1978

1978

The 1977 concert was a learning experience in the nitty-gritty details of event organization.  I had been active as emcee or script writer in many of the events organized by individuals like Rubena and Ganga or by associations such as Friends of India Society and India Association of Winnipeg. While digging through old records for this blog, I found a progamme booklet for India Night, organized by India Association of Winnipeg on Sunday, 1 December 1974, where I am listed as script writer for "Reaching Out", a long item produced by Rubena Sinha and Jeannie Gilbert.

A digression from my story of how I initiated Dance instruction in Winnipeg.
Since the aim of this blog-site is to place on record names of early Indo-Canadians, I would like to mention that the three advertisers whose names and faces appear in the ads of the India Night programme  (the other were more general) were Kanhaya Singh and Ken Eapen for  insurance companies, and Asha Gupta for a travel agency. The participants of Reaching Out are not named, but the other artistes in sequence are: Menaka Thakkar (Odissi Dance); Kalpana Mitra on the sitar with K.K.Nigam on the tabla;  Vocal Music by Jon Higgins, accompanied by Trichy S. Sankaran on the mridangam; Tabla by Nikhil Ghosh; Classical Music by Hem Mathur; Raas by the Gujarati group; Flute by Gyan Vijayvergiya, and Bhangra by the Punjabi group. The emcees were Pamela Sinha, Supriya Shivakumar, Kepi Gupta and Raghu Dhruvarajan.

The 1977 concert was a learning experience for me, as I said, into the other-than-art aspect of such events.  Thawani did all the leg-work needed - getting the City to waive the entertainment tax,and charge minimal rental fee for the Playhouse auditorium, getting support from the Winnipeg branch of United Nations Association  etc.  He also ensured he recovered his expenses - his contract with Menaka specified that all proceeds from ticket sales would go to her - and they did.  But he certainly recovered his expenses through advertisements on the posters and in the programme brochure.

I did not have his business savvy.  I wanted to show that if people cared enough to nurture India's arts for their children, they would give direct financial support to carry it through, and also volunteer to get it moving.  So, when, after the two polls that seemed to assure 13 "pukka" (committed) and 7 "interested" resulted in only eight real registrations, I was pretty deflated.

But something else happened.  I had gone to Montreal in Feburary for a university-related meeting, and I had visited Kalpalatha as I had said I would.  I got to meet her mother and brother's family in her brother's house.

An interesting digression - her mother lived in what is now called "Granny's suite" a concept that did not exist at the time.  The double garage of her son's house had been converted to a suite with basic cooking facilities, living room, bedroom and bathroom, and though the big double door looked like the usual garage door from the outside, it was only a facade - the side door was the entrance to the suite!  Perfect - his mother could come into the main house any time, and the rest of the family likewise to her suite, and help each other in every way and yet lead independent lives!   I understand that nowadays many Indo-Canadian houses in B.C. have transplanted the architecture of the richer Delhi homes where large joint families live independently in separate suites within the same house.

During my visit with Kalpalatha's family, I looked at various family and dance albums and found out that the family had an artistic tradition - Kalpalatha's father was an actor, and her mother was both performer and teacher of music and dance.  The programme brochures and posters of the various events  in India, and Kalpalatha's dance concerts in Canada, showed in no uncertain way their experience and talents.  I also found out that her mother was related to Mr. F.G.Natesa Iyer, who has a story of his own, that I remember hearing from my mother  - he is said to have paid back the British in their own coin by converting to Christianity in order to ensure he got promoted within the British Raj, and that when he got his promotion he reconverted to Hinduism! 

When it seemed certain that my original project could not materialise, I contacted Kalpalatha's mother, Mrs. Saraswathi Thiagarajan and voila - dance instruction was on its way to Winnipeg.

I put into action what I had learned through the 1977 concert, and  I will write about that next (unless I get diverted to other digressions!)