MOHAN KHOKAR, The Fatherfigure of Indian Dance History. Edited & Compiled by Ashish Khokar. Published by the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts (IGNCA). In December 2023. Hard bound. 300 pages. Price ₹ 2000.

Mohan Khokar was among the pioneers in pan-Indian dance writing in the 1950s and continued with his informed writing about dance till he passed away in 1999. Besides being a dance historian, scholar, arts administrator, and critic, he was also a prolific photographer and collector of anything to do with dance over the decades which made him the proud owner of one of the finest archival collections on dance. It is also amazing that the man who quietly went about his passion refused to sell his invaluable archives to top organisations abroad, but chose to keep it in his motherland. As a result, the Mohan Khokar Dance Collection (MKDC)  India’s largest dance archives and collection created by him and further nurtured by his family, has been donated to the nation and is housed in IGNCA. 

After the regular opening features, the book begins with a crisp story about Mohan Khokar written by his son Ashish Khokar. The senior Khokar was born on 30 December 1924, and the tome, heavy in weight and substance, commemorates his birth centenary. It has two main sections and is akin to an expansive ‘pada varnam’ in which the nayaka is Mohan Khokar; with the substantive ‘poorvangam’ focussing on his scholarly and insightful writings on dance, dancers and the dance scenario. Prof. Mohan Khokar wrote over 10,000 articles during his illustrious lifetime, out of which 50 representative articles, written ver five decades  between 1947 and 1999, have been selected and reproduced by Ashish Khokar  well-known dance writer and historian who wears many hats in the dance field. The ‘uttarangam’ makes for breezy reading -- featuring 50 tributes to him by the A to Z of Dance serialised alphabetically, which describe his personality and his contributions. The entire compilation throws light on Mohan Khokar -- the man, his mission and vision.

The layout of the pages is simple and attractive, retaining the old world charm of the articles. A scanned image of the opening page of an article with the dateline also mentioned in Khokar’s hand is followed by the reproduction of the full article. 

A glance at the contents page will give you an idea of the publications which featured articles on dance from 1947 till 1999. They include newspapers and magazines like Indian Republic (1949), Sunday, Indian Express, Times of India, The Sunday Standard, The Illustrated Weekly of India, Sevika, The Hindustan Times, the Sangeet Natak Journal, NCPA Quarterly, Secular Democracy, India Calling, Sruti Magazine, The Pioneer and Attendance. It is evident that Khokar wrote for publications across the country, like Marg from Bombay,Pushpanjalifrom Baroda,The Hindustan Times from Delhi, The Tribune from Chandigarh, The Anand Bazar Patrika from Bengal and many in the South like the Kalakshetra Journal, Free Press Journal, and Swatantra (as early as 1947). Bhavan’s Journal was another magazine he enhanced with his contributions.

The chosen articles, in Khokar’s lucid style, cover an interesting array of topics such as -- the dance in ancient Egypt, the world’s oldest ballet school, devil dances of Tibet, tales of Rama, Krishna and Siva in dance, the nautch and the nautchwali, the silenced haunts of Indian dance in Lanka and Lahore (the latter has a brief autobiographical account too at the end). There are interesting features about a few dance institutions as well as about personalities like Ghalib, Uday Shankar, Ted Shawn, E. Krishna Iyer, Pandanallur Meenakshisundaram Pillai, to name a few. There are, of course, articles about the classical dances of India, the folk, ritual and indigenous forms of the different regions. For some years, Mohan Khokar wrote a column for Sruti magazine titled Dipping into the archives, and a few articles from it have also been reproduced. The poorvangam of the book concludes with the last article that Mohan Khokar wrote before cancer claimed him in September 1999. It is the story of M.K. Selvamani (Khokar’s wife M.K. Saroja’s elder sister) and her interesting stint in Bharatanatyam, which was published in the Attendance yearbook 1998.

Three pages titled Critic’s Choice  displaying a collage of reviews by Mohan Khokar  comes as an interlude before the uttarangam which comprises a ‘golden’ bouquet of tributes to the nayaka – some formal, some personal and insightful. The final curtain comes down with a one-page ‘Inventory at a Glance’ that provides a peek into the mind-boggling Mohan Khokar Dance Collection.

As you browse through the articles, you can glean a lot about the dances of India and their evolution. Mohan Khokar has written an article titled The Dance in India, published in the March of India (December 1960), stating that the 1950s “witnessed a spate of activity unparalleled in the history of Indian dance”. As a result, writing on dance, too, gathered momentum. To quote Mohan Khokar, “Never before have there been so many publications available on Indian dance, and in so many different languages. Journals, periodicals and newspapers have also helped to disseminate information on, and to create interest in, Indian dance. And, for the first time in the history of Indian dance, practically all the leading newspapers in India have now special dance critics attached to them.” From such insightful comments, one can gauge that from the 1950s to the 1970s it must have been a golden age for dance journalism!

This book is valuable in more ways than one. Besides being a tribute to Mohan Khokar, it is an important reference source to learn more about dance, its development and its environment. There are not many books covering Dance History in India in an extensive and comprehensive manner. And about the history of Arts journalism and writing, there are none! When called upon to present talks or  papers on the subject, one literally has to do one’s own search and research! At such times, it is the writings of scholars like Dr. V. Raghavan, E. Krishna Iyer, Dr. Kapila Vatsyayan and Prof. Mohan Khokar which throw light on the subject. To me, therefore, such books take on additional value.

 The book is also important as it serves as an easily accessible link in the dance history documentation chain, because it has so many clippings from the MKDC which, as mentioned in the Foreword by Sachchidanand Joshi -- IGNCA Member Secretary, most newspapers of those times would not have digitised and saved in their own archives.

The front cover of the book radiates an old world charm as it has a painting of Nataraja with his consort Parvati, which has been beautifully embellished with a century-old, rare beads and bangle art work. From Kumbakonam, it is a family heirloom of M.K. Saroja (Mohan Khokar’s wife) which she worshipped till the end. The back cover has the rare picture of a smiling Mohan Khokar with an old camera in his hand! On the whole, a value addition to any dance library.