Remembering Actress/Kathak legend Sitara Devi ji 1920-2014

In an era when men wore women's costumes in theatre, dramas, songs and even the fledgling film industry, one young Indian dancer shattered stereotypes. She was Sitara Devi.

Sitara Devi came from an ordinary but talented Brahmin family of Varanasi which lived in Kolkata and later in Mumbai. Sitara Devi was born in Kolkata (then Calcutta) on the Dhanteras, 8th November 1920, the eve of the Indian festival of Dipavali. Being born around Dipavali, she was named Dhanalakshmi (nicknamed Dhanno), an epithet of goddess Lakshmi who is worshiped especially during Dipawali.

Like the tradition of the time, Sitara was to be married when she was a small girl of eight, and her child bridegroom's family wanted to solemnize the marriage. However, she resisted, and wanted to be in a school. While at school, a dance drama based on the mythological story of Savitri and Satyavan was to be enacted in a cultural program to be conducted by the students of the school. The school was searching amongst the students for someone to do a dance sequence embedded in the dance drama. Dhanno prevailed upon her teacher by showing her an impromptu dance performance. The impressive performance clinched the role for her and she was also assigned the task to teach the dance to her co-performers in the sequence. After the dance drama, a local newspaper named the Aaj reported about the cultural program emphasizing that a little girl name Dhanno had enchanted the audience by her dance performance. Her father saw the news, and this changed his perception about his girl with the "twisted mouth". Dhanno was re-christened as Sitara, the star, and she was entrusted into the charge of her elder sister, Tara for imparting her dancing lessons. Incidentally, Tara is the mother of famous kathak dancer, Gopi Krishna.

By the time Sitara had turned ten, she was giving solo performances, mostly during the fifteen-minute recess during movies in a cinema of her father's friend. Her commitment to learning and perfecting dancing left her with very little time, and she did not continue her schooling. By the time she was eleven, her family shifted to Bombay (now called Mumbai). Soon after reaching Bombay, Sitara gave a kathak performance in Atiya Begum Palace before a select audience, which included Rabindranath Tagore, Sarojini Naidu and Sir Cowasji Jehangir. She immensely impressed Tagore who wanted her to give a special performance in Tata Palace of the Tata Group. There the eleven-year-old dancing damsel performed kathak, with all its nuances, for three hours. Tagore called her to felicitate her in the traditional Indian style of giving her a shawl and a gift of Rs. 50 as a token of her appreciation. Her debut was at Jehangir Hall (Mumbai), and then the nerve centre of metro’s cultural life. This was the beginning of a dancing career spanning more than six decades.

When she was just a twelve-year-old girl, Sitara Devi was recruited by Niranjan Sharma, a filmmaker and a dance director, and she gave dance sequences in some Hindi movies including her debut in Usha Haran 1940, Nagina 1951, Roti, Vatan 1954, Anjali 1957 (directed by Chetan Anand, brother of Dev Anand). In Mother India 1957, she performed a Holi dance dressed as a boy, and this was her last dance in any movie. She stopped performing dances in movies, as the same were adversely affecting her passion for excelling in the classical dance, kathak.

Sitara was married to Nazir Ahmed Khan, K. Asif, and then to Pratap Barot, with whom she had a son, Ranjit Barot.

For decades, she performed at many concerts and festivals in India and abroad, including her performances in the royal Albert and Victoria Hall, London; and the Carnegie Hall, New York. Over the years, she was conferred a number of awards.

All through her dancing career she taught kathak dancing to many persons, including Bollywood celebrities such as Madhubala, Rekha, Mala Sinha, and Kajol. She envisioned formalizing her teaching, and planned to set up a Kathak training academy.

She died on 25 November 2014, at Jaslok Hospital in Mumbai, after a prolonged illness.

If you wish to read more,
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Sitara-Devi-was-a-star-on-the-stage-and-big-screen/articleshow/45278072.cms
http://www.ndtv.com/people/sitara-devi-a-dancing-star-fades-away-703959
http://www.thehindu.com/entertainment/dance/Kolkata-to-honour-dancer-Sitara-Devi/article16919496.ece