BENGALURU: Three days ago G Ulaganathan and I met at my show and later went out for dinner. On June 23, he was supposed to come for my student Kavya’s 115th show and he wanted to see how the production was reworked. And on my way to the programme, I got a call saying he is no more. Many of us artistes are still in shock.
I have known sir for seven-eight years. I remember him as a straightforward, to-the-point kind of person, who used to tell me how exactly I could improve and would give me proper feedback. One of the important things that he taught me was how to be diplomatic and at the same time say what had to be said.
Every time he met me, he asked about my upcoming shows and productions. He used to ask me to call him and after every show, he would give me feedback. Apart from that, he also asked me about the idea behind choreography or productions to get the right perspective. You could see that he was very involved with the art form. It’s not like he did it as a job, it was his passion.
Three days ago when I met him, he told me, “Mithun, I want to come to your class and write something about your upcoming production.” It was very unfortunate that he passed away so suddenly. We don’t have many journalists like him. He used to call a spade a spade. If he didn’t like something, he would point it out with constructive feedback. Many dance critics are quite negative and brutal in their feedback, where they put the artistes down. But in his case, he used to mention the things that had scope for improvement to guide dancers the right way.
He was very well-read and closely interacted with the artistes. So when he called me up after a show, he would ask very nuanced questions – when you have interactions like that, you tend to learn a lot. Even though a very knowledgeable person himself, he used to learn a lot from those interactions too.
Having come across so many artistes, he never demeaned upcoming artistes. He used to have the same approach to young upcoming dancers the way he would have with a senior dancer. He has been working for so many years and he never limited himself to writing only about senior artistes. The void he left can’t be filled.
(As told to Monika Monalisa)