RHYTHMS OF THE HOUSE

In a four-storey building in south Delhi, there is an artiste on every floor.

- PARAMITA GHOSH

N a four-storey building in south Delhi, there is an artiste on every floor. Each of them has his or her 'territory', individual practice rooms with presiding deities and different peak hours of introspection and creativity. But there is also a coming together for creative exploration, experimentation, and a shared life of the arts. Living together in the same space works, not because they are family, but because they are a family of artistes.

This is the home of Kathak gurus Vaswati Misra and her elder sister Saswati Sen, who famously danced Kathak before Amjad Khan's Wajed Ali Shah in Satyajit Ray's Shatranj ke Khilari. Vaswati and her husband, Pandit Krishan Mohan Misra, son of Shambhu Maharaj, who brought Kathak to Delhi, and their daughter and son-in-law occupy two floors. Saswati's space is connected to her sister's in the floor above by a beautiful wooden staircase, which starts from a cosy sit-in area separated from her living room by an open cabinet on which sit rows of Ganeshas.