Today I bring forth a memorable piece from my ‘Dance Media Stock’. My first ever Annual Day performance and not only mine, but it was also the debut annual day concert by my first Kathak Guru, Sri Bipul Das with his students. This news report was published in the Northeast Times on January 16th, 1991. I’m on the extreme left marked in yellow. I was in Kindergarten when my dad first stepped me into the Mridanga, Bipul Das Sir’s brand new Kathak school in Chenikuthi (Guwahati) after his return from Kathak Kendra, New Delhi. As I would sway around my waist with my milk bottle in front of the television whenever a song is been played. So at the start of Mridanga, my dad thought to find a perfect place to release my dancing fever and moreover it was just next door to my dad’s Simantika Press. I first went there with my dad and my youngest aunty Alaka Bhagawati and Bipul Das sir was astonished to get a student who was perhaps the youngest of all. After watching some of my dance movements, he told my dad that, “She got some kind of divinity within her” and from there on I just kept on dancing all my life. My daily route during my school days was from my St. Mary’s English High School then our printing press and then straight away head to Mridanga for my Kathak classes, all falling on the same straight footpath. Today on the birthday of Bipul Das sir, I wish him good health and many more dancing years ahead.
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