Kathak king took art to higher plane with matchless grace, fluidity

Nonika Singh

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He epitomised dance in every pore of his being. Kathak doyen Brij Mohan Nath Mishra, popularly known as Pandit Birju Maharaj, an exponent of the Kalka-Bindadin gharana of Lucknow and recipient of India’s second highest civilian honour Padma Vibhushan, breathed his last on Monday. But the life and energy he enthused into the dance form will always remain unmatched.

Also read: He blended aestheticism into Kathak

Born into a family of artistes, tracing their lineage to generations of performing arts, he was trained not only by his father maestro Acchan Maharaj, whom he lost when he was barely nine, but equally influenced by his renowned uncles Shambhu Maharaj and Lacchu Maharaj. He would call it “triveni” of influence, “Ganga, Jamuna, Saraswati coming together in me.” Katha kahey so kathak kehlaaye… Kathak, the dance form of story-telling with its natural postures, he opined was organically open to innovations. Only he lent new expression to this evocative dance form sans gimmickry.

From full-length mythological and historical dance-dramas such as Katha Raghunath Ki, Krishnayan, Darbar-e-Salaami and Shaahi Mehfil, he naturally moved to abstract compositions such as Naad Gunjan, Ghunghru Sangeet and Laya Parikrama.

Dancer, poet, painter, singer and percussionist, he felt at home in all art forms and dubbed them as his “relatives”. No wonder, he was in perfect unison while performing with other artistes, be it flamenco dancers, ghazal singer Jagjit Singh, tabla maestro Ustad Zakir Hussain or Thumri queen Girija Devi.

Nature for him was the biggest dancer of all in which every being resonated with a rhythmic sensibility. Only he sought rhythm even in inanimate objects and created dance pieces around nebulous concepts like editing too. His mathematical tihaais became a new lesson in the lexicon of Kathak.

As brilliant a performer as adept a teacher; he taught at the Shriram Bharatiya Kala Kendra and the Sangeet Natak Akademi’s Kathak Kendra from where he retired in 1998. Later, he started his own dance school Kalashram. He may have trained many superstars like Madhuri Dixit (Devdas) and Deepika Padukone (Bajirao Mastani), but he will always be the undisputed superstar of Kathak.

He may have deemed that women dancers are endowed with natural beauty and male dancers have to work twice as hard to achieve the same grace. But he defied gender binaries, enraptured one and all as he became Radha on stage with effortless ease and fluidity.

To remain a student till his last breath was his wistful desire. His inimitable dancing style that imbibed tradition and innovation in equal measure would be a referral point for generations to come.