A sitara on the stage and screen

Sitara Devi, the kathak diva who passed away today, was known for her flamboyant style and showmanship.
In his Bollywood chronicles, Saadat Hasan Manto describes Sitara Devi as “not a woman but a typhoon which did not blow in and out as typhoons do, but which retained its force and fury without showing any signs of weakening”.
Early Tuesday, the 94-year-old dancer did finally give up the battle against the elements.She had been admitted to the Cumballa Hill Hospital and Heart Institute in Mumbai for the last five weeks but was shifted to Jaslok after her condition deteriorated.
In her life as well on the dance stage, Sitara Devi was indeed the irrepressible force Manto mentions. Nothing could keep her down; certainly not age. She continued to dance up a storm till she was well into her 80s, often managing her way at public events with a walking stick and defiantly draped with a gajra. Politespeak was not one of her virtues and no one, not even the holy cows of the classical world, were spared a tongue lashing if they irritated her.
Sitara Devi came from a family of kathakars (story tellers) of Benares who sang, danced and acted as they narrated stories from the epics. Her father and guru Sukhdev Maharaj also trained her nephew Gopi Krishna, the other big name from the Benares gharana of kathak in Bollywood. Together they represented a school of kathak that was vigorous, flamboyant and high on showmanship. It was a style that demanded extreme physical fitness, and Sitara Devi followed, and insisted her students follow, an exercise regimen outside the dance practice. It is also what kept her on the stage long after her contemporaries faded away.
“Her passion was amazing and her immersion in the style was remarkable, it was like every pore of her body danced,” says kathak and contemporary dancer Aditi Mangaldas. “Everything she did spoke of her zest for life. I once went to meet her in the green room before her show and she asked me to help choose a costume. There was me with my minimalist style and her wardrobe full of the colours that reflected her zest for life. And when I would point to something she would say 'Arre, yeh kya. Pick a real colour.'“
Sitara Devi's film dance sequences show the kind of creative struggle classical dancers underwent to survive in Bollywood. There is a song from the Dilip Kumar-Nargis starrer Hulchul (1951) where she actually pulls off a ballet type sequence with many chakkars thrown in, en pointe (on her toes) for almost the entire song. The other films that featured her dances or choreography included Roti, Vatan, Abroo, Phool, and Mother India.
Veteran critic and associate Sunil Kothari says the dancer had no inhibitions in life and dance, loved the good things of life, and called a spade a spade – in very colourful language. She went through two high-profile and turbulent marriages, one with filmmaker K Asif and another with Pratap Barot, the father of her percussionist son Ranjit, and never acted coy about her personal life like most screen divas of her time.
“She actually danced on a piano in K Asif’s Phool (1945). Once we travelled for a kathak performance to New York hosted by the Asia Society and she picked this star-spangled, transparent costume for herself. We were worried about audience reaction to this but she typically waved away our fears with a ‘ja, ja’. And amazingly enough, the audience loved it, and she bagged fantastic reviews.” He recalls her dancing a 9-hour kathak marathon in Mumbai, alternating her tatkars with cries for glucose and water.
After her holi dance sequence in Mother India (1957), Sitara Devi decided to bid goodbye to films to return to pure kathak. Birju Maharaj, whose father Acchan Maharaj was her guru too, says she was a fine dancer who assiduously followed the guru-shishya parampara. “She shone like a true sitara on stage and films. I remember once chacha (Shambhu Maharaj) complimented her on her diamond necklace and she promptly gifted it to him saying, ‘Maharaj yeh aap se achcha thode hi hai,'“ says Birju Maharaj.
Life in dance
* Fought off an early marriage and started dancing in films at age 12 after her family moved to Mumbai and continued in films till Mother India (1957). Her nephew Gopi Krishna, also a kathak exponent, was also known for his work in Hindi films.
* Sitara Devi trained primarily in the Benaras gharana of kathak under her father Sukhdev Maharaj. But she also learnt from Lachhu Maharaj and Shambhu Maharaj of Lucknow gharana
* Named “Nritya Samragyini” (the empress of dance) by Rabindranath Tagore at age 16. Her kathak is known for its amazing nritta (pure dance) sequences and stamina. But she was also loved for her abhinaya skills
* A Padma Shri awardee, she turned down a Padma Bhushan for not being enough of an acknowledgement for her contribution to kathak
(With additional reporting by Purnima Sharma)