After two days, Bramho came and told me that Srinipen and I were the only ones who had been selected. I felt really bad as Bramho was the one who had convinced me to go for the audition in the first place. This together with the fact that the rehearsal timings would clash with my class timings at the Academy, made me decide not to join Uday Shankar’s troupe at that point of time. Bramho insisted that I go personally and inform them of my decision.

Despite feeling thoroughly uncomfortable with the task at hand, yet left with no other option, I went to 38, Golf Club Road again. This time I was met by Uday Shankar’s Manager Sri Anil Chatterjee. I informed him of my decision of not wanting to join the troupe without completing my studies at the Academy. Anilda (as I came to call him later), asked me to wait and went inside to tell Dada – as Uday Shankar was addressed by one and all, who knew him well. Anilda returned after conferring with Dada and asked me to rethink my decision as the tour of Africa was just around the corner; but I stood firm by my decision.

As I stood waiting for Anilda to return with Dada’s response, knowing that he was at home, filled me with an immense desire to meet him. I now put my request across to Anilda but was sternly informed Uday Shankar did not meet anyone without an appointment. Stubborn as I was and still am, I kept on pleading and telling him that I would not even speak to him. I just wanted to catch a glimpse of him and pay my respects.  After much beseeching, Anilda took pity and again went in to convey my request to Dada.

I waited outside in anxious anticipation. After a while Uday Shankar himself appeared. I felt I was standing in front of a demi-god. After glancing at his face, I could look only at his feet thereafter.  His penetrating eyes unnerved me. I felt as if his gaze could perceive my soul. When I summoned enough courage to look up, I found him standing before me with his hands together, greeting me with a Namaskar. I responded accordingly, for I had been told that Dada did not accept pronam – the traditional Indian way of paying respect to elders by touching their feet – from anyone. I again reiterated my reasons for not joining his troupe at that point of time. He inquired about my studies at the Academy, wished me well and asked me to join the troupe once I had completed my studies.

During my third and final year at the Academy in 1960, I came to know that on the occasion of Rabindranath Tagore’s birth centenary in 1961, Uday Shankar was preparing to pay homage to the Nobel Laureate poet through a ballet based on Tagore’s own poem, Samanya Kshati. He was once again recruiting troupe members for his new production. I approached Shankaranda (Prof. N. K. Shivashankaran) − who not only taught us Kathakali at the Academy, but had at one point of time been a member of Uday Shankar’s troupe – and asked him if there was any way I could join Dada’s troupe this time. Shankaranda wrote a letter and asked me to hand it over to Pappu Raghavan. As per Shankaranda’s instructions, I went in the evening, after my classes to Radha Film Studio in Tollygunge, Kolkata, where rehearsals for Samanya Kshati were being conducted.

Rehearsals were held from 1.00 pm in the afternoon to 8.00 pm in the evening, with a half an hour break at 4.00 pm and a 15-minute tea break at 6 pm. I had asked Shankaranda to put in a request to allow me to join the rehearsals from the second half i.e. from 4.30 pm. This would ensure that I did not miss out on my classes for the last remaining couple of months at the Academy. Raghavanda was skeptical whether such a request would be accepted. Nonetheless, he asked me to wait and went inside to consult Dada. After a while Raghavanda returned and escorted me inside Radha Studios to meet Dada.

Stepping inside Radha Studios was a life changing experience. I had never come across such a huge floor ever before in my life! Dada was seated in a chair dressed in black shorts and a white vest. When I went up to him, he asked me about the subjects that I was pursuing in my final year and asked me to demonstrate a few movements. Being a student of Kathakali, I naturally performed a Kalasam which is an integral part of any Kathakali dance item – the way I had been taught at the Academy. Raghavanda changed my perspective completely by demonstrating how the same Kalasam could be performed with bigger and bolder movements. It transformed the look of the Kalasam. Apart from this, I was asked to repeat a few movements after Raghavanda. On observing my movements, Dada not only asked me to join his troupe, but also permitted me to come in for the rehearsals during the second half till the time I completed my studies. This was something unheard of till then in Uday Shankar’s troupe. Dada then asked me to sit beside him and watch the rehearsals. I was feeling rather shy and awkward, but when Dada repeated himself, I promptly sat down beside him. After a while, I started feeling rather uncomfortable because I felt that I did not merit the honour of sitting beside him, and with his permission, I went and sat with the other dancers. This day proved to be a pivotal point in my life.

