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 Tribute to a legend: Natyacharya Mayadhar Raut - V.P. Dhananjayan e-mail: bkalanjali@gmail.com Photos courtesy: The Dhananjayans February 24, 2025 In passing away of Guru Mayadhar Raut, often attributed as one of "the fathers of Odissi naatya," the nation lost yet another legend. This is my humble tribute to a colleague whom I knew from the day he joined Kalakshetra in 1955. While teaching at the Kala Vikas Kendra (an organization engaged in professional training for several arts) in Cuttack as the first teacher of Odissi, he won a scholarship in 1955 from the Orissa branch of Sangeet Natak Akademi (India's national academy of music, dance, and drama) to pursue training in Bharatanaatyam and Kathakali at the Kalakshetra Foundation, Adyar in Madras (now Chennai). We stayed in the Kalakshetra hostel which gave us the greater advantage of learning and practicing the arts in a Gurukulam type of atmosphere.   Damodar Gardens boys hostel (L to R): Mayadhar Raut, Hombal, Guru Panikker, KP Kunhiraman, Dhananjayan Mayadhar Anna (as we fondly called him) already being an experienced teacher of Odissi - a style of performing art not very prevalent or talked about at that time - and being a senior person, could guide us in several ways. In turn, we shared with him what we already knew of the fundamentals of Kathakali and Bharatanaatyam. He motivated us to practice early mornings, did rigorous practices to catch up with our level in this new style he was plunging into. He joined us in the dance drama productions like Ramayana series doing character roles. His own prime student Sanjukta Misra (later known as Sanjukta Panigrahi, the doyen of Odissi naatya) joined Kalakshetra a year later and we were introduced to the Odissi naatya, when Anna made Sanjukta practice her Odissi whenever she had free time. Later, Anna's colleague Kelucharan Mohapatra also used to visit Kalakshetra to keep a watchful eye on the progress of Sanjukta. These three jointly gave a new life to Odissi naatya and made it global.  I have been constantly in touch with Mayadhar Anna and his illustrious daughter Madhumita Raut who imbibed the mantle continuing the legacy. We never failed to visit him in Delhi and spent long hours in nostalgic conversation. I invited him to participate in the Natya Kala Conference (NKC) showcasing his abhinaya prowess which he imbibed from his Kathakali training under Guru T.K. Chandu Panikkar at Kalakshetra. We had a very good experience in 1973 participating in the India Festival in Paris under the French National Theatre 'Theatre de la Ville' along with his prime disciple Aloka Panikkar. The Kalakshetra training enabled him to choreograph dance-dramas such as Tapaswini, Meghdoot, Brij Leela, Singhala Kumari, Krishna Charitam and Geeta Govindam.   VP Dhananjayan, Mayadhar Raut, Balagopalan, Shanta Dhananjayan I understand from Madhumita Raut that the end came so peacefully and coincidently, apart from family members, including grandchildren, many of his students were in Delhi celebrating his 92nd birthday. A happy soul will always be in our memory. Not many get an "anaayaasena maranam".  Naatyaachaarya VP Dhananjayan is the founder-director of Bharata Kalanjali, Chennai. Post your comments Please provide your name and email id along with your comment. All appropriate comments posted with name and email id in the blog will also be featured in the site. |
