Dance like a man: Remembering the remarkable Mohan Khokar

The birth centenary of a remarkable Punjabi, Mohan Khokar, is being celebrated across India — in Delhi, several dancers came together to pay tribute to him recently. Khokar (1924-1999) was not just an archivist of the arts, with arguably the most comprehensive collection spanning 50 years, but was also a writer, photographer and administrator.

Born in Quetta in 1924 into a Sikh family, Khokar’s forebears had been given land by Maharaja Ranjit Singh; the village was called Khokar. His grandfather was an official in the British government.

The devastating earthquake of 1935 destroyed large parts of Quetta. Khokar, barely 11 years old, had a camera and was overwhelmed by the visuals he suddenly found himself surrounded by. He took vivid photos of the destruction, which had a deep impact on his mind. Understanding the transient nature of life itself, he sought refuge in beauty and dance.

The experience of the quake overwhelmed the family, forcing it to move to Lahore. Here, his experience of the arts was much deeper. At the time, Lahore was the cultural capital of North India and artistes from all over flocked for opportunities of performance and recognition. In those days, incomes did not permit hotel stays, nor was the infrastructure so developed. Only ‘serais’ or inns were available. The norm, however, was to stay with affluent patrons, and the Khokar family hosted legendary artistes of the calibre of Ram Gopal, Uday Shankar and Ragini Devi in their grand house.

Mohan Khokar had by then started to learn dance with the great Zohra Sehgal, who ran a dance school, ‘Zoresh’, in Lahore. Kathak was also the only dance form known in North India in those days.

Interestingly, since so many practitioners had settled in Lahore over the years, a slightly different style of kathak existed; it is now referred to as the Punjabi style. Now forgotten names like Pyaare Lal and Ashiq Hussain were popular representatives; the latter was nicknamed ‘Nritya Samrat’.

Heeramandi, infamous today, was not just the domain of dancing girls; serious practitioners of the art too lived there. Khokar learnt from both.

Seeing Bharatanatyam for the first time, the young Khokar was totally enamoured. He came to know from Ram Gopal that it was taught in Madras. He decided to approach the legendary Rukmini Arundale, the dance guru famous in those days as ‘the lady who sat under a tree’.

Seeing the frenzied unstoppable desire of Khokar to explore other dance forms, his grandfather gave in and permitted him to try it out for a year, during which he would support him financially.

Mohan Khokar thus arrived in Madras in 1945, becoming the first sardar to learn Bharatanatyam. The differences between Lahore and Madras in the 1940s were not just cultural — food, language and lifestyle, even the hot sultry climate was hard for the young man. However, such was his passion for dance that he stuck on. Realising that the young Punjabi could not be expected to eat rice three times a day, Rukmini Arundale ensured that he got ‘rotis’ at least in one meal!

With the tragedy of Partition breaking up the family, he had no home to return to. Money was short and he shared a room with two other boys; incidentally, both — Dandayudhapani Pillai and Adyar Lakshman — became legendary dancers; Pillai was famously actor Vyjayanthimala’s guru.

Khokar literally ‘lived dance history’, as his son Ashish puts it. He fell in love with renowned Bharatanatyam dancer MK Saroja, whom he married in 1949.

Subsequently, he was appointed head of the newly-formed dance department at the Baroda University of Fine Arts. He was just 25 years old at the time! From Baroda, he moved to Delhi, where he was associated with the Sangeet Natak Kendra and Kathak Kendra.

During these years, he continued to write, research, collect material, creating one of the most comprehensive archives of the arts. Money remained in short supply. Ashish remembers how he and his three brothers shared one winter coat between them as their father always prioritised collecting artefacts.

Ashish Khokar donated this vast collection, estimated at Rs 7 crore, to the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts (IGNCA). “Dr Sachchidanand Joshi, Member Secretary of the IGNCA, and its board of trustees were instrumental in accepting this collection, which is now displayed at Delhi. A total of 136 trunks carried articles, letters, memorabilia, masks, costumes and so much more,” Ashish shares.

The collection today is a prime source for researchers in the arts, especially dance. And Mohan Khokar’s legacy lives on.

— Delhi-based Khanna writes on music