Although I did not want to accept any money as I was not putting in the requisite hours like the other troupe members, after completing a month, I was paid a sum of Rs. 75 as conveyance fees. I was very embarrassed and refused it for I viewed this as an opportunity to learn, not earn. However, I was told that Dada paid all his troupe members so that he could demand complete focus from them. He did not want his troupe members to be distracted by financial worries. And so quite unintentionally, my passion for dance, transformed into my profession of dance.

After joining Dada’s troupe, I continued with my classes at the Academy for almost 2 months, till their completion. This was probably one of the periods which saw me work the hardest. I used to leave home from Belghoria by train before 9 in the morning, reach Sealdah and then catch a bus to go to the Academy in Jorasanko for my classes. I would complete my classes at 4 in the evening and then rush to join Dada’s rehearsals from 4:30 pm. Rehearsals would finish at 8 in the evening, and by the time I reached home it would almost be 11 in the night. It was exhausting, but exhilarating!

Samanya Khsati was a path breaking endeavour as Tagore’s works that have traditionally been performed on stage have either been his dance-dramas or nrityanatya, dramas or natak, lyrical dramas or geetinatyo. Even in classical dance forms, whenever the dance item is composed to pure music, which does not have any lyrics, it usually takes the form of nruttya or pure dance, never nritya or natya.  Nritya and natya, depict the lyrics of the accompanying song. Dada however, without the help of any lyrics or narration, envisaged and presented through his dance form, the entire poem of Samanya Kshati, purely through instrumental music and elements of vocal humming.

 In the souvenir of Uday Shankar’s Tour of USA with his troupe in 1962, Dada wrote:

“I have long been cherishing the dream to present through dance the beauty, elegance, depth and spirit of Tagore’s ideas. The theme of Samanya Kshati inspired me. I worked it out in the form of a full length ballet, although I have been able to capture only a fraction of all that fired my imagination. And in order to round off the theme for the ballet I have tried, in my humble way, to visualize what would logically follow after the poet left off.”

The ballet used to open with a scene of the King’s court. Light effects would give the impression of a day dawning. The male servants would be the first to enter the scene. They would perform a few simple movements which made it evident that they were dusting and cleaning the court and getting it ready for the day. Once they exited, the chamardharinis or the women who fanned the King with special fans (chamars) traditionally made with yak tails, associated with royalty, power and also divinity, would enter and take their positions by the throne. Then entered the guards. Slowly the rest of the courtiers would arrive – the Minister of Finance, the Minister of Defence and the Prime Minister. A guard would enter while the ministers were consulting and announce the King’s arrival and the prime minister would get ready to welcome the King when he entered the court.

The distinct hierarchy of communication that was maintained throughout the court scene was noteworthy. Even the movements for the different characters were different in nature in order to bring out their differing roles. The Finance Minister was shown to be an elderly experienced man. Hence his movements were slow and steady. The Defence Minister’s movements were bold and slightly staccato in nature. The Prime Minister’s movements were very graceful and dignified.

The differentiation reflected through their movements was supplemented with the grandeur in their costumes, as well as the positions in which they stood. Their positions on stage, clearly demarcated their proximity to the King in the court. The scene would then proceed on to an everyday court scene where the King is shown to be enquiring about the welfare of his people, and the prime minister, after consulting the relevant ministers would respond to the King accordingly. Suddenly, an impression of a commotion would reach the court. The Defence Minister, after receiving orders from the King in the proper hierarchical order, would ask his guards to check what was happening outside. The guard would return to inform him that some poor villagers had come to meet the King. This would be conveyed to the King through the Prime Minister. With the King’s permission, again conveyed through the Prime Minister, the Defence Minister would ask the guards to allow the villagers to enter the court.

