Pandit Birju Maharaj: A dancer par excellence, he was also a poet, singer, painter, percussionist. In unison with all art forms, he felt they were his ‘relatives’

Chandigarh, January 17

He epitomized 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, recipient of Padma Vibhushan, breathed his last on Monday. But the life and energy he enthused into the dance form that came to him as much as a genetic inheritance as decades of lifelong tapsya will always remain unparalleled. Livewire on stage, he would send viewers in raptures with his brilliant footwork, a sheer flicker of his eye and his incredibly expressive face.

Born to a family of artistes, he was trained not only by his father Acchan Maharaj, whom he lost when he was barely nine, but equally influenced by his renowned uncles Shambhu Maharaj and Lacchu Maharaj. Of course, he himself was to change its idiom in ways hitherto unknown.

Katha kahey so kathak kehlaayehellip; only he lent new expressions to this evocative dance form. If for him laya itself was God, he was forever in pursuit of catching the waves and transmitting the same to audiences. Imbibing Kathak’s divine connect as well as the fact that it is inspired from real life, he would transform it in his own inimitable way. A dancer, poet, painter, singer and percussionist, he felt all art forms were his ‘relatives’ and he was in unison with all of them. And nature itself for him was the biggest dancer of all in which every being resonated with a rhythmic sensibility. Why he sought rhythm even in inanimate objects and created dance pieces around nebulous concepts like editing too. He taught at the Shriram Bharatiya Kala Kendra and the Sangeet Natak Akademi Kathak Kendra from where he retired in 1998.

One of his foremost disciples Saswati Sen performed in Satyajit Ray’s ‘Shatranj Ke Khilari’ for which he composed and sang ‘Kanha Main Tose Haari’. He may have trained many superstars like Madhuri Dixit (Devdas) and Deeepika Padukone (Bajirao Mastani), for dance choreographies he will always remain the superstar of Kathak. Not only Madhuri but hordes of his admirers would forever remember his impishness and his ada that on stage was a master-class in Kathak.