Posted:
Over sixty years of training students from all over the world, with about 60,000 students in all, Kathak Legend Sitara Devi must have set a world record as an instructor, opines her student for ten years Nilaanjana who has been learning Kathak from Sitara Devi as well as her daughter Kathak guru Jayanti Mala Mishra.
Speaking exclusively to IndyaNewz.com, about her experiences learning Kathak under Sitara Devi, Nilaanjana says, "We were always scared of Bade Guruji - Sitara Devi was addressed as Bade Guruji by her students who would address her daughter Jayanti Mala Mishra as Guruji."
"While Guruji was a bit lenient at times, when it came to mastering Kathak, Bade Guruji would not compromise at all. She was a perfectionist and expected all her students to be completely and wholly perfect in every way. She was a very tough task master and would not even spare her favorite grand daughter Sona (Rishika Mishra) who was also scared of her when it came to learning Kathak. She would notice even the minutest mistake and make us repeat the entire sequence over and over again till we got each and every small movement or nuance perfect."
A recipient of prestigious awards like Sangeet Natak Akademi Award, Padma Shri and Kalidas Samman, she was born Dhannolakshmi in the family of Brahmin 'kathakar' Sukhdev Maharaj in Kolkata in 1920. When she turned 11, the family moved to Mumbai, where she impressed Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore with a three-hour solo recital. So impressed was Tagore with her performance, that he gave her the title Nritya Samragini, meaning the empress of dance, after watching her performance when she was just 16 years old. Over the next six decades, she became a Kathak legend and is known as a pioneering force in bringing the genre to Bollywood.
Recalling some of her first experiences with Sitara Devi or Bade Guruji as she was addressed by all her students, Nilaanjana says, "She was very hot-tempered and would get angry very quickly if her students did not do as told or were not paying attention. In the later years, even though she was not able to stand on her own, she would use her crutches or walking stick to prop herself up and demonstrate the correct form and motion of the steps. While she was a perfectionist, and would scold and yell at her students if they made mistakes, she was a great motivator on stage. Just before a performance, she would motivate and pump up the entire team. Her favourite line was: your bodies will deteriorate with age, but only your art will stay with you forever. And true to her words, Sitara Devi is not so much remembered for her great figure and body - she was a very good looking woman during her time and had thousands of admirers - but she is remembered for her legendary Kathak performances. Sitara Devi has a record of sorts when she performed for over 11 hours non-stop without resting or even stopping for a moment. She always dared us to better her record. She daughter Kathak Guru Jayanti Mala has inherited some of her traits and can perform for hours non-stop."
Cricket
Naagin 7
1