As I waited the morning after Mumbai’s weeklong torrential outburst, the delicate tinkling of her payal through the leftover drizzle marked Shobana Chandrakumar’s arrival. Evidently, the dancer in the actor, entrepreneur, teacher and performing artist’s multifaceted personality proudly stands out as dominant. “I wear these on my ankle every single day,” she mentions as I silently admire her nimble dancer’s feet. In many ways, dance initiated Shobana into the world rather than the other way around. She was surrounded by her aunts, classical dancers Lalitha, Padmini and Ragini, the famous Travancore Sisters—the trio that sealed in stone the then steadily growing special bond between Bharat Natyam and Tamil cinema that is inseparable today.
Growing up
Shobana’s own journey began at two and a half years of age. “At the time, every little girl in South India took to the arts, learning some form of music or art. I simply continued,” she recalls. She has danced her way to screens and stages across the world, opened a dance school, Kalarpana, in Chennai, been honoured with the Padma Shri and idolised by many a little girl in Tamil Nadu and beyond. But it’s still those moments on stage that conjure an incomparable excitement in her, when she’s able to shake something inside an unknowing audience, that lot that has simply come to witness some art form, and evoke in them the kind of interest that didn’t exist when they entered the auditorium. “That’s really what I like to do,” she tells me.
Shobana grew up surrounded by beautiful women, like her mother and her aunts. (Russia released a stamp in honour of Padmini in 1971 after her appearance in Mera Naam Joker.) “Beauty was all around me. Though back then, we weren’t very conscious of how we looked as young girls—at least I wasn’t, even when I was doing films. It was more of a natural process. My mother would apply castor oil to my lashes every night. That was kind of torturous, because I would wake up with my eyes stuck close. She knew I would thank her years later for my long, curled lashes!” Shobana also often indulges in some good ol’ at-home masking, applying a mix of turmeric and fresh cream on her face.
The beauty in Bharat Natyam
Her grace is so ingrained and natural, even sipping on Redbull while she waits for her shot seems like an aesthetically tasteful moment to capture. But it’s her mindfully authoritative nature, which cannot be mistaken for arrogance, that really gets your attention. “What Bharat Natyam has taught me is to appreciate the smaller things in life. It’s an art form that makes you use all your muscles, emotions, sensibilities… every part of you is involved. You see the finest of colours, you hear the most beautiful of music, you touch the most intrinsic of costumes and fabric, and you’re slowly sensitised to everything around you. It’s no wonder that artistes are said to have a sixth sense—the intuition that ultimately becomes your subconscious,” she says. “It’s taught me to be more perceptive.”
Every little detail of the process of turning a dancer into a performing artist readying herself to tell a story through movement, counts. From the elaborate, pleated costume in vivid colours to the intricately braided and jewelled hair to that exaggerated, immaculately lined eye. She explains its significance: “We define our features so we can see the way they move clearly. The eyes are lined with kohl to accentuate the eye movements. Even while rehearsing I insist that my students wear kajal.”
Her days are busy, and she likes it like that. Her mornings start with an early teaching session with her daughter, potting around the garden, doing physiotherapy exercises, followed by self-practice and eventually, her dance school. “I think we all have this special equation with our art where we don’t feel the need for anything else; it almost gives you everything. It gives you physical strength, it gives you mental peace. My work also makes me interact with younger children, around whom you can never not have a pleasant feeling. When everything you need is there, and you’re still able to do what you love, that itself is enough.”
Does she appreciate downtime, then, I wonder. “This is my downtime!” she signs off, as we end our chat after a quick succession of shots during the five-hour shoot, before she flies down to Coimbatore to perform in front of a 10,000-member audience with her students the next day. All set to shake yet another set of minds…
Photographed by Bikramjit Bose;Styled by Ria Kamat
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In this story:
- Chennai
- Coimbatore
- India
- Kajal
- Queen
- Russia
- Tamil Nadu
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