Today, arangetrams have become social melas'

A conversation with Delhi's well-known artiste Geeta Chandran, to mark the 50th anniversary of her journey as an artiste and a dance guru

- SAMYUKTA NINAN

ON October 25, in 1974, Geeta Chandran (then Ramakrishnan), as a young girl of 12, took the stage for her Arangetram, marking the beginning of a journey that has spanned five decades. Chandran has nurtured and promoted Bharatanatyam not just as a dancer but also as a Guru. To celebrate this momentous anniversary, Natya Vriksha, her dance institution, recently organised a two-day Bharatanatyam extravaganza at Kamani Auditorium. Excerpts from a conversation on her life and journey:

How did you engage with the Guru Shishya Parampara as a young girl and did you feel you had to be responsible about it? The magic of childhood is that there is no burden. I only listened to my mother, and she told me that my dance Guru was an exalted person, and so I respected and feared her equally. The burden of legacy, tradition, Parampara, all came much much later.

The innocence of childhood merges with the fabulous energy of adolescence. There was no intellectualization of process nor any faltu chip on the shoulder. One only absorbed what one was taught.

Like blotting paper, really.