Leela Samson has recently been appointed Director of the Sangeet Natak Akademi. She is also cultural advisor to the Prime Minister. Onerous responsibilities for the Padmashri-awardee, but “I am at one level simply a karmachari,” she tells Anamika Mukharji
I had hoped for a one-on-one interview, but you don’t easily pin down someone who is simultaneously director of Kalakshetra, India’s premier cultural academy to preserve and promote the classical arts; chairperson of the Sangeet Natak Akademi, India’s national academy of music, dance and drama; and also cultural advisor to the Prime Minister. Bharatanatyam dancer Leela Samson is also the author of a book on her Guru, Rukmini Devi Arundale’s life and the subject of two documentary films. Despite her full schedule, she found time to share her thoughts over email.
Sent away to learn Bharatanatyam at Adyar’s Kalakshetra in 1961, the nine-year-old would “wake up at 5 with a cold-water bath in the open, study till 7 am and breakfast at 7.30 am. After a full day at school, it was music, dance and games. There were no scores to achieve. It was just fun. After dinner at 7.30 pm, we would soon be asleep.”
The daughter of a naval officer, Samson is half-Jewish and half-Christian. Asked if being a non-Hindu ever led to a disconnect while learning Bharatanatyam, steeped in the Hindu classical tradition, she shoots back: “Can you be Christian, Parsi or even Muslim in India and be non-Hindu? We are all informed by each other’s religions, especially in the Services where I grew up, and later in Kalakshetra with the theosophical upbringing we had.” The reputed Kalakshetra Foundation had been founded in 1936 by Bharatanatyam dancer Rukmini Devi Arundale, a keen follower of Dr Annie Besant and the Theosophical Movement.
Samson adds, “This was my culture, and it was an adventure learning and interpreting it through dance. Every Indian has the privilege of knowing his cultural inheritance. It makes you richer than all the riches in this world and enhances your love for India and its philosophies.”
Talking of culture, does she feel compelled to protect the heritage of the tiny Jewish community she belongs to? “Who am I to protect or preserve? I have not run away to a foreign nation, I practice the culture of the land of my birth and that of my ancestors; and this is protection and preservation.”
As director of the Kalakshetra Foundation, can she tell us about any new plans? “We are thinking of setting up the Rukmini Devi Museum, and since her life ran parallel to the revival of a style of the dance, the museum will have much to do with Bharatanatyam. I hope that it will also house later an archive of the life and works of other reputed Bharatanatyam dancers.”
Last month, she took over as director of the Sangeet Natak Akademi. What’s on the anvil there? “Much can be done, not just for classical dance, but music and theatre are also on our agenda, at all levels — urban, rural, classical, traditional or modern. I am keen to digitise and document our archives. I also want to integrate the arts with education.”
And what sort of advice would she be offering the PM as his cultural advisor? The response is as humble as can be. “There are many very illustrious Indians with far more knowledge and experience. I have been given a task and will do what I can. There is a certain amount of creativity and difference I can bring in. However, I am at one level simply a karmachari.”
All this is hard work and it leaves her with little time to dance. “It’s disappointing that I no longer get the time to dance when I please, especially since I, at last, have access to the great spaces, the best musicians and the knowledge and desire to do it.”
