The flame burns bright

Guru Shobha Koser on receiving the LalitArpan Samman for Lifetime Achievement

September 17, 2014 05:00 pm | Updated 05:00 pm IST - New Delhi

DANCING TO GLORY Shobha Koser

DANCING TO GLORY Shobha Koser

In the hustle and bustle of the ‘real’ world, when artists put up performances or exhibitions that take us momentarily out of our mundane existence and onto a different plane, the tendency is to enjoy it, applaud it and proceed to forget about it till the next such opportunity presents itself. Not many think about how that opportunity to reach beyond the everyday presented ‘itself’.

Artists also struggle with the mundane and the irritating, as well as the downright tragic and terrifying. Some of them buckle under this pressure, and the results can be seen in a spectrum of reactions, from crass commercialisation of their art to just plain giving it up. In this context, when Guru Shobha Koser of the Pracheen Kala Kendra, Chandigarh, says, “I made a pattern for my life and I go on following it,” it is cause for inspiration and felicitation.

This week was one for felicitation, as the LalitArpan Festival, spearheaded by eminent Kathak exponent Shovana Narayan, presented the LalitArpan Samman for Lifetime Achievement to Shobha Koser and others in New Delhi.

While neither Shobha Koser nor her late husband M.L. Koser, who founded the Pracheen Kala Kendra in 1956 and presided over its expansion as a cultural bastion with branches in cities across India and the world, have received official honours like the Padmas, etc., they have plenty of adulation from artists. This, says Guru Shobha, is of great satisfaction.

The Pracheen Kala Kendra is an institution that runs classes in classical dance and music and visual arts, besides propagating culture in a big way through regular programmes that draw large crowds and giving awards to artists. Besides its own branches, it grants affiliation to schools across the country and the world. Students follow a graded syllabus of the Pracheen Kala Kendra board that leads to the advanced level ‘Bhaskar’ (following Bhushan and Visharad).

After M.L. Koser’s demise at 80 in 2008, Guru Shobha and her son Sajal Koser (a practising advocate) have taken the reins of the institution in their hands. “It’s a lot of work, but it was not difficult as such,” says his wife, a noted exponent of Kathak. “He had set everything up so well that it runs very smoothly. But there is a lot of work – there are 3 lakh students, 4,000 affiliated institutions. Setting the papers, reading them, and then our functions…I only get time for my riyaaz at night!”

Besides the festivals like the Nritya and Sangeet Sammelan named after Gayanacharya Bhaskar Rao Bakhle, there are workshops and seminars. “We also have a presentation by young artists. For the last 20 years, every 11th of the month there is a programme by a budding artist.”

With Guru Shobha having just attended performances by students of the Pracheen Kala Kendra’s Kolkata branch, we caught her on the phone at the Kolkata airport while catching a flight to Delhi to receive her Samman – presented to half the award recipients on Wednesday, with the rest to be presented this Thursday.

“To get recognition for your work in Delhi is a big thing,” she says. “When I think of the thousands of youngsters that have gone through my hands, and know that they are doing well, as lecturers or teachers passing on the art of Kathak, I feel happy. To be able to pass on vidya is wonderful, and I am very grateful to Shovanaji that she thought of me.”

This year’s LalitArpan Samman for Lifetime Achievement also goes to Vishwa Mohan Bhatt, R.K. Dhingra, Satish Gujral, L.K. Pandit, Sushma Seth, Niren Sengupta and Harish Narula.

This Thursday evening the festival concludes with Shovana Narayan’s Asavari Repertory presenting “Shringara”, followed by Manju Mehta (sitar) with Ram Kumar Mishra (tabla), and Kathak by Jayantimala and Rishika Mishra (daughter and granddaughter respectively of veteran Sitara Devi). Stein Auditorium, India Habitat Centre, Lodhi Road, New Delhi, 7 p.m.

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