In the footsteps of the gurus
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K.P. Kunhiraman recalls what it was like to be a student in the good old days. Anjana Rajan
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One summer, Paddu Teacher asked me to make the lotus pond.
Photo: K.V. Srinivasan
Just so Gurus K.P. Kunhiraman and Katherine.
During high summer, the trend is for celebrated artistes to take a break from performing in the sizzling heat. The major dance and music schools are closed. Hostel students have gone home to be pampered. But back in the early days of institutionalise
d training in the arts, the difference between ‘course time’ and ‘off time’ was not so marked. K.P. Kunhiraman, veteran Bharatanatyam and Kathakali dancer, can vouch for that. Now a well-known guru in the U.S., where he has been running Kalanjali – Dances of India with his wife Katherine Kunhiraman for the past three decades, he has experienced the guru-shishya phenomenon in all its shades.
Born into a traditional Kerala family steeped in the arts, he was among a select band of male students trained in Kathakali and Bharatanatyam at Kalakshetra, the institute founded by Rukmini Devi Arundale in the early 1930s. “One summer, (the hostel warden) Paddu Teacher asked me to make the lotus pond,” he recalls with a mild smile. “I did it with the help of 40 Tibetan students.”
Besides the hard work in the hot winds of a Chennai summer, a whole ethos lies hidden in the simple statement. Kunhiraman joined Kalakshetra as a young boy in 1947. It was located on the campus of the Theosophical Society in southern Chennai (then Madras). Complete devotion to the arts and gurus was a way of life. This meant not merely rigorous practice, but embracing the worldview of Guru Rukmini Devi.
So, when the Chinese aggression led to Tibetan refugees pouring into India, the boys and girls studying at Kalakshetra, seemingly removed from the action at the country’s North-Eastern borders, found themselves playing host to scores of Tibetan children. A hostel was built for them, and they joined the schools that ran alongside the arts classes at Kalakshetra. No wonder they willingly helped Kunhiraman, by then a senior dancer, dig out the soil for the lotus pond.
Keeping watch
Kalakshetra had moved to its own campus in Thiruvanmiyur in 1964. Till it was ready, Kunhiraman and his fellow students would often sleep there overnight to keep a watch on the empty grounds. They did not remain empty for long. “We planted most of the trees there,” he recalls.
Kunhiraman’s contemporaries included names that rose to the heights of eminence: Yamini Krishnamurti, vocalist D. Pashupati, Adyar Lakshmanan and his brother Rama, among others. One year it was decided the boys would stay outside the hostel and cook for themselves, with dry rations provided by the authorities. “We were spending all our time queuing up to buy kerosene, etc.,” he laughs. “Finally the experiment failed.”
If life meant lots of work other than the study of dance and music, there was also supreme dedication to the chosen profession. “We wanted to sit for the Matric examination, but Athai (as Rukmini Devi was addressed) said there was a tour to North India.” The performance tour put paid to their academic pursuits, at least temporarily. Not artistic pursuits, though. “We all got the Government scholarship in the same year,” he recalls. “After the scholarship, Yamini said, Kunhiraman, what should I do?” The young pass-outs discussed the issue, and Yamini decided to take up a teaching offer in Delhi. “From that time, she went up like anything,” says Kunhiraman.
Kunhiraman became a teacher at Kalakshetra in 1955. Today his students in Berkely, California, may not have the pleasure of making a lotus pond, but they can certainly dip into their guru’s goldmine of experience.
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