A LIFE DEDICATED TO DANCE

In the early morning hours of Sunday, September 19, 2004, the renowned Kathak dancer, Damayanti Joshi, breathed her last. Nearly a year before that, she had a stroke. When I got to know about it I went to visit her along with Neela Bhagwat, the well-known singer. Her small frame lay twisted and she could not speak. One could not make out if she recognised anyone. There were two nurses taking care of her and they said that she recognised only the two of them. I went close to her ears and whispered, "Damayantiji, you still have to write your autobiography. Get well soon." She stared back and her big eyes seemed to brighten up a little. Or was it my imagination?

The Sound of Jingles
In 1998 Damayanti Joshi took part in a visual history workshop organised by SPARROW. She talked about her life and her commitment to dance, to a group of students. It was a one-day workshop and in a soft voice Damayanti spoke to Neela Bhagwat about her life as a dancer. Damayanti was a frail little four-year-old when she was attracted to the sound of jingles. Her mother Vatsala Joshi was an artist but the orthodox atmosphere in her family did not allow her to pursue her interest in music. But she used to sneak out and learn music from Sharada Bhate who taught the harmonium. But early marriage and early widowhood put an end to her dreams. After the death of her father, her family abandoned her to fend for herself and her child. Vatsala began to go out to give tuitions in embroidery and tailoring. Damayanti was left in the care of neighbours. Early in life Damayanti learnt to be on her own. A child in the neighbourhood was learning dance from Pandit Sitaram Prasad. As soon as she heard, the sound of jingles, Damayanti would run to that house, stand outside and watch.

Pandit Sitaram Prasad was associated with dancer Menaka at this time. Menaka had lost a child ten days after birth and was keen to adopt a girl to whom she could pass on her creative ambitions. After much persuasion Vatsala agreed to make Menaka Damayanti's guardian. She refused to give the child in adoption saying, "Let us share this child. Let her have two mothers." Menaka agreed. Like child Krishna, Damayanti too had two mothers.

Initiation into Dance
Damayanti was a frail child. As Menaka brought in Damayanti, Menaka's husband, Colonel Sokhey remarked, "Why have you taken this girl? She is so weak. How is she going to dance?" "Why then have you become a doctor?" she retorted. A strict regimen of eating, exercise and education began for Damayanti. In 1936, Damayanti went with Menaka on her performance trip abroad. Unfortunately Menaka did not live long enough to nourish Damayanti's dancing career. But growing up with her, Damayanti met many different artistes and scholars and her perspective on dance and life was shaped with great care by Menaka. After Menaka's death, Vatsala and Damayanti began living in a one-room apartment in Dadar, which became their private fort. With the death of her mentor Menaka who initiated her into the life of a performing artiste, began days of struggle for Damayanti and her mother. Damayanti was performing, learning and studying in college. Colonel Sokhey was supporting her education but performing artistes were not held in great esteem at this time and Damayanti and her mother were two women on their own with the daughter determined to establish herself as a dancer. Damayanti's mother Vatsala became her armour in dealing with the world and the vagaries of the life of a performing artiste.

Freeing Kathak
In the course of her conversation on the day of the workshop, she often referred to the terms dignity and respectability. Pioneering artistes like Damayanti and others from non-performing families had brought Kathak out of the court ambience. There was a great need for these artistes to divest Kathak of all the elements associated with the court Damayanti's entire dancing career, one can say, was centred on this concern to make Kathak a dance performed outside the court. Certain exaggerated gestures like biting the lips or raising the eyebrows unnecessarily were totally avoided by Damayanti. She stressed the fact that she never did bhav sitting down, for, it has an association with the court or the private dancing halls. She liked to do her bhav standing. Nor did she ever use sarangi as an accompaniment for it was traditionally associated with the court and private hall dancers. The traditional court dancer used to wear churidhar pyjamas with an angarka and a cap. Damyanti wore such a costume occasionally but she mostly wore saris and ghagras and the sari became her main costume later. The ghagras she wore were similar to the ones worn by women in miniature paintings, which allowed easy circling movements. Damayanti began to learn Kathak from Pandit Sitaram Prasad initially who belonged to the Lucknow gharana. Later she learnt from Lachchu Maharaj, the legendary Kathak guru who also belonged to the Lucknow gharana. In course of time she learnt from all the three brothers, Achchan Maharaj, Lachchu Maharaj and Shambu Maharaj. She also learnt from Gauri Shankar, a Jaipur gharana guru who had been with the Menaka Indian Ballet. Many other gurus willingly came home to teach her and compose for her. She collected from different sources a variety of different aspects of dance and music to blend them and evolve a Kathak style of her own.

New spaces in Dance
Damayanti was famous for both her layakari or the rhythmic aspect and bhav or exposition of moods. Lachchu Maharaj was famous for his bhav and Damayanti learnt that aspect from him. The knowledge of layakari she imbibed from Bhola Shreshta who, despite his initial resistance, taught her generously later. He was not a dancer and so while he played the complicated patterns on the tabla, Damayanti reproduced them in her footwork and translated them into the idiom of dance. Damayanti was probably the only dancer at that time who ventured into such complicated, mathematical calculations of rhythm. She could dance with ease in the pancha jati tal or five different rhythmic combinations. She was famous for her compositions Sur Sundari and Ashta Nayika. Ritha Chatterjee once wrote that Damayanti had brought to Kathak "flowing lines and sculpturesque poses." But Damayanti's nimble feet and graceful tapering fingers lay inert in the last days of her life. One does not know what was going on in her mind when her body betrayed her thus. Surrounded by her photographs on the walls in various dance poses, one is sure she must have silently been uttering some complicated bols, for dance was the only thing that mattered to her. Damayanti spoke constantly about the autobiography that she was planning to write. Had she written it, it would have recreated an entire era of dance and dancers who dared to dance on stage when they were expected to stay at home. It is sad that she did not get down to writing it Living alone in an old housing complex in Dadar, the one fear that haunted her was that her compositions will be taken over by others and that people she did not trust would write her biography quoting her. One reason why she wanted to write her autobiography was to counter these efforts which she saw as efforts to "defame her."

We live during times when to make it to the front page one has to be a brigand or a scammer. Deaths of people like Damayanti who lived an entire life dedicated to a dance form happen quietly and in utter loneliness and don't make it to any English newspapers. The news of her death appeared in the inside page of a Marathi newspaper. One is sure she would have preferred it otherwise. All her performing photographs and brochures were packed and kept right under the cot on which she lay until her death.