‘He was the quintessential butterfly’
IT IS said that the fluttering of a butterfly at one end of the world can cause a tsunami at the other – that is how the world is connected.
But a butterfly does more than create tsunamis. It flutters with energy from flower to flower, colourful in itself, carrying new life for the flowers by pollinating them.
For me, Sunil was the quintessential butterfly. Always energetic, never staying long in a single place, always going to see every performance, every dancer, and taking word of their work to others.
He was the bridge between many worlds, of dance and academia, nationally and internationally. Through him, the dance community of the world came close. Many of us who had never met before, met as friends because Sunil had spoken so much to us of the other person and their work.
Sunil used to joke to people that I had no choice in making him a friend, as I inherited him from my mother. It is true. I cannot remember a time when Sunil was not around. And how he talked – non-stop, and in his funny voice, breaking from Gujarati to English and reciting Sanskrit and showing mudras, all in the same breath.
When I was growing up, he used to irritate me – I wanted Amma’s sole attention, but he
(right) would not stop and they would not stop giggling like children. But as the years passed, and I became a professional performer, I began to value him for the rarity he was – a person so drunk with the beauty of dance that little else, except the savouring and enjoyment of it, mattered.
Over the past two decades, our home became his when he was in Ahmedabad. In 2011, while making a film about Amma’s seminal work in choreography and using the arts to talk of social issues that mattered to her, we invited him as someone who had followed her work since the mid-1950s.
And he graciously accepted. “Mallika, bol, hun aa paheru ke aa?” was his question each day of the shoot. With his unique and dandy wardrobe, he could have worn anything – a pleated Bengali starched dhoti or a Manipuri shawl turned into a waistcoat, and Indonesian batik shirt or a dapper bandh gala – he would have sparkled anyway.
As I grew older, and got disappointed or cynical about people and their nature, I would wonder at his vigour and never-failing enthusiasm and zest. Always on the go, always ready to see new dance, new dancers, meet new people, travel, pack and travel again. Looking at his itinerary was sometimes exhausting in itself. Yet not until Covid-19 struck him down, did he ever falter, did his frenetic lifestyle pause.
And the lonely end – looked after by one friend who was his doctor, while all of us had news only of his recovery and looked forward to having the whirlwind in our midst again, filling our sagging sails with wind to set sail once more.
He has touched so many lives. I am sure he will continue being in the front row watching all of us as we pick up the strains of our dance and arts careers again. And we will hear the peal of laughter that always followed his greeting.
Mallika Sarabhai is a celebrated Indian classical dancer.