Acchan maharaj biography of william

Birju Maharaj – Brijmohan Nath Mishra – whose name remains synonymous with kathak, was born into a family of illustrious kathak exponents in Lucknow in the mids. His gharana (school) came to be known after his ancestors – the Kalka-Bindadin Lucknow Gharana. Following the death of his father, the legendary Acchan Maharaj, when he was about nine years, he came under the wing of his uncle Shambhu Maharaj.

Thereafter, Birju’s mother Mahadai wrote to Kapila Vatsyayan (who had been a student of Acchan Maharaj) requesting her help for securing her son’s future. The youngster arrived in Delhi in the late s and soon started teaching at Sangeet Bharati, an organisation set up by Nirmala Joshi, the first secretary of the Sangeet Natak Akademi (SNA). “He was about 12 and most of his students, like the Late Rani Karna, were older than him,” says Nand Kishore Kapote, Birju Maharaj’s former student and author of Nrityasamra

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Dancing into Modernity: Multiple Narrative’s of India’s Kathak Dance

Dancing into Modernity: Multiple Narratives of India's Kathak Dance Author(s): Pallabi Chakravorty Source: Dance Research Journal , Summer - Winter, , Vol. 38, No. 1/2 (Summer Winter, ), pp. Published by: Congress on Research in Dance Stable URL: JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@ Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at Congress on Research in Dance is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Dance Research Journal This content downloaded from on Wed, 30 Jun UTC All use subject to Dancing into Modernity: Multiple Narratives of I

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A search for Old Delhi’s courtesans reveals a present that’s not always comfortable with the past

Masjid Mubarak Begum in Old Delhi’s Chawri Bazar is named after the wife of David Ochterlony, Delhi’s first British resident. Mubarak Begum was a dancing girl, and it is her background that lends this early 19th century mosque its colloquial name, Randi ki Masjid, or prostitute’s mosque. The mosque’s caretakers try hard to shrug off the name, going to the extent of having painted the “correct name” of the mosque on its façade in långnovell letters.

A stone’s throw away from the mosque lies the Chawri Bazar metro station, one of the capital’s deepest. Ascending to the surface—past scrubbed grey tiles and gleaming escalators into a world of Mughal ephemera—is not unlike time travel.

The entrance to the metro station fryst vatten a meeting point for the walks that history researcher Gaurav Sharma conducts in Old Delhi as part of his work with an immersive tour company. gods month, he led groups on