Danseuse Amala Shankar passes away in Kol at 101

Kolkata: Veteran danseuse Amala Shankar passed away in Kolkata on Friday. She was 101. She had a long and successful career that began as an 11-year-old when she went to Paris and did not finish until she was 92, when she took part in her final dance piece called ‘Missing You’. Amala died of cardiac arrest in her sleep at home.
Wife of legendary dancer-choreographer Uday Shankar, mother of late musician Ananda Shankar and danseuse-actress Mamata Shankar, mother-in-law of Tanusree Shankar and sister-in-law of sitarist Pt Ravi Shankar, Amala was born on June 27, 1919, in Jessore, Bangladesh.She was introduced to Uday Shankar on a trip to Paris at the age of 11. “I remember days when I would go over to their house, play with Robu (Pt Ravi Shankar) and even changed into a sari from my frock. Back then, I used to address him (Uday Shankar) as Borda. He was 19 years elder to me,” she would say.
On that trip, Uday Shankar asked her to emote a few dancing steps. Together, they toured Europe. But she realized that dance was her calling only after graduation. Without any professional training, she excelled and would get invited to perform at conferences attended by greats like Pt Shambhu Maharaj and Ustad Bade Ghulam Ali Khan. Subsequently, Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose watched her performance where Pt Jnan Prakash Ghosh was on the tabla and Dilip Roy on the vocals. Impressed, Netaji requested Amala’s father to send her to Uday Shankar’s dance centre in Almora that saw the likes of Simkie, Zohra Sehgal and Guru Dutt in attendance.
But romance with her guru didn’t happen overnight. Once when she saw him perform as Kartik in Kolkata, Amala declared that “this is the man in my life”. Much later, on the night of December 8, 1939, Uday Shankar told her about his decision to get married. “Don’t you want to know the name of the girl?” he asked, adding: “Her name is Amala”. They tied the knot in 1942.
In 1948, she played the lead in Uday Shankar’s “Kalpana”. Though “Kalpana” flopped, Satyajit Ray was rumoured to have watched it 11 times. “It was one of my father’s favourite films and he loved her dance pieces a lot,” remembered director Sandip Ray. In 2012, when the restored film was screened at the Cannes Classic Section 81 years after it was first screened there, 93-year-old Amala said from stage: “I am the youngest heroine here”.
Not just dance and acting, director Goutam Ghose remembered how she painted with her nails and fingers on glass slides. In 2013, these works were on display at a solo exhibition titled Nabajiban. At 90, she had asked actor-director Aparna Sen to direct a film where she would dance one last time!
As the state bade farewell to her with gun salute, she was remembered for having lived a full life. “She wanted a peaceful death and that’s how it happened,” said Mamata Shankar. Her student, theatre personality and thespian Soumitra Chatterjee’s daughter, Poulami Bose, said, “She has been the epitome of grace. I received her guidance for four years.” Entrepreneur Sanjiv Goenka echoed sentiments of many while saying: “Her passing away marks the end of an era. India has lost a great artist.”