It was a sunny winter afternoon in December 2016 when my phone pinged with a video, forwarded to me for the third time that day. Swathed in a pink silk sari, a woman with electric white hair moved gracefully to ‘Krishna Nee Begane Baro’. Her gestures seamlessly melted from one to the next, as her eyes flitted youthfully, accompanying the movements of her neck. The viral video, filmed one day after her 92nd birthday, encapsulated the magic of dancer-actor Bhanumathi Rao, who passed away at the age of 98 last week.
Bhanumathi Rao’s career began in pre-independent India when the globalisation of Indian dance was just beginning. As a member of Ram Gopal’s troupe in the 1940s, she performed across Europe in the effort to raise money for the war. It was on this tour that she met her future husband, a lawyer, who saw her performance in London and fell in love. After marriage, the couple moved to New York, where Bhanumathi continued to dance, intriguing the likes of Jawaharlal Nehru and other dignitaries.
Bhanumathi Rao during a performance | Photo Credit: Special Arrangement
Artistic pursuits
After Independence, Bhanumathi moved to New Delhi where she established a school to teach Bharatanatyam and Kathakali, and later worked with All India Women’s Conference (AIWC ), and with Kamladevi Chattopadhyay. It was at this time that she gained prominence as a theatre artiste in Hindi and Malayalam, and was famous for the ease with which she essayed comic roles. In 1990, she gave her last Kathakali performance at the Chinmayananda Ashram in Himachal Pradesh. A few decades later, she along with her daughter moved to Bengaluru, where she started conducting Carnatic music classes, thus reestablishing her link with the performing arts.
In 2019, filmmaker R.V. Ramani made Oh That’s Bhanu, a documentary on the dancer. This 112-minute film traces Bhanumathi’s journey through the crevasses of her own mind and her struggle with memory loss. The loss of hearing and vision further complicates her battle, yet all of these concerns are dissolved when she begins to dance.
Bhanumathi Rao’s greatest legacy is the timelessness of her relationship to her art. She proved that child-like enthusiasm is all one needs to create an invigorating relationship with one’s art, regardless of the obstacles. Her spirit lives on in every life she has touched.
The Bengaluru-based writer is a performer and researcher.
