 Bharathanatyam
Dancer
You
live your life so magically! Can you elaborate? …Interview
with Vani Ganapathy
I can say for myself that I don't plan at all, may be
because of the kind of life I have gone through. Yes,
we all plan for a rainy day from the point of view of
finances because, you know, you don't want to be in a
situation where we have to go to somebody else to ask
for help. So may be you do a little bit of planning, but
even that can go haywire. People whom you thought would
stand by you may probably themselves get into a situation
where they won't be able to stand by you. If somebody
were to say, 'Vani, you do interiors also as a hobby.
So now that you are doing it and you're doing a couple
of projects, why don't you start a big company and employ
so many people into it on a larger scale.' I don't
know whether I would like to even take that risk because
I don't want to be answerable to so many people. I want
to be answerable just to myself. I like to live for the
moment. Okay, here I have got this project in my hand
and I'm going to do it. I'm not the type who chases some
goal and may be that's why I've been able to get ahead
in life.
What fuels your sense of style?
 Whether
its home, whether it is cloths or whether it's life
style, I've never followed fashion or the in-thing
at that particular point of time. Neither have
I allowed other people to judge for me. I am pretty
critical myself and I do tend to ask myself 10 times
if I am doing the right thing. What really fuels
me is to want to be young. It's not the idea
of looking young, it's the idea of feeling young and
it's not something that I make an effort at. It is something
that is probably natural in me. I am very comfortable
being with teenagers and with people who are probably
of my age group or even above. I am comfortable in the
most traditional of surrounding. I can sit on the floor
and eat on a leaf as comfortably as I can sit in through
a 6 or 7 course meal and know which fork and which knife
to use. So I think it is the basic thing of always
wanting to be a student, a learner. The day I feel I've
learnt enough I probably won't grow, that's always been
my motto since my teenage days. I still fell
I am a student when it comes to dance; when it comes
to interiors I feel I am an infant; but when it comes
to life itself I feel I am a student because everyday
my eyes open to new things, new realisations and that's
a process of learning. So, I suppose, the fact that
I like the process of learning fuels this zeal to want
to do things.
Which award or commendation do you value the most?
To me, when a dancer of very good calibre were to
sit in front and watch my performance, and at the end
of it comes and tells me, "You lived the part that you
were playing and you reminded me of young days when
I was performing," I don't think that any award or commendation
could be better than that kind of statement.
What would you consider your turning point in life?
 Honestly,
I can't really pin point… I don't think there has been
only one turning point in my life. But there have been
many events in my life. The very first performance that
I gave when I was seven… After the performance I spoke
to the audience on the mike and I said, "I feel very
happy today to perform for all of you. If I have made
any mistakes please excuse me because I would like to
correct myself, but I feel honoured that all of you
great artists are sitting in front of me and watching
me perform. This itself is my biggest and the best thing
that has happened to me in my life and thank you," or
what ever. I must have given a lot more speeches [after
that one], but that was probably one of those things
that really gave me confidence to speak to people. People
who know me have always believed me to be a women with
lot of confidence and strength. May be that was my starting
point to feel the sense of confidence, to be able to
communicate with
people without fear. And then I performed many more
times and had many more occasions and there was this
question of Miss Teen Princess India. Again over there,
my winning built that confidence in me that I can do
things which people appreciate.
Your being Miss India in 1971 was path breaking,
in the sense, globally and regionally today we all accept
modelling as a legitimate career for women …
 Honestly
I didn't even think about entering Miss India or Miss
Teen Princess India. It's one of those things that just
happened. The editor and assistant editor of Femina
at that time just called up my house and they said,
"Why can't Vani enter". Somewhere inside me there
was always this thing to be good in whatever I do. And
there was also this little doubt, what if I don't make
it? Will it bring down my confidence level? It was a
decision that I took probably five days before the contest
and just went for it and it happened. In life, in anything
you do, luck plays a very important part. You can call
it destiny, you can call it preordained, because I'm
sure there are plenty of people in this world who are
absolutely stunningly gorgeous and absolutely fantastically
talented, but they have not been at the right place
at the right time, the right opportunity. All this has
to come together and those are things which you don't
have any kind of a hold on.
We've talked about turning points. One was my winning
the Teen Princess contest and one was the decision I
took whether I wanted to continue studying further or
whether I wanted to take my art seriously. The following
year I decided [that] since I have come so far in studies
let me do a degree, so I took up to doing B.A after
preparing for medicine, but other than that I decided
that I am going to take my dance seriously.
