Birju Maharaj, the Kathak Master of the Kalka-Bindadin Gharana, Won the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award in 1964 and the Padma Vibhushan in 1986

Brij Mohan Nath Mishra, known to the world as Birju Maharaj, was born in Lucknow on 4 February 1938 and became the leading figure of the Kalka-Bindadin gharana, the Lucknow family school of Kathak. A gharana is a style handed down inside a family of artists. The Sangeet Natak Akademi, India’s national academy of music, dance and drama, gave him its award in 1964, and the Gazette of India lists him among the Padma Vibhushan awardees notified on 26 January 1986. The Akademi’s own citation calls him “the doyen of Kathak dance today”. He died in Delhi on 17 January 2022, aged 83.

A family that taught Kathak in Lucknow

Kalashram, the school Birju Maharaj founded, traces his family to Ishwari Prasad, a Mishra Brahmin of Handia in the Allahabad region, whom it calls the first known Kathak teacher. The line comes down through Lucknow to two brothers, Bindadin Maharaj and Kalka Prasad, who performed as a pair and were known as “Kalka-Bindadin”. The school’s site says Bindadin wrote and set about 3,000 thumris, the short songs of love and devotion that Kathak dancers act out, and taught many singers and court dancers. Kalka Prasad’s sons were Acchan Maharaj, Lachhu Maharaj and Shambhu Maharaj, which makes Bindadin the great-uncle of Birju Maharaj, whose father was Acchan Maharaj. On the school’s site Birju Maharaj himself writes of Bindadin as his grandfather.

Sahapedia, the online archive of Indian arts, adds a caution about the court story. It is commonly said that Bindadin and Kalka Prasad danced for Nawab Wajid Ali Shah of Awadh, but the Nawab’s own books do not mention them, and Sahapedia reasons that Bindadin would have been a boy in the Nawab’s time and made his compositions after the Nawab’s exile to Kolkata in 1856. Kalashram’s family account has a different ancestor, Thakur Prasad, as the Nawab’s Kathak guru. Sahapedia also says the Lucknow style grew alongside the courtesans of the city, and that it probably has the widest range of bols (the spoken rhythm syllables) and the most developed abhinaya, the art of expression through face and gesture, both owed partly to them. The classical dances article places Kathak among the eight forms the Akademi recognises.

Kalashram says the baby was first named Dukh Haran, later changed to Brijmohan, a name of Krishna, and shortened to Birju. Almost every obituary gives 4 February 1938, with the Akademi citation saying only 1938. The Daily Star gave 4 February 1937.

Nine years with his father, then his uncles

Acchan Maharaj took his son to musical conferences from the age of seven, according to Kalashram and Outlook, and Kalashram adds that he let the boy present a few pieces before he came on stage himself. The father died when the boy was nine. Training then continued under his uncles Shambhu Maharaj and Lachhu Maharaj. The Tribune quotes Birju Maharaj calling the three influences a “triveni”, the meeting of Ganga, Yamuna and Saraswati.

Outlook and KalingaTV say he began teaching at 13, and Outlook places that at Sangeet Bharati in New Delhi. The Tribune says he later taught at Shriram Bharatiya Kala Kendra and then at the Sangeet Natak Akademi’s Kathak Kendra.

The 1964 award and a disputed age

The Akademi’s Fellowship citation, published under the heading Akademi Awards 1998, says his performances won him the Akademi Award in 1964, “at the young age of twenty-six”. Kalashram’s site, Outlook and the Daily Star say 28 instead. The age does not fit 1964 for a man born in February 1938, so the 1964 date and the age of 26 are the pair the Akademi’s own record supports.

The Akademi’s Kathak Kendra page calls its Fellowship the Akademi’s highest award, and the citation elects Birju Maharaj to it. The citation also lists the Kalidas Samman, an honorary doctorate from Banaras Hindu University and the Padma Vibhushan among his honours. Kalashram adds Nritya Choodamani, Andhra Ratna, the Soviet Land Nehru Award and an honorary doctorate from Khairagarh University, and Outlook names the Lata Mangeshkar Puraskar.

