Usha Pretty ballerina: Our amma the star
As a colourful chapter closes with the passing away of Sri Lanka’s pioneering ballet dancer and teacher Oosha Saravanamuttu, her children Kumudini and Paikiasothy recall a larger than life personality
A star has passed on.
The prima donna of ballet in Sri Lanka, Oosha Saravanamuttu, is no more.
The child prodigy who wowed audiences at the tender age of seven – with even hardcore journalists going into such raptures as to call her the ‘Shirley Temple of Ceylon’ – and danced and choreographed her way into the hearts of thousands while also moulding many a young one through her teaching and wisdom, is no more. She was just short of her 88th birthday which is in October.
“She is exuberant, passionate, warm, temperamental, creative, impatient, dramatic, dynamic, and chic,” wrote the late Manique Gunesekera, then Professor of English at the University of Kelaniya who had known Oosha from the 1970s, soon after Oosha’s 75th birthday in a book of tributes to her.
Calling her the “Renaissance woman of performing arts in Sri Lanka” in the book, ‘Oosha – A Life of Dance in Sri Lanka’, Manique also states that she represents many things to many people…….a dancer, teacher, choreographer, pianist, violinist, singer and actor.
For Kumudini and Paikiasothy (Thamby), she was just “Amma” and it is from them that we ask who the woman behind this icon of dance was. The much photographed icon many people knew – in her signature silk or Manipuri saree, huge pottu and bright flowers in her hair.
Kumudini we meet first in their lovely and spacious home down Ascot Avenue, Colombo 5, on Thursday afternoon, joined later by “Boy” as the sister calls her younger brother.
They have cremated Amma on Wednesday and Kumudini had gone on Thursday morning to pick up her ashes which are to be interred at the General Cemetery, Kanatte. “Tenacity of purpose,” as Amma would say, they keep repeating, adding that this and faith in God made her what she was.
Do you know that just before the curtain went up on any performance organized by Amma, either at Royal College or Regal, even in those early days she would drop down on her knees behind the curtain and say a little prayer and long before it became a thing, the National Anthem preceded all performances, asks Kumudini, adding that Oosha was “very, very Sri Lankan”.
She was disciplined and extremely punctual. If she was invited to a wedding and was teaching that day she would have decided long, nearly a month before, what saree she would wear, what jewellery and shoes, recalls Kumudini, and she would finish teaching, be dressed and at the wedding about five minutes before it started.
“Amma worked very hard but when she relaxed she would go out at night, have a puff and sip coffee and brandy” and as teenagers when Kumudini and Boy went to let down their hair at the few nightclubs then such as Little Hut, they would find to their consternation Oosha walking in too.
My mother celebrated life to its fullest, prior to the dementia. She was the “life and soul” of our parties, singing, dancing and playing the piano in her inimitable style,” says Kumudini.
Oosha was very tough too, screaming out all sorts of insulting names if her students including Kumudini and Thamby did not meet her high standards. However, she was extremely generous, teaching many students free and also giving board and lodging to those in need. “She taught them much more than dance and an appreciation of the arts. She was a friend and confidante to her pupils and some say they were touched by an angel,” says Kumudini, while Paikiasothy adds that she shaped their personalities and instilled in them the confidence and the ability to achieve in their own lives.
And anyone and everyone who is someone now has passed through her circle of influence. The numbers are such that it is impossible to mention them all.
Having been stricken by dementia and a hip replacement that impeded her mobility in the past 10 years, Kumudini goes beyond that to reveal who Oosha was…….“She had a strong, vibrant dynamic personality always looking to the future and it is sad that we were robbed of her ideas and wisdom. Professionally, she had many plans for ballets and shows which she discussed with us. She was very innovative and a pioneer. She had a lot more to do and give. As she was so busy running her school she didn’t have enough time to devote to choreography, which many close to her regret as she had a creative genius.”
As a mother she was warm, loving, protective and supportive. She loved hard work. She was very practical and a problem-solver. She was very quick in everything she did and never procrastinated.
“She trusted us implicitly and took our advice and even criticism,” says Kumudini, smilingly recalling her “mischievous” sense of humour. “I told her that I was going to Yala to see animals and she told me to look in the mirror. This was when she had fairly advanced dementia. She was, of course, an animal lover.”
Oosha’s childhood was lonely, we gather, looked after by her grandmother Louisa Seneviratne de Livera and as an only child spending all her time with her beloved dogs, an enduring love until her death.
It was her grandmother who “spotted the rhythm in her little body” when she was just 2½ years old, enrolling her in Marjorie Sample’s ballet classes. She schooled at Bishop’s College, while also excelling in piano and violin. The star was born soon after, at seven years.
Later in life, five marriages she had to four men, with her last husband, Mohan Wijeyesinghe, passing away a few hours after she did last Monday (June 24).
Her first husband was Sepala Goonetilleke whom Oosha married when she was just 18. By 21, she was divorced with one son, Rohan (now deceased) “because conventional married life did not suit her”.
Next she married Dr. Bhaskaran Saravanamuttu with whom she had Kumudini and Paikiasothy who say that it was “passionate but turbulent”, with many an argument almost daily.
“She stood up to him all the time but he was also the person who encouraged her to start her own school,” says Kumudini and it was Bhaskaran that she remarried after third husband, S. Ganeshan, who was more of a father figure died.
When Dr. Bhaskaran died she finally married Mohan Wijeyesinghe with whom she had the longest stint as a wife.
Meanwhile, the beginnings of the Oosha Garten Ballet School, reported to be the oldest ballet school in Sri Lanka, were humble with just five students in her drawing room down Stratford Avenue in Kirulapone. There was no mirror or barre and it was Oosha’s perseverance that ensured its growth, with her dance studio finding its permanent home at Ascot Avenue.
The rest, of course, is history. In the words of Kumudini, Oosha was “a force of nature” earlier and then a “presence” due to her illness. She was a natural star. “I am honoured to be her daughter.”
The firmament has grown slightly dimmer, with the passing on of Oosha who strode across it like a colossus but also left behind a strong legacy.