Sarada Hoffman

In Rukmini Devi’s footsteps

By V. Ramnarayan

 “ Every Kalakshetra alumnus claims he or she was taught by Rukmini Devi. While that may be true in a broad sense, most of us were Sarada Teacher’s students.” Quite a few senior dancers, from Janardanan and Balagopalan to Krishnaveni Lakshman and Leela Samson have said this on different occasions. “She taught generations of students the best way of performing Bharatanatyam,” Balagopalan once told this writer, “she was a perfectionist who spared no one until we got every step, every expression, every time. Without her dedication, where would we all be?” Recipient of the central Sangeet Natak Akademi award, and the Rukmini Devi Award for Excellence by the Centre for Contemporary Culture, Kolkata, Sarada Hoffman was the Madras Music Academy’s choice for the honour of Sangita Kala Acharya in the just concluded season.

All Kalakshetra students between 1945 and 1996 came under the influence of Sarada Hoffman. She is the one teacher said to have imbibed in fullest measure all that Kalakshetra founder Rukmini Devi Arundale knew in Bharatanatyam and passed it on to her students. For over fifty years, soft-spoken but strong-willed Chinna Sarada Teacher served her guru’s cause with self-effacing dedication. “I was a third generation theosophist. My grandfather, Mahadeva Sastri, had been the librarian at the Adyar Library during Annie Besant’s time and my father, M. Krishnan was the first Indian headmaster of the Olcott Memorial School, then called the Olcott Harijan School, much beloved of the children and their parents,” Sarada once reminisced. “I had been awestruck by Athai’s dance even as a girl of six,” she continued, “when I witnessed her first public performance at the Adyar Theatre inside the Society. She danced beautifully, no doubt under divine influence. I had earlier seen her do the swan dance and straightaway wanted to learn dance. I had even taken part as a five-year old in her production of Light of Asia. Now all of six years old, I asked her to teach me.” “You are too young,” Rukmini Devi had told Sarada then, promising to start teaching her once she turned ten. “And promptly, on my tenth birthday, in 1939, she sent word for me and started Bharatanatyam lessons for me.”

Rukmini Devi was a fine teacher and great storyteller who had a way with children. Sarada remembers listening to her stories of rishi-s, seated in the Buddhist shrine inside the Theosophical Society. “I was so happy to be with her, and often missed school to watch her learn dance from Meenakshisundaram Pillai. My parents did not object.” Sarada was barely 14 when she had her arangetram. Unfortunately, Meenakshisundaram Pillai decided to leave Kalakshetra, and Chockalingam Pillai – who taught Sarada and other students – left along with him, very sad to miss Sarada’s arangetram. Tiger Varadachariar had been scheduled to preside over the arangetram, but on the day of the event, Madras was hit by a cyclone. “The Saidapet bridge was under water, and there was no way ‘Tiger’ could have come. I said ‘no’ to Athai’s offer of a postponement. To me, it was enough if Dr. Arundale and Athai attended.And so my arangetram took place as scheduled, attended only by residents of Adyar, wading through knee-high water inside the Society. There was no electricity, but Yagya Sastri produced a beautiful kuttuvilakku – with a figure of Krishna dancing atop Kalia adorning it – from nowhere, and after lighting it, I did pooja and then danced to Athai’s nattuvangam.” With her parents deciding to move to Madurai permanently, 14-year-old Sarada had to decide whether to stay on to help Athai with her work, now that Meenakshisundaram Pillai and Chockalingam Pillai too had left. Her father told her she must make her own decision. There was no confusion in Sarada’s mind. She decided to stay with Athai and moved into the hostel (and stayed there for the next 17 years, until she married Peter Hoffman in 1960). Receiving her diploma in Sarada as a sakhi (L) with K.P. Kunhiraman as Siva and Rukmini Devi as Parvati in Kumara Sambhavam l SRUTI February 200 10 SPECIAL FEATURE 1944 but formally appointed as a teacher only in 1947 (when she was 18 and old enough – and entitled to coffee in the hostel!), she started teaching junior students. During the next couple of decades, Sarada repeatedly turned down dancing engagements outside Kalakshetra because she always gave her teaching first priority. According to some of her long-time associates and admirers, “She dedicated her life to Kalakshetra with no expectation of any reward or benefit.” She remembers how she turned down an invitation to dance in Russia as part of a Government of India initiative, because she felt she was needed at Kalakshetra, especially at that time – 1956 – as Athai was still convalescing from a major illness. It was Rukmini Devi who insisted that she make the trip saying, “This is also part of your work. You must take Bharatanatyam to other parts of the world.”

All through Rukmini Devi’s lifetime, Sarada took instruction from her, absorbed everything and then taught the students as Rukmini Devi would have wanted to. The creative person that she was, Rukmini Devi could not be expected to have the immense patience a teacher needs with fallible students. Sarada had the patience to work with the students, some of them older than her, until they completely internalised the dance the way Athai visualised it. “Until Athai okayed it! For me it was a great experience. As the years rolled by, I had greater understanding of the art, I loved my work and loved the children. They found my discipline tough, but they were affectionate towards me.” T hough she never acquired a conventional college degree, Sarada Hoffman’s education at Kalakshetra for her diploma included four languages – Tamil, English, Sanskrit and Telugu – Dramatic Art, Stagecraft, Lighting, Painting, Crafts, Voice Production, Music Appreciation and Art History. Most of the classes were of a high standard.

Sarada remembers the world famous poet Dr. Norman Cousins, who taught at Kalakshetra tell her once, “You have to rise up. I won’t go down,” when she complained that his classes were “too difficult”. Sarada (R) as a court dancer in the Ramayana series. As a teacher, Sarada too expected her pupils to reach up, but she took the trouble of giving them a helping hand in their strenuous ascent. Sarada explains her reputation as a demanding teacher. “The dance demanded it. I gave my energy to each of my students. I did not ask them to do what I was not prepared to do.” And for years, the results were there to see in the outstanding dance drama productions of Kalakshetra. Significantly, what Sarada Hoffman remembers most about Rukmini Devi the teacher is her concern for those not blessed with talent or good looks. “I don’t care if none of you wants to come for the exam, I’ll be there to watch her dance,” she would tell teachers, stressing the importance of the confidence-building impact of dance on such a person.

Peter Hoffman, a young US Air Force pilot and the son of Paul Hoffman, the Director-General of the UN Development Programme, was interested in spiritualism and vegetarianism. He met Rukmini Devi at the Chicago Convention of the Theosophical Society in 1949. He was so impressed by her lecture, he walked up to her and asked her, “Can I come to India and help you in your work?”  Rukmini Devi gave Peter a trial and after he had accompanied her on a lecture tour of America and Europe, helping her in a variety of ways, approved his coming to India. Once in India, he was a tireless helper, totally devoted to Rukmini Devi and her work, chauffeuring her, doing secretarial work, accompanying her on her travels. Though Peter and Sarada met soon after his arrival in India, it was only in 1960 that they married. For more than five decades, Sarada was a happy and fulfilled teacher at Kalakshetra. Though she was respected and admired in her institution, recognition on a national scale came only in 1996 when the Sangeet Natak Akademi honoured her. Other honours followed thereafter, with the Sangita Kala Acharya the latest of them. For Sarada Teacher, it was not dance alone that she taught and learnt. It was something deeper, a harmonising of body, mind and emotions, a channelising of beauty. And in the presence of this petite, gracious lady, we are filled with her sense of quiet strength and inner peace that made her such a good teacher.

SRUTI February 2009