Shanta Serbjeet Singh Veteran Writer And Critic

Shanta Serbjeet Singh Veteran Writer And Critic

- Ashish Khokar

Shanta Serbjeet Singh made a significant contribution to Indian performing arts as writer, critic and adviser. Born in Deolali, Nasik, on 11 January 1936, she was the youngest of seven children— four boys and three girls—who grew up in the army environs that father was posted to.

“From childhood, Shanta had a predilection for reading and spinning yarns,” recalls her teenage friend Laila Kabir Fernandez (daughter of Humayun Kabir and wife of George Fernandez). “We met on the first day, first class when we were 12 going on 13.”

Shanta graduated in English from Calcutta University, and got her Masters in International Relations from the University of California, U.S.A. Thus equipped, she once said: “When I returned to India in the 1960s, I was very qualified but unemployable! My first job was at SPAN magazine of the United States Information Service, under the American Embassy (since I was America returned!) and the first person I was sent to interview was a painter called Serbjeet Singh whom I eventually married.”

She got an opportunity to write on films for the Economic Times, which opened up avenues for her to serve on many juries, travel, write columns on art and cover the cultural scene. She then served as dance critic for The Hindustan Times for decades. Shanta did not claim to know deeply about any dance form, yet her writing craft was so developed that her reviews were read for her style. Her writings ought to be digitised as a record of a first rate wordsmith.