The crescendo, the pitch and the overall composition of this bit of music, together with the differing reactions of the different characters in the court – all subtle and tempered, yet managing to bring out the anxiousness caused by the suddenness of something unexpected, was choreographed brilliantly, and set up an anxious expectation among the audience of what was just about to unfold. The poor villagers, fearful and hesitant, finally related to the King the cruel act committed by the queen.

In the flashback the villagers would be portrayed to be making merry. The movements again told a story. A story of fun and frolic, a game of dice, a little flirting which led to a fist fight among the men, the village elderly who resolved the fight and finally where everyone again dances together. This narration through Dada’s own creative folk dance movements, told the story of the happy and carefree life of the poor villagers. The movements of the folk dance could not be identified as belonging to any region or province of India, but was undoubtedly folk in its style, liveliness and rigour; and inarguably Indian in essence. This happy scene was brought to an end with the abrupt entry of the sentinels and their announcement that the villagers have to clear away from the area as the queen would be coming down this path on her way to the river for her bath.

In the next scene, the sentry would be shown standing on guard. A maid would enter and ask the male guards to move away as the queen would be passing by. The slight coquettish glance of the maid and the response of the guards added a humorous aspect without the least bit of vulgarity. This knowledge of knowing where to draw the line, the fine balance between what would be overstepping and what would be evident, despite being depicted in an understated manner, is what made Uday Shankar the master that he was of his art form.

The next scene would depict the queen’s maids preparing the way for the queen to go to the river. Here, Dada added to Tagore’s description of the queen’s journey to the river with her hundred maids. To create an impression among the audience about the kind of pampering that the queen received, Dada, through a few simple yet unique and beautiful movements depicted how the maids inspected, cleaned and smoothened out the path for the queen; covered it with petals so that the queen would not hurt her feet; how the queen’s female bodyguards preceded her. The queen would then make her entry with all her maids in tow.

Once the queen reached the banks of the river, her initial hesitancy in taking a dip in the cold wintry morning, the haughty camaraderie that she shared with her maids, the frolicking – were all depicted through Dada’s own innovative movements. Once they dived into the water, the movements of the scene − created based on all the basic strokes of swimming were again of a story-telling nature, and because of their simplicity, understandable to one and all.

Once the queen emerged from the water, she started shivering in the cold. I can still recall very vividly the step Dada demonstrated to portray the queen stepping out of the water. It was so quintessentially feminine. In this one step, the queen and her maids were equal – they were all women in an enhanced state of shyness and consciousness as they stepped out of the water in their wet clinging garments. But once the queen had re-adorned herself in her regal finery, her movements changed into the previous royal and bold gestures. This is an example of the kind of attention that Dada paid to little details while choreographing.

Shivering uncontrollably in the cold northerly winds, the queen asked her maids to light a fire in order to lessen her chills. The maids went off in search of wood to the nearby forest and tugged down branches. Again an uncomplicated yet powerful movement depicted the force with which the maids are pulled down the boughs. But the queen in her impatience and thoughtlessness, asked the maids to light up a nearby hut. Malati, a maid, protested and implored the queen not to indulge in such a callous whim, but was driven away for having the audacity to question a royal diktat.

The queen then gleefully warmed herself in the licking flames of the fire, which now, with the strong winds had engulfed the entire village. The next scene was that of the fire dance. Probably one of the toughest and most rigorous dances in the ballet, this dance comprised movements which almost gave the feel of the fire spreading slowly and surreptitiously into a roaring uncontrollable rage. From a slow panther-like quiet, unsuspecting entry with a hint of the lurking danger, into a full- fledged ‘horse-step’ around the stage in a circle, to the dying out of the embers, depicted through small tinkering steps, this dance was probably one of Dada’s most novel compositions which gave a whole new meaning and embodiment to the term ‘dancing flames’.

