As the daughter of an army officer, Surupa Sen lived in different parts in the country — but had for long been obsessed with one particular state. It was her love for a classical dance form that drew Surupa to Orissa. The eminently fluid movements and elegant frozen postures of Odissi beckoned her to the eastern Indian territory; she even kept threatening her family with running away to Lord Jagannath’s land.
Finally, when she did manage to find her Odissi guru, Surupa didn’t have to become a castaway of sorts. A serene dance school had come up off Bangalore when she had just completed her graduation. Dashing Protima Gauri had started Nrityagram in the scenic Hessaraghatta — in 1990. Surupa’s family — including her two siblings — hailed her decision; the generally regimented mindset of military men only ensured that the young girl in the Bengali family was told to never give up on a task once undertaken.
A talented Surupa proved her parents right — much to the pride of her unconventional tutor too. She tenaciously held on to her art, excelling in it. And never quite left Nrityagram. In fact, she is now the creative director of her alma mater, where she had enrolled in as a first-batch student almost two decades ago.
That was a time when Surupa was just out of college. “I was at a crossroads in my life. And I instantly fell in love with the place,” she trails off, narrating her first visit to Nrityagram. But then the quietude of the scenic campus wasn’t her lone attraction. There was also her teacher — Protima has been one of her biggest influences in her life. “She is one of those life-altering characters, she left an indelible impact in my life,” Surupa says about the Delhi-born model-turned-dancer, who died as a Kailash pilgrim in a 1998 landslide in the Himalayas at the age of 50.
Curiously, Protima spoke about death — in a different context, though. “She once said,’’ recalls Surupa, “that she only wanted dancers who would die if they did not dance.” Protima’s frontline disciple has very much imbibed that courage and spirit. “I should admit a large part of me would perish if I were to give up dance today,” she notes.
But has that dance form to be necessarily Odissi? Surupa has a broad yet pointed answer to that. Her family background helped the artiste find her way to Odissi and adapt to the dance form. “Being an army man’s daughter gave me extraordinary exposure to various places and people. It made me very open. I have no special allegiance to any single culture,” she shrugs, and then adds with a laugh, “I (even) think like a South Indian.”
Not surprising, given that she has made Karnataka her home for quite a while now. In fact, lately Surupa does not have to travel far to visit her parents — they are settled in Bangalore. A mention about their support overwhelms her. “See, the concept of riyaz (practice) came from my parents themselves. My mother, a danseuse till she married, said that once I chose to be an artiste I could not pack up my bags and quit after two years,” she explains. Surupa’s father too backed the tip. Overall, “my parents were as excited as I was when I joined Nrityagram.”
Life at the residential Odissi institute was rigorous — it still is; Surupa wants it to be so. The gurukul routine guarantees that there is “no getting away from dance”. The demanding schedule “is a way of life” that Surupa can no more live without. Their activities are such that even seemingly unrelated things only add up to working towards perfecting their dancing skills. At Nrityagram, whether she is planting trees or working at the office, Surupa never worries that she is dancing too little because she knows she is never really far from it. “Only when I’m outside, I get worried that they (Nrityagram inmates) are doing more than me,” she guffaws. Jokes aside, one needs only to visit a workshop she conducts to see how disciplined Surupa is even outside her dance school.
Like most gurukuls, Nrityagram does not charge its students. But the winds of change seem to be blowing. Several batches of its dancers have passed out, and none are quite ready to take on the mantle after she and fellow artiste
Bijayini Satpathy (director of Nrityagram) leave. “There is a huge attrition rate because the glamour apart, many seem unable to handle the art of dance. They quit the field in a matter of years, if not months,” says Surupa.
That partly cracks the chemistry she shares with Bijayini on stage — where the duo, as a critic memorably noted, “dance as if they are one breath, as if this is what life means for them”. Surupa reasons, “For us, this is our religion, our life.” Yet, off the stage — in classrooms — she has a grievance. “The level of investment (of time and labour in Nrityagram) is so high, but what we get in return is very little. The students don’t pay (fees), so they just don’t seem to take it seriously either.”
For the traditional Odissi aesthete, the Surupa-Bijayini pair is “contemporary”. Surupa doesn’t seem to mind that tag. “Choreographically, my sensibilities are very present-day. But I have not learned anything else. If someone says I am not doing Odissi, then I don’t know what else it is.” That streak of openness and mischief cannot but remind one of the gay abandon with which Protima always led her life. Then, in a passing moment of meditation, Surupa adds, “I feel her presence all the time in my Nrityagram.”
— dakkum@gmail.com
As one of Protima Gauri’s frontline disciples, Surupa has imbibed the grit and spirit of the late artiste. “She oncesaid she only wanted pupils who would die if they didn’t dance,’’ the pupil recalls. ‘‘I should admit a large part of me would perish if I were to give up dance today.’’ The regimen in her dance school is still classically rigorous. ‘‘It has to be a way of life’’