A very major event that was a turning point in
my life was my decision to get out of my marriage and
to be single. When I knew exactly that I have to
fend for myself and if I still wanted to enjoy the kind
of position and status that I had before and while I
was married, then I have to work for it and carve
a niche for myself. May be God had a mission in
mind for me, in my art or interiors or teaching children.
I got a second chance [to be a dancer] all over again…
an opportunity to go back into the niche which you already
had for yourself. One of those performances ITC had
in Hyderabad, which was national integration through
dance, was on a very national level. So that was a major
turning point for me to get back into my dance in full
swing.
And then, of course, I got into teaching. Interiors,
was another turning point because I knew
I had an aptitude for it. It started when my charted
accountant was building a house for himself and came
up to me and gave me his house plan and asked me to
make the interiors of his house. I asked him how he
can just give me such a responsibility, I don't even
have a degree and he told me, "Looking at your house
is enough".
Can you tell us about some of your favourite things?
I don't have anything which is a favourite. I have
conditioned myself not be totally attached to one particular
thing. I like listening to all kinds of music
at certain hours of the day or certain times in the
day when I like to listen to something very soft. Yes,
I have a partiality for instrumental music, specially
if it's Indian instrumental music. I love Hari Prasad
Chourasia, Shivkumar Sharma, Amjad Ali Khan, Kadri Gopalnath
and Mandiloin Srinivas. I love instrumental [music]
because it doesn't break anywhere with words. I also
love listening to music like Vengaboys and Backstreet
Boys and Madonna.
In which medium do you like to perform most on?
 Stage
definitely. The response that you get is so immediate
and the perfection level has to be a lot more than it
is for any other medium, because on stage a mistake
done is done. You can rectify in any other performance,
but what is seen is registered, whether you have done
a good or a bad performance. In films you can re-shoot
a shot and get a better shot but not on stage. If you've
done a good show, you can see it from the audience reaction…
the way the audience sits in silence, doesn't leave,
there is no shuffle or re-adjustment in seats. That
itself is a major response and immediate reaction to
your performance. Film makers and artists in movies
shoot a film, they put in all their best efforts, they
re-shoot, edit and they still have to wait for months
together till they get the right theatres and everything
to see the result, and then at the end of it when the
film flops it is such a major, major let down.
Do you feel the artist is for the audience or without
the audience, can an artist perform for him/herself
alone?
They are two separate issues and you have to decide
what you want. You can be an artist and a performer
or only be an artist. I choose to be both an artist
and a performer, so I definitely need an audience. But
if you only want to be an artist, you can do it for
the love of the art, to develop and live it. So you
have to decide.
Tell us about your personal and spiritual growth
as a person?
I am a very spiritual person but I'm not ritualistic.
I'm not bound by any religion. I would definitely claim
that I am a Hindu but that doesn't stop me from going
to the church. I truly believe from within, not just
to make a statement that God is in whatever manifestation
you want to see him or her. You want to see God as a
him, you can see God as a her, in children, in flowers
and in birds, so I truly do believe in that.
Could you say something about Indian grace, beauty,
feminity?
I believe Indian women themselves denote grace. When
I think "attires" the Saree is the most graceful and
it depicts women in all their beauty. For example, people
who don't know me, say foreign tourists, sometimes stop
and ask - are you a dancer? I feel, when you
do learn dance there is a lot of feminity, grace, and
style that grows within you.
Your other interests.
I play golf because I enjoy the outdoors and it's something
that I'm doing which I don't feel bound by, that I have
to do it well. The perfectionist thing is not so strong
there, so there is less pressure and I'm able to relax
with it. It takes a lot of my time so I'm not able to
play it very often. I used to do a lot of cooking at
one time, now I do more party cooking. I love cleaning,
dusting and pottering around the house.
Where do you get your ethnic jewellery and all the
pieces of your interiors from?
 There
is nobody fixed. Sometimes I pick it up from dealers
in Madras who sell old pieces. Now I'm not so much into
buying jewellery, may be because I don't get the opportunity
to wear the kind pieces I have. The art pieces in my
home have been with me over the years or I have bought
it off hand. I haven't put everything together at once.
The house has just grown with time. My bronzes for instance,
I've had them for over 20 years! And the Shakespeare's
Lithographs, a friend and I split the cost to get it.
The unique thing about these is that they are Shakespeare
in female role wearing female garb.
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