Anuben

A student of the great dance maestro Uday Shankar, a sadhika, a teacher of Hindi, the head of the dancing section of the Center of Education. The principal of Udavi School: that was Anuben.

After joining the school I somehow gravitated towards dance, though I danced very rarely when much younger.

Every Sunday there used to be music class with Sahana-di and dance class with Anuben though I began to attend the music classes, I discontinued them for some reason or other and gave myself fully to dance.

Anuben was fortunate to have such a great dancer like UDAY Sankar as her teacher and later The Mother to guide her in her creativity. Uday Sankar as we know developed a unique style of his own. It was based on no single school of Indian classical school of dance but a beautiful synthesis. Movement after movement were executed and nothing was ever created in the field of dance so beautiful and harmonious! Naturally Anuben must have participated in all those novel creations. She imbibed a great deal from all those creations.

When she began to teach in The Ashram, she had instruction from The Mother to evolve something new. The Mother wanted a new type of dance in which the body as a whole will express different emotions and not only the face with traditional codified gestures.

We have heard that for the 1st December programme she, Millie-di and Norman-da would go together to The Mother to discuss and get Her approval. In early fifties the programmes used to be very long as there used to be some dance drama, songs, ballet if Monique and her husband were visiting The Ashram, a play written by The Mother. And to conclude the programme of the evening a section from “Savitri” was enacted in which Amita-di was always chosen by The Mother to act as Savitri. We have heard that whenever Anuben danced on 1st December’ The Mother opened her wardrobe and chose a sari for Anuben to wear for her item.

Anuben did her best to infuse in us the ideas she received from The Mother, and always encouraged us to create something new. She wanted us to evolve a new style of dance, something that could be an effort trying to express what The Mother wanted. But with time everything has changed. Now the students learn some classical form and that’s that. We were exposed to very many forms of dancing, anyone with a knowledge of dance was invited by Anuben to teach us something new. Thus once for a fortnight we had a crash course of Kandy style of dance from Sri Lanka.

Regarding her work at “Udavi” we need to say a little about how she was entrusted with teaching there. I have already spoken about how “Udavi” school came into being. It was solely founded by Nata-da. When the school began to function he asked Anuben to help him. She I believe began with the creative aspects of education- i.e. dance, music, drawing etc. But after Nata-da’s demise Anuben became the director of The School. By then the govt. of India had recognized the school and the students were allowed to sit for class ten examinations.

One year at the instigation of a certain union leader employees of “Udavi” went to strike demanding more pay and many other perks. The saddest part of the whole movement was that the workers forced the management to close down the school as well. Naturally those students who were to sit for their class ten exams were going to lose one year. But that was not acceptable to Anuben. She couldn’t let the students lose a year. So she decided to help them; and with The Ashram authorities she made arrangements. The students were to come to Pondicherry every morning. They were to have their lessons as per schedule and were to return home in the late afternoon. The “Dancing Hall” of the Center of Education became temporarily a classroom, desks, chairs and tables were supplied by different departments of The Ashram. Udavi school teachers commuted every morning from Pondicherry. They willingly agreed to help the students and thus the students of Udavi school got ready to sit in their class ten examination.

Anuben continued to work at Udavi school even after it was handed over to Auroville.