Of course, Dada carried out a lot of experimentation in order to achieve what was finally presented. For example, initially, we used to begin the dance by lying on the floor on our backs with our heads towards the audience, and we would slowly bring up both our hands in a shimmering movement imitating the rising flames. But Dada was not happy with the effect and changed the entry to the panther-walk kind of a movement. In terms of dress too, we rehearsed the entire night before our first show as Dada was not happy with our costume for the fire dance. According to him, it did not reinforce the imagery that he had in mind. After a couple of costume changes Dada finally decided that the best look which would enhance the fire dance entailed a bare torso, red dhotis and white, square chiffon handkerchiefs.  These square chiffon handkerchiefs were about one and a half feet on each side. They were tied to one of our fingers on both hands. This, together with the lighting and the projection of flames on the background screen gave the effect that Dada had desired. And truly, along with Ustad Ali Akbar’s sarod and Ustad Alla Rakha’s tabla, the entire dance took on a completely new form and ingrained in the mind of the audience the enormity of the massive fire and the colossal damage that left the entire village charred; and the poor villagers, homeless.

The next scene saw the villagers lamenting their loss. Some of the aggrieved villagers decided to report the queen’s cruel sport and merciless act to the King. Laxmi Shankar’s humming and vocals in this scene moved the audience as well as the dancers to tears.

The flashback ended here. The court scene would restart with sudden bright lights and continue from the scene where a poor villager was seen narrating the incident to the King − seated at his feet. The King left the court in a huff – angered and ashamed by the act of his unfeeling queen. Dada used a single movement of the shoulder to express his anger. Nonetheless, it left the audience in no doubt of the emotion that was being expressed. Dada did not resort to the use of mudras to express anger – instead he used his body language to express this emotion. The court scene then dissolved with the Prime Minister giving leave to the ministers and the courtiers and all others present in the court in accordance with their rank. This is another shining example of the kind of detail that Dada paid attention to.

The queen’s chamber is where the next scene was set. The queen and her maids are seen in a happy mood, dancing away, completely oblivious to the devastation their mindless and irresponsible action had caused. The choreography of this dance was very lively since it had to reflect that the queen was completely unrepentant and had not realized the gravity of her act; but the difference in the liveliness between the folk dance and this dance was brought about by the use of very stylized almost neo-classical, decorative movements from Dada’s own creative style.

The sudden entrance of the King left the queen and her maids in a questioning mood, as to the reason for his untimely presence. On hearing the King’s censure, the queen responded with a laugh berating the King for even considering those huts to be homes and adding that they were nothing compared to the price that was usually paid for an hour of the queen’s pleasure. Dada’s movements in this scene reminded me of a dormant volcano. The restrained anger, when ordering the queen be stripped of her finery, the long walk to the palace gates from the inner chambers, and then finally ordering the queen to beg from door to door and get enough money to rebuild the destroyed huts within a year, are till date unparalleled. Finally, the scene where the King stops the maids from accompanying the queen is a unique illustration of how a dancer can use his body and express a complex emotion through a simple yet bold and powerful movement. There would be an interval at this juncture.

The ballet returned with the scene where the queen passes through a market. For the first time, she realizes the value of money. She is stunned with pain when a thorn pricks her. She orders a passing woman to pull it out. The woman scorns her and tells the queen to do it herself; and leaves. The queen limps along. The dark, eerie night brings with it an experience of rising fear. Storm, thunder and lightning makes the night even more ferocious. Her dread swells to panic when she sees a dead body being carried away.

Exhausted and desperately hungry, she gets to eat when kind travelers share their food with her. She is shocked at the sight of robbers swooping down on her benefactors. She is aggrieved and breaks down. Destiny however drags her weary feet to the site of the burnt-down village. The sight rocks her with pain and despair, as she drops down from sheer fatigue. In her disturbed sleep, her tortured subconscious mind rocks her with gruesome visions of the past. She awakens. With a tormented soul, her assurance is gone. And at the borderline of life and death, when she does not know what to do, a Sadhu is heard approaching. She throws herself at his feet. The venerable person consoles her, gives her spiritual solace.

The queen assumes a new personality in her humility and devotion as she begins to beg. She goes on begging from place to place. Days pass, months roll on, but the queen sticks to her mission. The next scene sketches the night of approaching winter. Villagers are clustered near their burnt-down huts. The queen comes and observes their misery with an aching heart. They see her and become hostile when they recognize her. An old man bids them to be silent. The queen then reveals that she has brought money to rebuild the huts.

