Parwati Dutta’s interview with Sunil Mishr. In Hindi.
- Arun Kumar
- Jun 16, 2020
- 2 min read
Parwati Dutt’s late father was Bengali, her mother Punjabi. Both were engineers. Unlike most of us uncouth engineers, her parents were cultured people besides. Parwati was born in Calcutta. The family moved to Bhopal when her father went to work for Bharat Heavy Electricals in Bhopal, where they design and manufacture large transformers, induction motors for locomotives, and hydraulic turbines.
Quite a bit of her interview is Parwati’s panegyric to Bhopal. This is where she fell in love with dance. This is where she learned Kathak. And this is where she gave her first solo performance at the age of four!
After high school she decided to forego a scholarship to study computer engineering abroad, to throw herself headlong, body and soul, into dance. This necessitated a move to the Kathak Kendra in Delhi. In Delhi also she revived her old dormant love for Odissi under the tutelage of Madhavi Mudgal.
After a period of full immersion in dance in Delhi: performing, learning, teaching, traveling the dance circuits at home and abroad, and enduring, above all, the poverty that all artists like her must become inured to --- Sreelakshmy Govardhanan in her interview with Ghirija Jayarraj describes similar privations --- Parwati felt the need to do more. That ‘more’ became the Mahagami Gurukul in Aurangabad, now a renowned and distinguished center for dance education, a magnet for all performing and representational arts, and a center for research.
Parwati built Mahagami in the face of great odds. She went through some harrowing periods in her life in pursuit of her dreams. But there she is: a determined woman and a great artist, a person we all need listen to.
Enjoy the interview!
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