The dancer paints and her paintings dance”, someone had once remarked about prolific Bharatnatyam danseuse Komala Varadan. However, to describe her as just a Bharatnatyam dancer would be far from the truth because this veteran artiste has literally dabbled in almost all forms of art one can imagine.
After wowing audiences across the world with her graceful moves, she took up the brush and gave an expression to the extraordinary painter in her. But she didn’t stop at that, she soon took up a penchant for the camera too. And just when you begin to gasp a silent “wow”, she reveals that she was once a political journalist and an award winning author, who can even play the veena. Yes, Komala can put any 20-somethings to shame, in her youthful exuberance and the sheer perfection she achieves in whatever she pursues.
After knowing so much, one is obviously tempted to ask about the secret of being a jack-of-all-trades. To which she replies, “It is all about time management and involvement with whatever you are doing, not just physical but also mental involvement.”
She rues the fact that it’s parents these days, who inject the idea of tiredness in children’s minds. The dance guru says, “After dance class, their mothers come and tell me how their children feel tired and make excuses of being absent because they have an exam the next day. And I give them the example of dancers on stage, who after two hours of non-stop dancing, smile beautifully and walk away gracefully. It only happens when someone is involved in it with full heart and soul.”
Komala had started off as a Bharatnatyam dancer who had her first overseas performance at the age of 13, in Malaysia. She left the country for a brief period when her parents migrated to Singapore. At the age of 22, she came to India on a six-month-long vacation to meet her grandparents who surprised her with the news of a prospective groom. “My husband’ s uncle and my grandparents were friends. He was an IAS officer who had a passion for music, so they thought dance and music would make for a great jugalbandi. Even my parents were clueless about it, and I had to invite them to come for my wedding,” laughs the Padma Shri awardee, who also has many exciting travel tales to tell. Like the time when she was stranded in Egypt for three days, due to airline failure, and ended up adding Africa to her travel portfolio. Or the time she went on an all-India road trip with her father, when she was a teenager. Chatting with Komala is like reading a page-turner, you’re always eager to know what more she has to say.
Her keen observation of nature and life in general is reflected in her photographs and short stories, one of which even won her an award. “There are many issues that I closely feel about and I try to express my thoughts in various mediums. Like transcribing from one language to another, transferring my experiences from one medium to the other is challenging.” And she is someone who has surely risen above that challenge.