A life devoted to dance and social causes (1918-2016)
Adoyenne of Indian dance forms like Bharatanatyam and Kathakali, Mrinalini Sarabhai who passed away on 21 January 2016 at the age of 97, was revered during her lifetime as one of the pioneers and ambassadors of Indian fine arts and culture which she propagated and popularised all over the world. Born in 1918 in Kerala to illustrious parents, Dr. Swaminathan, an eminent barrister and Ammu Swaminathan, freedom fighter, social activist and Parliamentarian, Mrinalini had an equally famous elder sister Captain Lakshmi Sehgal, who served in Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose’s army, and an elder brother Govind Swaminathan, a leading barrister.
Mrinalini developed a flair for dance quite early in life and her supportive parents encouraged her to enroll at Shantiniketan where she had the opportunity to work closely with Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore. Her Bharatanatyam guru Muthukumaran Pillai and Meenakshisundaram Pillai, and Kathakali guru Thakazhi Kunju Kurup put her through her paces in the early years, and later she improvised and honed her talents further and eventually became an ace choreographer and went on to direct hundreds of dance dramas. Later she had the benefit of training in modern dance in Switzerland and the US, and on her return she established the Darpana Academy of Performing Arts in her hometown of Ahmedabad, an institution that has trained more than 18,000 students in both Bharatanatyam and Kathakali.
Mrinalini has to her credit more than 300 dance dramas and has also dabbled in other literary activities as well and has written novels, children’s stories, plays and poetry. She travelled extensively with her dance troupe and performed in countries like US, France, South American countries, Japan and Australia, and wherever her team performed, they received accolades from the media.
The danseuse had an abiding interest in women’s empowerment and also espoused several other social causes. Many of her dance dramas had themes related to oppression of the downtrodden and also dealt with social evils like untouchability. The dance drama Chandalika which she staged in 1977 was based on Tagore’s work and vividly sketched the spectre of untouchability and in those conservative days touched a raw nerve. Gurudev Tagore exerted a great degree of influence on the young dancer and she went on to stage dramas like Mgyar Khela and Visarjan based on Tagore’s visceral works. Her dance drama Ganga highlighted the degradation of the sacred river and how mankind showed scant respect towards nature and environment. Mrinalini also held very strong views on communalism, caste based discrimination, environmental degradation and never hesitated to raise her voice against intolerance and bigotry in any form. She loved nature in all its myriad forms and also served as a President of the ‘Association of Friends of Trees’. She married India’s pioneering space scientist Vikram Sarabhai after a courtship and the couple had two children, a son Karthikeya and a daughter Mallika Sarabhai. Mallika has inherited her mother’s passion for dance and has earned a reputation as one of the country’s best dancers. Quite like her mother, Mallika too has been a fiery crusader for social causes and hers has always been a strident voice against exploitation of any kind in society.
Mrinalini’s autobiography Mrinalini: Voice of the heart encapsulated her life in vivid detail and was critically acclaimed for its literary merit, and for bringing out the various facets of a dancer’s life at a time when society tended to frown on women who took up dancing as a career. A number of honours, both national and international came her way right through her dancing career, and the Government of India conferred on her the Padma Shri in 1985 and the Padma Bhushan in 1992. She was also a recipient of the prestigious Sangeet Natak Academy Award. Mrinalini Sarabhai who counted among her friends several leading scientists, philosophers and religious gurus of the time lived a full, rich life and has left behind not just a great body of work, but also a rich legacy in the form of her crusading spirit, which could serve as a beacon light to future generations as well.