Predominantly the competence of women, dance has ruled our culture and tradition for long. But then, men will be men. And their curiosity cannot be controlled. So when Shridhar, displayed his excellence in Bharatanatyam, many were impressed and so was his to-be wife Anuradha. Today, together, they form a dancing couple creating a fine blend of classical rigour and technical virtuosity. Shridhar, who has also carved a niche for himself as a good actor says that initially, there was no difference between dancing and acting. “As a child artist, I used to do drama and was always into my own form of dancing, which went on for few years. Whenever I went out, my acting and dancing got noticed and it was when I entered my teenage, that I started leaning towards classical dance, mainly because of my guru Radha Sridhar,” said Sridhar. “My passion to dance was mainly because it connected to the Indian heritage. I slowly reduced my outings in drama as I had to give time for my engineering studies and it became very difficult as a student to give time for both,” he added.
But he persisted and was awarded the young best dancer by the Sangeetha Nritya Academy in the year 1982. When 21, and in his final year of degree, director Puttana Kanagal spotted him for his film, Amrutha Ghalige.
“He got to know about my activities in drama and dancing and showed interest in meeting me. At one stage, I even wanted to enrol myself into National School of Drama but my father advised me to complete my engineering. It was a tough decision. At that time, the director wanted me to play the main role in Amrutha Ghalige,” said Sridhar, adding, “I was a bit scared because I came from a conservative family and cinema as we all knew, was a big game of luck. I never thought of cinema as an option. But my father was a big support.”
Today, Sridhar has done 50 movies and donned the hero role in 35 of them, winning many awards, along with the Karnataka State Film Award for best actor for the film Santha Sishunala Sahrif.
Ask him about to the evolution of his dance skills on screen, and he states, “I used to always carry my cassette and tape recorder to the locations. Even my colleagues witnessed my dancing at temples and mantaps.” He later mastered the Kalakshetra style under the tutelage of guru M R Krishnamurthy and Krishnaveni Lakshmanan. His wife, Anuradha too graduated from Kalakshetra. “I always wanted to marry a classical dancer and I knew Anu was the right companion. Today even my daughter, Anagha Gowri, who is now getting into II PUC, is a good dancer,” he said. Sridhar is now pursuing a doctorate and has submitted his thesis to the Hampi University and one of the important topics that he has delved is on the social cultural problems as to why boys don’t get into dance. “As I know, for a long period, Bharathyanatyam was a domain of devadasis. Even now society feels Bharathanatyam is meant for girls.”