She did not want “anything or anyone” to come between her and dance. Yet, the course of her life and marriage took her away to Saudi Arabia and Bragha Bessell “just stopped dancing as I did not want to create any trouble for my family there.”
For 13 long years she was cut off from the world of dance and even worked as an assistant teacher in a British-American school till that “glorious day, when a letter from Leela Samson landed in my hands, inviting me to teach abhinaya at Kalakshetra!” “It was as though my passion had followed me all the time. My husband and son were excited and now after eight years as a teacher and dancer, I am still busy travelling and teaching around the globe at 60 plus,” grins Bragha, who was in Bengaluru for an abhinaya workshop organised by Nadam.
With 30 dancers seated around her, imitating her expressions and hand gestures, Bragha narrated the texts in English and at the same time her hands and face were displaying suitable emotions and gestures. She was, at this workshop, teaching abhinaya for a javali . After an intense hour, Bragha speaks about the journey of her dance with Friday Review .
“Though I was born and brought up in Chennai, we had no history of dancers in my family. My friends impulsively joined a free dance class started by Padma Subrahmaniam. I just tagged along for fun and learnt just the first three tattaduvus. It was time for summer holidays, and I was sent off to my uncle’s house,” says Bragha, who saw her cousins learn Bharatanatya from the late Mangudi Durai Raj Iyer.
“On an impulse, while teaching my cousins, he asked me to show him what I had learnt. To impress him, I presented those three basic steps with all my energy, giving it my very best shot.”
This resulted in the late guru landing up at Bragha’s home in a week’s time with her uncle to teach her Bharatanatya. “My parents were aghast as those days girls were not into dance. Yet, they woke me up early that morning, got me dressed and I started my formal training under this great teacher for two years. I was nine then,” adds Bragha, who gives the complete credit to her first guru saying: “He literally picked me up and placed me on this path.”
“He was getting older and found it difficult to travel, so he handed over the responsibility to my parents. P.S. Kunchitapadam Pillai became my next guru. He groomed me as a dancer and I learnt from him for 17 years. I blossomed under him and learning from him was another beautiful journey in my dance. I had my arangetram when I was 13.”
Soon Bragha became an acclaimed dancer and started getting offers to teach. “As I sat down to teach I realised that I did not know how to. I broke down and felt that all my knowledge of 20 years going waste. That day I realised that I had not documented any of my learning from both my gurus. Then I went seeking Adyar K. Lakshman and requested him to groom me to become a teacher. I started learning from the very beginning and re-learnt my dance from tattaduvus at the age of 26.”
After this she trained herself in abhinaya under the legendary Kalanidhi Narayanan. “You see, I am combination of all these teachers, who treated dance as divinity. I have imbibed Lakman sir’s pure dance and maami ’s perception of beauty, grace, elegance, characterisation and emotions, which became a part of my dance journey,” says Bragha, laughing as she recalls how the dance fraternity went about finding a match for her as she was the only one in her group that was single.
“I had fought against getting married. Had postponed it for almost 10 years! But, mother passed away, and I did not want to stress my father. I told him to find me a groom. Strangely, it was my dance teachers who brought an alliance of an Englishman -- Chris Bessell! All the talks happened at a dance workshop organised by Kalanidhi maami and guru Kamala Rani played a pivotal role in getting me married to this gentle man who worked in the Theosophical Society. I was apprehensive as he was a foreigner and that divorce was so common in the West and had my apprehensions about my speaking the English language. Now 24 years later, I think we both found a common path, despite the differences in our temperaments, language, culture, and food. He encouraged me to continue with my teaching,” she explains, and adds that she has not stopped looking back ever since the invitation to teach at Kalakshetra. Bragha is overwhelmed by the love she gets from young dancers everywhere she travels. “Though I had left dance it seemed to follow me. The passion never seemed to have abandoned me.”
