How does one collect dance? A performance art, like water, how can it be contained? To what end, even? And for whom?

The above is the preamble to India’s largest dance collection created by the vision of one man. Mohan Khokar, often hailed as the father figure of Indian dance history, collected everything he could find on Indian dance in his lifetime—books (over 5,000 in number), artefacts (valued in crores), manuscripts, albums of music, photographs (he took over 50,000, from glass negatives to colour), costumes, masks, posters, postage stamps, first day covers, recorded interviews and other memorabilia.

In 1945, Khokar became the first male student from North India to come to Kalakshetra in Madras, where he trained under Rukmini Devi Arundale. He was the founder and first Head of the Department of Dance at the M. S. University of Baroda, the first academician to head the Sangeet Natak Akademi, the head of UNESCO’s Asia Documentation Projects and served as guest editor of Marg’s series on dance in the 1950s-60s. 

Khokar’s vast collection—coveted by many including the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York, The Dance Museum in Stockholm, Sweden and the Italian theatre group TTB—has been donated to the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts (IGNCA), New Delhi, to honour his wish that the collection should be available to scholars and researchers in India. Valued at seven crore rupees by a UNESCO-linked committee, the exhaustive collection is testimony to the single-minded devotion of a man who was, above everything, a one-of-a-kind rasika.

The Mohan Khokar Dance Collection—which includes books, photos, press clips, manuscripts, artefacts, costumes, memorabilia and even tools—is under the able care of Dr. Sachchidanand Joshi (Head of the IGNCA) and luminaries like Indian classical dance exponents Sonal Mansingh and Padma Subrahmanyam, poet Prasoon Joshi and historian Saryu Doshi. It is currently being digitised for posterity.

Archives are not only essential records but are of great long-term value to researchers, writers and creative artistes such as filmmakers. In India especially, archival history is often not considered important and therefore not preserved. Khokar’s meticulously collected materials are so rare and unique that the artistes featured in them might also not have the original material that forms this collection.

Today, smartphones have greatly aided the ease of photography but in those days, buying a camera was akin to buying a vehicle and to take a photo entailed planning, precision and perfection. One just could not afford to waste a frame. Photo film was not cheap. That Khokar took thousands of photos is testament to the energy, time and money he devoted to this. At one point, he sold ancestral property in the Punjab to keep up with his undying zeal to document dance. 

At that time, even print paper was imported which made books expensive. Here as well, Khokar sacrificed much to buy many rare books, especially in Madras between 1945 and 1947, when the British were selling their possessions and leaving India. Khokar used his pocket money, often saved by foregoing even two square meals a day, to buy a specific book or gramophone record of a particular tawaif or devadasi. These are all part of his famed collection. As also are 108 Natarajas and many dancing motifs of Krishna in textile and crafts. He did not see any difference between popular (read kitsch) and classical art. 

After the Partition of India in 1947, Khokar had to leave his studies at Kalakshetra midway. He headed to the MSU Dance Department in Baroda in 1949 and helped set it up by giving employment to gurus who knew their art but were unlettered. He designed a course that is still in use 75 years later.

He spent 18 years with the Sangeet Natak Akademi (SNA) in Delhi during which he helped many forms like Seraikela Chhau and Koodiyattam survive through scholarships. At the SNA, he had active support of his bosses like PuLa Deshpande, Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay and K. P. S. Menon. He also steered the National School of Drama through troubled times and was head of Kathak Kendra for some time. He looked after cultural programmes for visiting heads of state at the Rashtrapati Bhavan. His was a rich life, indeed. 

His collection was enhanced significantly by his better half, the illustrious and legendary Bharatanatyam dancer M.K. Saroja, who brought a lot of her Tamil inheritance to it. This writer continues the mission impossible by updating it with additions over the last 25 years.

This year marks the birth centenary of Mohan Khokar, who devoted his life to an endeavour that quite possibly has no parallel in India. He has single-handedly ensured that the rich history of the dance forms of India does not fade from our collective memories.

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The author has carried forward his father’s legacy and is an authority on Indian dance and a critic, historian and editor. For more information, please visit www.attendance-india.com

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