A legend passes into the ages

Tuesday, a great danseuse passed into ages -- Sanjukta Panigrahi, the doyen of Odissi dance, died of cancer at a nursing home in Bhubaneshwar.

She was just 53.

For the danseuse, who had been in the grip of the disease for quite some time, the end came at 0345 hours. With husband Raghunath and two sons beside her.

The 1944-born Sanjukta was, undoubtedly, the greatest-ever Odissi dancer. The first girl from a well-to-do family to take up Odissi, she gave this till-then-neglected art form a status equal to any other recognised Indian dance.

Her body was brought to her home at Ashok Nagar in the morning. Later, it was taken to Swargadwar in Puri where, with full state honours and hundreds watching, her elder son performed the last rites.

Dance, for Sanjukta, was life. It was not just an art form, not just a passion. It meant more to her.

Dance, glorious dance, was her very being. With it, she was queen. Without it, she was utterly lost.

"I can dance all my life... I can bear anything if I am allowed to dance," she said in an interview last year. "Even in Gunupur, I could perhaps have borne it if I was allowed to dance..."

Her stay at Gunupur was something which Sanjukta could never forget. It was there, at her in-law's place that she lived the saddest days of her life. Her husband and noted singer Raghunath, at his mother's insistence, wanted to stay there. And Sanjukta, who by then was famous -- much too famous for her in-law's liking -- was asked to give up dancing and lead the life of a village-wife.

"It was torture for me, I used to cry every day," she said later, "Mentally, I was very down because I couldn't do anything related to dance..."

But her love for dance -- a love which she had nurtured since the age of four when she took up Odissi -- was too powerful to allow her to stifle herself. She left her in-law's place for Bhubaneshwar.

At first, her future relations with her husband -- who was under "his mother's thumb" -- looked hopeless. But she pursued him relentlessly for a year and in 1967 they began life afresh.

Born to engineer Abhiram Mishra and Sharmila in Orissa's Berhampore, Sanjukta took up Odissi at a time when it was taboo for a girl from a 'good family' to learn dance or music. Her guru was Kelucharan Mahapatra.

Sanjukta's first public performances was when she was five. She was supposed to dance for five minutes, but loved the applause so much that she continued even after her time was up. "My mother and guruji kept telling me to get off, but I said, 'No, I want to continue'," Sanjukta reminisced to a magazine last year.

By 14, she was famous all over Orissa as 'Baby Sanjukta.' Two years later, she was married to Raghunath. The next seven years were a trial of strength for her. Financial troubles, child births, marital discord... everything followed one after the other.

But by 1967, the clouds had cleared. Her husband was doing well on his own, and Sanjukta got a major break in her career. Her guruji won the Sangeet Natak Akademi award and along with other students, Sanjukta too went to Delhi to perform.

"I danced for about 25 minutes and my performance got me excellent coverage," she was to say later, "I got hundreds of invitations!"

From then, life really picked up. She toured all parts of the country and abroad, slowly yet steadily popularising the forgotten magnificence of Odissi. All the while, she was studying -- from old manuscripts and figures in Orissa temples -- the art form scientifically.

"At that time, there was nobody who could present a full fledge Odissi performance on stage," she said later, "We (Raghunath, guruji and herself) worked with zeal and determination. Soon we started creating new choreographs, new styles."

Sanjukta started choreographing and producing her own ballets on subjects from the Bhagawat Gita, Geeta-Govinda and Ramayana. Later, she went on to choreograph her famous Raag Roop (depicting four emotional phases of woman in love), Ekhond Kandichhe Radha, Mangal Charan, Jagannath Astakam, Shiva Hanuman Strotam, Titu Varana and Astha Nayika.

By now, awards had started searching her out. She was honoured with the Padma Shri in 1975 and the Sangeet Natak Akademi award the next year. Then it was the Nritya Vilas by the Sur Singar Sansad, the Nritya Siromani, the Tirupati National, the All India National Critic... the list is too long.

Her art took her all over the world -- as India's cultural delegate as well as a performing artiste. Through all this, her husband Raghunath -- who, once her career started picking up, had started singing with her -- was a tower of strength.

Their second beginning, obviously, was more successful than the first -- it lasted till her last breath.

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