‘He’d enthral us with tales of his travels’

I STILL remember the first day I met Sunil bhai. It was in 1983, at the Kalakshetra December festival.

He was a scholar whose work took him to meet artists across India, from the remotest village to those in the city, who also travelled abroad to perform. Sunil bhai’s scholarship was one that came from a deep personal engagement with the arts and the artist.

In 1996, Dorling Kindersley asked me to be on the cover of their DK Eyewitness Guides: Dance, an edition authored by Andree Grau.

Sunil bhai visited London in 1997 and when he saw the book, he hunted me down and found me. He told me how moved and touched he was by the beauty of the line and emotional quality of the stance.

By then I was married to Vipul Sangoi, a well-known performance photographer and graphic designer. Soon Sunil bhai became one of our family members. When he came to London, he would spend time with us and, occasionally, stay with us.

He would enthral us with tales of his travels, meeting artists, new classical work happening around the world and making all that he saw come alive for us.

We were always amazed at the energy and the love he had for the arts. He meticulously wrote every day about all that he saw and experienced.

I remember one time when he spent about two weeks with us and without fail every day, he wrote. Some days he hardly slept for an hour or so. He seemed always so energised and so thrilled and full of life about what he had seen about the performing arts.

His energy to write, to absolutely love performing arts, to remember everyone he had ever met and specific details of when, where, how, were all quite remarkable.

He loved dance; he loved the performing arts. I can’t imagine a world without Sunil bhai – he was always present, always renewing himself in thinking about and experiencing new forms, new work and writing about them and sharing it with the world.

With the passing away of Sunil bhai, the lived experience of dance history across the genres of south Asia seems to disappear. But his love, his energy and all that he contributed to so many of us artists shall live on.

The best way to celebrate Sunil bhai is to continue to keep this energy, the zest of knowing, of curiosity, of sharing the performing arts alive in each one of us with the world.

Anusha Subramanyam is a London-based dance artist.