‘Either you let me continue Kathak or I will join the Army’

Mamta Maharaj (left), during a dance performance

Dance is equivalent to breathing for her. At her home in Mandi House area in Delhi, she was surrounded by all kinds of dance forms — Chhau, Bharatanatyam, Odissi, Kathakali and so on. The place, she says, was a cultural hub and had several dance training centres and auditoriums. “All this left an indelible impression on my mind and I assumed that this is what life is; I thought the entire city of Delhi is like this,” says Kathak exponent Mamta Maharaj, the daughter of Kathak maestro Pandit Birju Maharaj, of the Lucknow Kalka-Bindadin gharana. Mamta was in the city to conduct a five-day Kathak workshop at AVM Aundh Gym, Parihar Chowk, which began on November 2.
Dressed in a printed red salwar-kameez, Mamta seems at ease and talks passionately about what defines her best — Kathak. That, she is the first woman performer from her family, she says, is a matter of privilege. “I must have been four years of age when I would see my elder sister Kavita Mishra take lessons from my father. I would observe her closely and try to copy her steps, beats and expressions. She was the inspiration who pulled me towards this art form,” recounts Mamta.
However, what made her resolve to take up dance as a profession was the fact that her sister had to discontinue dancing once she got married. “Besides, she also had medical reasons. But I felt bad that a gifted performer like her had to abandon her talent,” says Mamta, who currently teaches Kathak alongside her father at Kalashram, Delhi. Some of her father’s compositions in which she got to perform are Loha, Maunsakshi, Layparikrama and Panchbhut.
It took Mamta some time to convince her father about her seriousness towards dance. Though, he trained her and included her in Kathak recitals occasionally, he wasn’t sure till how far he could take her, says Mamta. She even joined a school as a dance teacher so that Babu (father) takes note of her dedication. “When I was 18, I went up to him and told him, either you let me continue with Kathak or I will join the Army. I was and am still fascinated with the armed forces. He said jokingly, ‘Injection to laga nahin paati, tum goli marogi’ (You can’t give an injection, you will fire a bullet). I replied, ‘An injection just injects in a body and gives a little pain, a bullet can finish a person.’ He just laughed it off,” says Mamta, adding, “No woman from our family had entered this field as a performer but I was adamant. Dance was and is everything to me. It took Babu some time to understand my passion and give a go-ahead.”
Mamta, who has given numerous stage performances along with Pandit Birju Maharaj in India and abroad, admits she has seen him more as a guru than as her father. “Ever since I was four or five years old, I have seen him training his students or my siblings. I remember, I would sit on his lap and see his students following his instructions. Later, I also started taking lessons under him. So as a guru, apart from the dance form, I also got to learn some invaluable methods of imparting dance training from Babu, some of which I try to include in training my students,” says Mamta.
“The way he simplifies the most complicated beats and steps for his students is unbelievable. If young students are not able to pick up the beats of the song, he teaches them by incorporating words such as subji, puri, kachori, gaadi, halwa and so on; and the student understand it instantly,” says Mamta.