Leela Samson caught in age row

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Several eyebrows went up as news spread of the celebrated dancer Leela Samson returning to the director’s seat at the world-famous Kalakshetra, which she had vacated only on April 30 at the peak of a controversy surrounding her continuance in the post well beyond the retirement age of 60 years fixed for Central government employees.

It is said that the ministry of culture, which administers Kalakshetra, sent a communication to Ms Samson on Friday evening accepting her request to withdraw her resignation (of April 12 requesting to be relieved on April 30).

In less than an hour, she was back at the Foundation to take back charge from deputy director Karunaker K Menon, who was holding fort during her brief exit.

In her resignation letter sent to the culture ministry, Ms Samson had stated that she found herself in a “very piquant situation” of having been “naive” to accept the director’s post at her alma mater without insisting on a contract and a specific tenure from the ministry that appointed her.

She had raised the issue with the ministry and even wrote to the culture minister on February 28, 2012, requesting for permission to step down as her age now was an issue before the Madras high court and it could cause embarrassment to the ministry and to Kalakshetra. She did not even receive acknowledgement of that letter, she pointed out.

Also, she said, in the Kalakshetra board meeting on April 10 (2012), in which the secretary and joint secretary of the culture ministry were present, “the ministry’s reaction was clear to me”, implying that they wanted her to go. And that’s how the resignation happened.

And thereafter, some interesting things happened outside Kalakshetra that finally parachuted Samson back into the director’s seat.

Responding to her resignation letter, culture ministry’s joint secretary Dr V Venu took exception to her ‘the ministry’s reaction was clear to me’ statement and reminded her that when the issue of the upper age limit for director’s post was raised by the board chairman Gopalkrishna Gandhi (former West Bengal Governor), the board was apprised that the ministry was examining the matter of the age of the director and a decision could be taken shortly.

There was no discussion by the ministry officials on the issue of her resignation. “Therefore, your reference to the ‘ministry’s reaction’ is unclear and not borne out by facts”, said Dr Venu, while accepting Ms Samson’s resignation and telling her to demit office on April 30.

If the ministry has now chosen to accept Ms Samson’s petition for withdrawing her resignation, one must assume that it has decided to raise the upper age limit of the Kalakshetra director beyond 60.

While a few of Ms Samson’s friends are hailing her return—they claim she was instrumental in lifting Kalakshetra’s fame to the skies across the globe—many gurus at the institution have petitioned the culture minister not to raise the retirement age, 60 “for the sole purpose of Ms Leela Samson”.

They have been upset with her because “till date, no promotions were given (by her) to the senior staff members appointed by (founder) Rukmani Devi” and they were “neglected and humiliated” by Ms Samson.