Huts are rebuilt amidst great rejoicing. As the huts rise again, the year is about to end. The queen wants to go to the court. The villagers garb her in their best clothes and lead her to the palace. The King and ministers receive the queen. She humbly confesses the realization of the great mistake she has committed in burning down the huts of the poor. What she had lost in her selfishness and arrogance, she now gains back through her humility – the warmth of everyone’s love and affection.

Amala Shankar, whom we used to call Boudi, portrayed the part of the queen magnificently. Once our dances were over, we used to sit and wait for her part to begin. Her abhinaya, which reflected the grandeur of the queen, her skill as a dancer, her graceful yet powerful movements, left me awestruck. She had the capacity to light up the stage with her movements especially so, with her first entry on stage, after the maids had prepared the way for her to go to the river. I had never come across such stage presence before, apart from Dada’s of course. A complete artist, she was also the one who designed the costumes, the background paintings for different slides and designed the cover of the brochure of Samanya Kshati.

Ravi Shankar’s music was also perhaps equally important in making Samanya Kshati the success that it became. In Ravi Shankar’s own words, “Poet Rabindranath Tagore’s works have always stirred me and provided spiritual and aesthetic inspiration. And when Dada asked me to score music for the ballets based on Gurudev’s poems, I was fully aware of the great responsibility imposed on the musical creation to maintain the dignity, grandeur and lyrical beauty of the original. The results had, furthermore, to be achieved through the abstract medium of music in the absence of words or songs, and through Indian instruments. I had, however, employed melodic and rhythmic counter-points to bring out the conflicting emotional undercurrents, which should not be mistaken as usage of Harmony in the Western sense.” The guest musicians for Samanya Kshati included none other than Ustad Ali Akbar, Ustad Alla Rakha, Smt. Laksmi Shankar and Pandit Shiv Kumar Sharma.  Apart from them, Dada’s own team of musicians also worked very hard to make this production a success.

The stagecraft used for this ballet was also a novelty for me. A huge sheet of black net, without a single stitch visible on it, was set up midway in the stage, parallel to the front curtain and the screen at the back. The net divided the stage into two parts and added depth to it. The court scenes were performed behind the net, giving it a distant surreal look. The other scenes were performed in front of the net. The court scene used to be ready behind the net at all times but the lighting was conducted so deftly that while the scenes in the front stage were being enacted, the court scene behind the net would not be visible. The beginning and ending of the flashback would occur instantaneously by merely lighting up the different parts of the stage.

Dada used his own lights for his productions. He used dimmers not only to demarcate the beginning and end of each scene, but also to determine the power and strength of the lights that he wanted for each scene. We used to have our rehearsals with lights, and during these rehearsals, the dimmer controls would be marked, so that the required strength and power of light was always the same for every show, and would create the exact effect that Dada had visualized for the scene. These dimmers and light controls were handled by Dada’s musicians – those who were part of his staff. The music of Samanya Kshati had been pre-recorded, as a result, the musicians who had worked on the music, were well versed with it, and knew the exact musical cue on which various lights were to be handled. In fact the lighting for one of the scenes in the second half of the ballet baffled Tapas Sen − a master in the art of lighting − so much that he inspected the stage quite a few times after our performances to understand the source of the light.  The scene in question was towards the end of the ballet, where the villagers are shown huddled around in front of their burnt down houses. The light that glowed in the centre of the small circle of villagers and reflected a warm red glow on the faces of the villagers, emanated from a portable light that was brought on the stage by one of the dancers. There was a thick, long, black cable attached to this light, but in the dim light on the stage, this was not visible to the audience. Once the dancers were seated in their positions on stage, the dimmers would slowly brighten up this red light. The effect created was that of the villagers warming themselves in the glow of a small fire.

Another impressionable scene was the one where the queen was tormented by her past deeds and suffered nightmares. The nightmares would be enacted in the portion of the stage behind the black net under a spotlight. Dada, in the garb of the King would perform a few gestures expressing the King’s displeasure with the Queen – this was a nightmare that haunted the queen for never before had she had to bear the brunt of the King’s anger.

