1977

1977

In the Fall of 1977, I was helping Anand Thawani in his production of the Friends of India Society weekly show on community television.  As I said in an earlier post, Thawani was the first to produce an India-related show on the newly started VPW community TV station.

A digression about community television.  As I recall, when Videon got the license to sell cable to local customers, the license came with a caveat that the company make available a free studio for local producers to communicate with the local community.  So they opened a basic studio on Gertrude Street close to downtown and Thawani was one of the first to be a producer. He had started a group called Friends of India Society and had discussions and debates about various matters.  Now he had another forum for his work - the community television channel.

Once a month, I hosted the show.  The community was still small enough that any newcomer or any artiste stopping over in Winnipeg came to my notice.  I heard that a group was coming from Quebec on a tour of French- medium schools in Winnipeg.  It was arranged by one Mrs. Sharma, who was the curator of a museum in Montreal.  As I recall, there were five other members in the group - a tabla player, a Kathak dancer who was Mrs. Sharma's daughter and whose name as I recall was Kusum, and three Bharata Natyam dancers, one of whom was the granddaughter of a respected Sanskrit scholar in Madras, Professor Raghavan.  Another of the Bharata Natyam dancers was Kalpalatha Filteau.

I interviewed them on Friends of India and also had them over for dinner.  During the dinner, I came to know that Kalpalatha's mother. Mrs. Saraswathi Thyagarajan, was her first and ongoing teacher and that she lived in Montreal with her son's family, and that he too was a Bharata Natyam dancer. All of the dancers were charmers, but Kalpalatha's enthusiasm was wonderful.  She was newly married and that gave her charm an extra oomph and I promised her I would visit her when I came to Montreal for a conference  the following Spring.

Soon after this, I helped Anand Thawani arrange a concert by Menaka Thakkar, of Toronto.  He had already arranged a solo concert by her on October 26, 1976 at the Tec-Voch auditorium at 1555 Wall Street when she had danced Jayadeva's Gita Govindam.  This time she was touring with her musicians and guru, legendary master Kelucharan Mohapatra.  The concert was held on October 1, 1977, at the Playhouse Theatre.

I look at the posters now and marvel that the ticket prices were a mere $4.00 and $2.00 for the 1976 concert and $6.00. $4.00 and $2.50 for the 1977 concert!!  

During this 1977  visit, I had discussed with her the possibility of her teaching our Winnipeg children and she was agreeable to coming for seven to ten days.  She thought it feasible though she would have to cancel her classes in Toronto for the week she was away.  She named her fee.  A quick calculation showed we would need about eighteen students to make it financially feasible.

I  talked it over with a group of four other mothers with whom I had been discussing my project to bring dance instruction to Winnipeg.  They were Gomathy Puri, Tulsi Sarkar, Ganga Dakshinamurti and Ratna Bose .  Between us we had eight daughters.  We needed ten more, and I sent out a great many letters to parents of prospective students. Our community newspaper, The Link, owned by Pramod Puri, printed my Press Release  on March 15, 1978.

Bharat Natyam Teaching Planned in Winnipeg, read the headline, and this was followed by:

"Recent talks with school teachers have confirmed what I have long felt to be a need - the establishing of a community resource group that would explain our arts and values to the larger community, and also help cultivate new talent from our own resources," says  Dr. Uma Parameswaran who plans to start an informal resource group here in Winnipeg.

One of the first programmes Mrs. Parameswaran hopes to take up is a long term project of teaching dance to youngsters. If there is sufficient evidence that it can be a financially self-supporting project, she will invite Menaka Thakkar, Canada's leading exponent of India's dance traditions, to give a Bharat Natyam course between June 15 and June 30.  The invitation has to be finalized by March 25.  Those interested in such a course - the fees will be $50.00 per student - should contact Mrs. Parameswaran at 269-9713 between 5 p.m. and 8 p.m.

In my mail-out package I had mentioned March 20 as the deadline for sending in the deposit because I had told Menaka I would let her know by April 1.  The response was disappointing.  We got only ten deposits!  None of the others, who had indicated in my earlier polls that they were "interested" were willing to pay a deposit.

One of my group of five suggested that we contact Menaka to see if she would be willing to have an open contract, that is, to accept whatever was collected.  I opposed it for two reasons - one is that bargaining with artistes is degrading the art and artiste, and the other was that she had that kind of contract for the 1977 concert and the collection was really low.  The Playhouse auditorium probably seats 800 and there were much fewer than a hundred!  The hall was so empty, I asked those who had bought the $2.50 tickets to come right down to the front so they could enjoy the concert.  I did not want to take that route again and shortchange an artiste.