Friday, March 29, 2024

News Destination For The Global Indian Community

News Destination For The Global Indian Community

INDIA
LifeMag
Kolkata’s unlikely icon

Kolkata’s unlikely icon

As Bengal’s first Indian cabaret dancer, Miss Shefali chronicled her times and even challenged them

Somehow, when you remember Ms Shefali, you would describe her as Calcutta’s, not Kolkata’s, queen of cabaret. Not because Calcutta sounds more anglicised. But because she iconised the rebellion and swing of the 1960s, the first Indian to perfect a sensuous Western dance form and own it on her terms, a diva who danced with her long open hair and unbound passion, a working class girl who mastered high society niceties to win appreciation but was rooted to reality and a seductress, who led the night to the dawn. And in the fullness of herself, she was the forever dreamcatcher. Hence, always attributed with the mystique of a “Miss.” She commanded a legion of fans, from the legendary Satyajit Ray to Amitabh Bachchan, with nimble-footed ease. And in many ways symbolised the transition of Calcutta, the fairy lights of nightclubs topping the prosperity of trading houses and industries, crashing with the last vestiges of European withdrawal and the pangs of a post-Independent economy coming to terms with itself. Born Arati Das, she was a child of the Partition, the youngest of three sisters in a refugee family from across the border, landing in Calcutta in a morass of despair. With the family finding feet as household helps, Das, too, landed in an Anglo-Indian home, where she watched the dancers at evening parties as she served and waited tables. Self-taught, she started performing cabaret at the age of 12 at Firpo’s. There was no looking back since, as she trained and disciplined herself in more dance forms like cha cha, the Charleston and so on, learnt to speak like her audience and even toppled the experts in popularity. Such was her single-minded zeal to be the best in a desperate lunge for survival. She embodied the angry young woman, much before the angry young man was born, she was the rebel much before students were. And as Bengal lapsed into the desolateness of a political and industrial upheaval — with labour unions, strikes, joblessness and the rise of the Left — she became one of the many faces of the proletariat, breaking many barriers with her self-made destiny. She paralleled the intellectual renaissance of the times and even questioned its culture club hypocrisy, one that saw cabaret as a risque indulgence rather than a practised art form and one she elevated with her sense of dignity. A performance discipline she developed, what few know, from being a trained classical dancer as well. If liberalism of the intelligentsia was about being open to influences, then it desperately failed Ms Shefali, who has documented the denial in her autobiography Sandhya Raater Shefali (Shefali of the Evenings and Nights). A wallflower that could be coveted but not coopted in the bhadralok environs of Kolkata. For all the spectacularity about her rise, she remained an outcaste and an upstart. Except for Ray, who cast her in two films, Seemabaddha and Pratidwandi, and who ensured her welfare, no help came her way.

As live acts dwindled and the city’s club culture died out, Das did reinvent herself with the times, taking to the stage and even folk plays or jatra. Over time, she slipped into bad times. A realist, she refused marriage to suitors, knowing full well that nobody would look after her extended family and scaled down her lifestyle. No Government recognised her, leave alone help her. In her last days, a city jewellery house, which helps ailing artistes, set aside a monthly pension of `5,000 for her treatment. In her timeline, she lived the rise of Calcutta and the fall of Kolkata. There’s now talk of a web-series and film on her life. Sadly, she wasn’t celebrated in life, a power to herself than being empowered.

(Courtesy: The Pioneer)

Kolkata’s unlikely icon

Kolkata’s unlikely icon

As Bengal’s first Indian cabaret dancer, Miss Shefali chronicled her times and even challenged them

Somehow, when you remember Ms Shefali, you would describe her as Calcutta’s, not Kolkata’s, queen of cabaret. Not because Calcutta sounds more anglicised. But because she iconised the rebellion and swing of the 1960s, the first Indian to perfect a sensuous Western dance form and own it on her terms, a diva who danced with her long open hair and unbound passion, a working class girl who mastered high society niceties to win appreciation but was rooted to reality and a seductress, who led the night to the dawn. And in the fullness of herself, she was the forever dreamcatcher. Hence, always attributed with the mystique of a “Miss.” She commanded a legion of fans, from the legendary Satyajit Ray to Amitabh Bachchan, with nimble-footed ease. And in many ways symbolised the transition of Calcutta, the fairy lights of nightclubs topping the prosperity of trading houses and industries, crashing with the last vestiges of European withdrawal and the pangs of a post-Independent economy coming to terms with itself. Born Arati Das, she was a child of the Partition, the youngest of three sisters in a refugee family from across the border, landing in Calcutta in a morass of despair. With the family finding feet as household helps, Das, too, landed in an Anglo-Indian home, where she watched the dancers at evening parties as she served and waited tables. Self-taught, she started performing cabaret at the age of 12 at Firpo’s. There was no looking back since, as she trained and disciplined herself in more dance forms like cha cha, the Charleston and so on, learnt to speak like her audience and even toppled the experts in popularity. Such was her single-minded zeal to be the best in a desperate lunge for survival. She embodied the angry young woman, much before the angry young man was born, she was the rebel much before students were. And as Bengal lapsed into the desolateness of a political and industrial upheaval — with labour unions, strikes, joblessness and the rise of the Left — she became one of the many faces of the proletariat, breaking many barriers with her self-made destiny. She paralleled the intellectual renaissance of the times and even questioned its culture club hypocrisy, one that saw cabaret as a risque indulgence rather than a practised art form and one she elevated with her sense of dignity. A performance discipline she developed, what few know, from being a trained classical dancer as well. If liberalism of the intelligentsia was about being open to influences, then it desperately failed Ms Shefali, who has documented the denial in her autobiography Sandhya Raater Shefali (Shefali of the Evenings and Nights). A wallflower that could be coveted but not coopted in the bhadralok environs of Kolkata. For all the spectacularity about her rise, she remained an outcaste and an upstart. Except for Ray, who cast her in two films, Seemabaddha and Pratidwandi, and who ensured her welfare, no help came her way.

As live acts dwindled and the city’s club culture died out, Das did reinvent herself with the times, taking to the stage and even folk plays or jatra. Over time, she slipped into bad times. A realist, she refused marriage to suitors, knowing full well that nobody would look after her extended family and scaled down her lifestyle. No Government recognised her, leave alone help her. In her last days, a city jewellery house, which helps ailing artistes, set aside a monthly pension of `5,000 for her treatment. In her timeline, she lived the rise of Calcutta and the fall of Kolkata. There’s now talk of a web-series and film on her life. Sadly, she wasn’t celebrated in life, a power to herself than being empowered.

(Courtesy: The Pioneer)

Leave a comment

Comments (0)

Opinion Express TV

Shapoorji Pallonji

SUNGROW

GOVNEXT INDIA FOUNDATION

CAMBIUM NETWORKS TECHNOLOGY

Opinion Express Magazine