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Sikh Renowned exponent Jatinderpal Singh
Bansal bids adieu
Sikh Bharatnatyam
Dancer Jatinder Pal Singh passes away
Rajee Narayan
 Jatinder has the
distinction of being the first ever Sikh Bharatanatyam dancer in
India,
who has made it to the Limca Book of World Records. And he has
indeed made it to our hearts and will stay there forever.
46 year old
Jatinder, residing in Nerul, Mumbai, was head of the Dance and Music
department of
Delhi Public
School in Nerul, teaching Bharatanatyam and Indian folk dances. At
the age of 26, he gave up a cushy job with Pidilite, to pursue his
passion for Bharatanatyam and Indian folk dances.
A student of Bharatanatyam Guru Rajee since 1990, he learnt from her not only Bharatanatyam but also
Nattuvangam and Natya Sastra. He assisted her in teaching the
students of Nritya Geethanjali and was ever so popular with the
students, whom he encouraged with gentle coaxing and kind words of
encouragement.
Jatinder had
participated in all the dance dramas and group programmes of Nritya
Geethanjali and given several solo stage performances in
Bharatanatyam. He performed for the NCPA, National Centre for the
Performing Arts in 1996, the 6th Bharatam Dance Festival in Chennai,
the Ramakrishna Mission in Mumbai and other Sabhas. In June 2008, he
was in
London, where he performed at the Nehru Centre, for the second time.
A devoted Sikh, he made a novel presentation of Shabad, the
devotional Punjabi bhajan on stage, keeping its religious sanctity
intact. He has given about 250 performances all over India and also
in London and California.
 Jatinder was a
graded artiste with Mumbai Doordarshan. He won the men’s freestyle
solo dance competition on the popular TV programme, Boogie Woogie,
on Sony channel. He has been featured in more than a hundred
episodes of Aao Seekhen, a children’s programme on Doordarshan,
demonstrating the use of waste material in handicrafts and fabric
painting.
He was skilled in teaching the visually, hearing and orally
impaired, mentally challenged, spastics, as well as paraplegic
children, not only dance, but also handicrafts and fabric painting,
as a means towards gainful self-employment. He used Bharatanatyam as
a Dance Therapy, for mentally challenged children.
Jatinder was a
natural artist – very good at making interesting things, especially
for children. He had held exhibitions of his work and conducted
workshops and demonstrations, held inter-school competitions in
fabric painting and handicrafts, in various cities all over
India.
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He was skilled in teaching the visually, hearing and orally
impaired, mentally challenged, spastics, as well as paraplegic
children, not only dance, but also handicrafts and fabric painting,
as a means towards gainful self-employment. He used Bharatanatyam as
a Dance Therapy, for mentally challenged children. |
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The Rotary Club
of Bombay Midcity confered the Vocational Excellence Award - 2004,
on Jatinder, for his excellent contribution to the field of Indian
Dance. His most notable achievement is the Best Dancer Award he
received at the 6th Bharatam Festival in 1999, at Thyaga Brahma Gana
Sabha, Chennai. His most memorable moment, he would always say, was
when he performed at Vani Mahal, Chennai, in 1995.
Jatinder’s swan
song was at
Jodhpur, where
he had gone for a dance programme, presenting ten students from
Delhi Public School, on Saturday, 19th July. Following his students’
performance, he presented a solo item. Later backstage, he suffered
acute pain, followed by a massive heart attack that he did not
survive.
Jatinder has
passed away, doing what he loved to do the most… and leaving a
terrible void in our midst.
Author’s Intro:
Veteran dance teacher Guru Smt. Rajee Narayan was the teacher of
Jatinder Pal Singh Bansal. She has been honoured with the
prestigious Maharashtra Rajya Sanskritik Puraskar (known as the
lifetime achievement award), for her contribution towards the
enrichment and propogation of Bharatanatyam for over five decades.
She is the daughter of S. Narayana Iyer, who was a great vedic and
yogic scholar writer and poet. Her mother, Gangammal, was recognised
as the only family lady who knew the maximum number of Tyagaraja
kritis, padams and javalis, and was Rajee's first guru for Carnatic
music.
24 September 2008
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