with the land itself. Declaring her deep love for the soil of India, she stated that she would wish to be born here again and again. The statement, delivered without theatricality, carried a quiet intensity that resonated deeply with the audience. It was not a political slogan, but a personal affirmation rooted in cultural continuity and lived devotion.
As the session drew to a close, Mansingh placed dance at the apex of artistic expression. It is, she argued, the only form that synthesises literature, sculpture, music, rhythm and poetry into a single embodied language. In that sense, dance does not merely accompany civilisation. It carries it forward. She urged listeners to return to ancient epics and texts, not as relics frozen in time, but as repositories of wisdom that demand reinterpretation for the present and future.
The conversation stood out as one of the festival’s most intellectually and emotionally resonant sessions. Through a zigzag mind and her reflections at Nalanda, Sonal Mansingh reaffirmed a truth often obscured in contemporary cultural discourse. The path of discipline may appear winding, even severe, but when pursued with clarity, surrender and integrity, it leads not to fragmentation, but to coherence. In the quiet hills of Rajgir, that message found a receptive and reflective audience.
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