Struck off from this world in his prime, while still at the very acme of his performing career, Pandit Durga Lal’s premature and sudden death in 1990 has left behind a trail of vivid memories and tales about this legendary dancer’s genius and charisma. While fortunately there is the odd YouTube video online that immortalises this beacon of the Jaipur Gharana, his legacy primarily lives on through his students, some of whom have made it their life’s mission to transmit his work and art to the future generations. At the helm of this laudable undertaking is guru Uma Dogra, a leading Kathak dancer and teacher based out of Mumbai. As the senior most pupil of Durga Lal, her contribution in preserving his memory in the hearts and minds of not just practitioners of the dance form but also lay persons interested in dance cannot be overstated.
In Hyderabad with her students for a Kathak Festival organised by Akruthi Kathak Kendra as a tribute to Pandit Durga Lal, Uma Dogra shares memories of her time with her beloved guru. She reveals that she started training with him when she was only 14 years old and he himself was just about 24 years old, already a star in the making. She fondly remembers the training itself which was one long unceasing lesson that never really began or ended in class. More often than not, the lessons would come at unexpected moments like once at a performance in Patna, on stage he asked her to keep the chandas of ‘taka takita’ while his tabla accompanist and he kept playing around with complex rhythmic variations. ‘Maintaining laya is one of the most difficult things in dance and he thrust this responsibility upon me right on stage!’
This was a time when the guru and shishya relationship extended into every aspect of life, and the student pretty much became a member of the guru’s family. Uma Dogra recalls helping out her guru
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Uma Dogra has been teaching Kathak in Mumbai for over 30 years. She emphasises that she only imparts Pandit Durga Lal’s lessons in the first two years of her students’ training, mainly his
She has been organising a dance festival in his honour for nearly 20 years now and claims that her efforts to create an informed audience in the Bollywood dominated world of Mumbai has paid off, such that today there is a dedicated group of people in the city who are classical dance literate.