My Guru slapped me after I won the Padma Bhushan: Sonal Mansingh

Pointing at a dancing monkey on the street, my guruji told me, 'tell me how are you different from it'. That incident transformed my life," says danseuse Sonal Mansingh, reminiscing an incident from 1961, when she was preparing for her arangetram. "I was training under Prof US Krishna Rao and Chandrabhaga Devi then. My angashoddha was a delight, my hasta mudras were beautiful, my footwork was perfect; but nothing came on my face, the varnam, the abhinaya, nothing! My arangetram date was nearing and my guruji was fed-up with me. That's when he compared me to a monkey in a street circus. Had he been teaching today's generation, it would have backfired," says the 72-year-old icon, pointing out at the declining guru-shishya parampara today.

"Many-a-times the tatha kari crashed on my elbow and knee joints when I wasn't perfect; I was pulled by my hair by my Odissi guru Kelucharan Mohapatra when I bowed down before him; he even slapped me at 2.30 am in Konark, while everyone else was fast asleep. This incident happened after I received my Padma Bhushan in 1992. But that carved a dancer out of Sonal Mansingh," recollects the Odissi exponent, who says she owes her illustrious career to her gurus, and laments the fact that today's generation lacks such devotion and patience.

"I don't think that any shishya would take it now. Even if they don't express it directly, they would show their anger elsewhere; not to mention a mandatory post on the social media."

The danseuse says today's youth have lot of ego. "They are bright, but their overconfidence, arrogance and know-it-all attitude will ruin them. The social media has made it even worse. They may enjoy brief success in the virtual world for a while before finally fading away. That's why there are no big names emerging in the field of dance."


Sonal Mansingh performs at the an event in Bangalore. (Image: BCCL)

And not just dancers, the leading exponent of Odissi feels that the evolution of dance had also declined with time. "The performing artistes have grown inward; they live in their own little bubble. Programmes and foreign tours consume their creative time. Dance used to be a constant joy, a constant evolution for me. After every performance the question 'What's next?' used to haunt me. It has become stagnant now. There's hardly any evolution. Arts have become an instrument to earn more money and instant fame. Creativity is lost in the midst of commercialism. The courage and conviction to step out of their comfort zone and to create something new is lost somewhere," observes Mansingh.

But Mansingh has a different take on music. "Classical music is still holding on to parampara. There are so many promising and prominent musicians out there, unlike in dance. Dance demands something more. It's a visual art, the viewers need to be enchanted," she says, adding, "I am not pouring out my rancour against anyone. It's just a critical analysis of the current situation."