It wasn’t hard to spot Datuk Ramli Ibrahim. Dressed in a floral peach shirt, light brown trousers and a perpetual smile, the world-famous Malaysian dancer struck a conversation with everyone in the packed room. Warm hugs, excited waves and animated talks were exchanged in the backdrop of the clinking of wine glasses. Just like a college reunion. Except, it had the city’s best from the world of art.
Acclaimed dancers Padma Subrahmanyam, Lakshmi Viswanathan, and Anita Ratnam, besides well-known artists A V Ilango and Chelian, and singer Subhashree Ramachandran were part of the launch of Quintessential Sutra — a book containing a collection of photographs (majority of them by city-based photographer A Prathap) of Ramli, his gurus, and dancers in the Sutra Foundation (an organisation started by him in 1983), at GRT Grand Hotel. The evening saw Ramli graciously soaking in praises from the dignitaries and reminiscing episodes of his experience in India.
Unveiling the heavy, hard-bound book, Padma Subrahmanyam said, “Ramli is the personification of Asian harmony, bringing together cultures and countries.” She was referring to the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award (2011) winner’s impartial passion towards ballet, Bharatanatyam, Odissi and Balinese dance forms.
Ramli, who studied in a military school in Malaysia, took up dancing relatively late in his life — at the age of 15. He met Bharatanatyam exponent Adyar K Lakshman in his late teens during one of the veteran’s performances in Sydney. Though he had learnt ballet and Malaysian dance by then, the idea of studying something new and vibrant appealed to him, and he spent days and nights perfecting his mudras. Later, enchanted by the moves of Odissi , he went to Puri and trained under exponent Deba Prasad Das. Ramli considers his dance as a sum total of the vocabulary of all these individual dances.
“You got to be fascinated by the facial and bodily reactions of people, observe them and take it all in,” he said, in a chat that paused each time a fan requested for an autograph and a selfie. “I always tell my students that they do not have the advantage of being in India, a land of beautiful classical dancers. My guru (Adyar K Lakshman) had said that the earth of Chennai brought out the rasa in dancers. We don’t have that in Malaysia. So as part of the practice sessions, I give them situations to bring out the right reactions,” he continued.
Quintessential Sutra documents his tours in the last 35 years, spanning more than 130 cities around the world. “There are so many fun photos in the book,” he said. Was it the one with Ramli and his troupe posing in front of the Heritage Flushing Town Hall in New York, unperturbed by the passers-by, or the disinterested young Ramli in shorts and neatly-combed hair, standing beside his parents and siblings? Or a more casual one of him getting a head massage in a barber shop? We wondered.
Instead, he pointed out the one where he is in Bhujangasana posture, with his black furry cat staring into the camera, “That’s me doing yoga with my personal trainer, Semut (ant in Balinese). I named him so because I found him covered with ants on the street. Now, he is huge and healthy.”
Ramli has five dogs and three cats, all of them picked from the streets. “Yet another,” he continued with a laugh, “was the one taken in an abandoned building near Kuala Lumpur railway station. We were all dressed up for the show, and went there, took a quick shot, before being asked to scoot by the security.”