We had continuous shows of Samanya Kshati at Mahajati Sadan for one and a half months. There used to be one evening show on weekdays and two shows during the weekends, on both Saturdays and Sundays – one at 3pm in the afternoon and the other at 6 pm in the evening. For our shows at Mahajati Sadan where Dada first staged Samanya Kshati in 1961, the programme would begin with Tagore’s song “Prothomo Adi Tobo Shakti”. This would be followed by another song by the poet, “Hey Mor Chittyo Purno Tirtho”. The third song would be “Jayo Tabo Bichitro Anando”. These songs were rendered beautifully by students of the State Academy of Dance Drama and Music, under the guidance of the then Dean, Faculty of Music, Ramesh Chandra Bandopadhya and Maya Sen, who was a Professor on Tagore’s Music in the same university. But the best part of the songs probably lay in the way they were presented.

The songs were all pre-recorded. Nevertheless, a group of dancers, posing as singers would stand on the right and left balconies on either side of the stage. The lights would first illuminate the group on the right balcony. They would lip sync to the first song. Immediately after they finished, lights would focus on the group in the left balcony. They would lip sync to the second song. The front curtains of the stage would rise towards the end of the second song, and once the second song finished all the lights would be dimmed and the third song would commence. This song was accompanied by a short film featuring Tagore and Uday Shankar together, shot in Shantiniketan. This film was projected on the back screen of the stage. These three songs would be followed by a short ballet called Udara Charitanam based on Tagore’s poem by the same name. The original poem consisting of 4 lines reads:

Prachirer Chidre Ek Naam Gotra Heen,

Phutiaachhe chhoto phool atishoy deen.

Dhik – dhik kore tare kanone shobai,

Surjyo utthi bole tare bhalo aacho bhai?

A summary of the poem would read as: A small and insignificant flower had grown in a crack of the garden walls. And while all the other inhabitants of the garden treated it with disdain, the Sun in all its glory greeted it and asked after it in the morning.

That a ballet could be choreographed on such a simple yet touching quatrain, had to be seen to be believed. Ravi Shankar composed the music for this ballet too along with Samanya Kshati. This ballet would be performed solely by the girls.

This was followed by the staging of Samanya Kshati. But this format of presentation was only adopted for the shows at Mahajati Sadan in Kolkata. We also performed Samanya Kshati at Tagore’s birth centenary celebrations held at Rabindra Kanan at Beadon Street. This is where Tagore’s birth anniversary celebrations were held originally, unlike at Rabindra Sadan, where they are now held every year.

From Delhi, we went to Jaipur. An incident in Jaipur during our performance showcased what Dada’s teamwork was all about. While the performance was going on, the sound system went off due to a technical snag. The entire group on stage continued performing in the same synchronized manner that they normally would have, without any music until the curtains were dropped. Once the problem was restored, the show continued from where it had stopped. Not a single dancer left the stage during this mishap. They stood in their positions and resumed their dance from where the music began again. This was the level of proficiency and discipline among Dada’s team members.

From Jaipur we returned to Kolkata and again performed Samanya Kshati, but this time at New Empire for seven straight days. We then began our tour of Western India. We toured for more than a month covering the cities of Bombay, Pune, Nagpur and Ahmedabad.  Once we returned to Kolkata, we began touring nearby places like Burdwan, Katoah, Kalna, Shiuri, etc. During one of the evenings of this tour, while we were attending a high tea near the dam at Massanjore, Dada suddenly said out aloud, “Shanti, tomake aamar khub dorkar!” (Shanti, I need you very much!”) I was not only astonished at Dada’s words, but being the youngest of the male dancers, I was also rather embarrassed. I looked down hastily, and when I looked up, I found everyone staring at me.  Dada’s affection and attention towards me was evident to me even during our rehearsals for Samanya Kshati. He used to call me and bid me sit beside him and say, “Keep your eyes and ears open. Notice carefully what I’m doing, what I’m saying and try to understand the reason for my saying so.” As a young dancer, who had just passed out of college and joined Dada, I was at a loss to understand the full implication of what he was saying. But I tried to do as he instructed. The realization struck me much later, that it was Dada’s way of preparing and nurturing me for the role that he later appointed me in − as the Ballet Master of his troupe. Samanya Kshati was my first production with Dada, and I was simply awestruck with everything that I saw and experienced.