Head of the Kathak Kendra

The Akademi’s page on Kathak Kendra describes the institution. It began in 1955 as the Kathak wing of Shriram Bharatiya Kala Kendra, with Shambhu Maharaj at its head, became part of the Akademi in 1964, and in July 1969 the Akademi took over its running. After Shambhu Maharaj died in 1970, his nephew Birju Maharaj, who had been with the Kendra from its early years, became head of faculty and was also its director for many years.

The Akademi credits him with changing what Kathak was staged for. Until then, its page says, the dance was shown to small gatherings in temple courtyards and mehfils, the private music evenings of the court tradition, and he adapted it for large audiences in the modern theatre, with group works beside the solo form. The Kendra’s repertory unit staged ballets that he choreographed, including Shan-e-Awadh (1968), Kumara Sambhav and Dalia, with music by the Dagar Brothers. The page dates a work titled Parikrama to 1980, in which Kathak shows the rhythm running through animate things. In 1982 the Kendra began holding two national festivals, one of them named for Kalka and Bindadin.

The citation says the pieces he composed and made popular now form the standard curriculum for Kathak teachers and dancers. He retired from the Kendra in 1998, the Akademi says, and then started Kalashram.

Dance dramas, abstract works and partners on stage

Kalashram lists his full-length dance dramas of the 1970s, among them Katha Raghunath Ki, Krishnayan and Roopmati Baajbahadur, with Mughal-themed pieces such as Darbar-e-Salaami and Shaahi Mehfil. In the 1980s it places the abstract, rhythm-led works Laya Parikrama, Naad Gunjan and Ghunghru Sangeet. The Tribune says he also performed alongside flamenco dancers, the ghazal singer Jagjit Singh, the tabla player Zakir Hussain and the thumri singer Girija Devi, and that he was a singer and percussionist as well as a dancer.

Two dance scenes for Satyajit Ray

The Satyajit Ray Foundation’s credits for Shatranj Ke Khilari (1977), Ray’s Hindi film set in Wajid Ali Shah’s Lucknow on the eve of the British annexation, name Ray for the music and Birju Maharaj for the choreography. Kalashram says Birju Maharaj directed, composed and sang two classical dance sequences in the film: a group dance with the Nawab, played by Amjad Khan, among his queens, and a solo dance that forms the backdrop of a key scene. The credits page lists no separate music credit for him, so the composing and singing rest on Kalashram’s account. For more on the director, see Satyajit Ray, the Oscar and the Bharat Ratna.

His later film work includes Kaahe Chhed Mohe in Devdas (2002). Kalashram says he choreographed it, composed its music and sang the male lead, and Outlook credits him with its choreography. Outlook lists Dedh Ishqiya and Bajirao Mastani among his other films, and Kalashram adds Dil To Paagal Hai and Gadar.

The Press Information Bureau’s release of 18 March 2013 on the 60th National Film Awards says the award for best choreography went to Pt. Birju Maharaj for the Tamil film Vishwaroopam.

The Padma Vibhushan of 1986

The Gazette of India Extraordinary of 31 March 1986 prints the President’s notification dated 26 January 1986. Under Padma Vibhushan it lists Birju Maharaj (Kathak), New Delhi. The Akademi’s Kathak Kendra page also dates it 1986 and calls it India’s second-highest civilian honour, as do the Tribune and Outlook.

Kalashram, a book and the last days

Kalashram is in Gulmohar Park, New Delhi. Its registration page offers Kathak, vocal music and tabla, with a preparatory course, a junior diploma and a senior diploma in Kathak, and the site also carries a form for Mumbai.

KalingaTV reports that a book of tributes, Nritya Samrat Pt. Birju Maharaj, edited by his senior disciple Nandkishore Kapote and made up of 96 short essays, was launched in 2021.

He died on 17 January 2022 at his home in Delhi. His grandson’s announcement, quoted by KalingaTV, gives the date as 17 January, and the IANS report carried by National Herald says he died late on Sunday, so the sources differ by hours. The Prime Minister’s Office issued a condolence message on 17 January 2022 that said his death was an irreparable loss to the whole world of art and that he had given Indian dance a distinct identity across the world.