It was Sri Sathya Sai Baba's 84th birthday this Monday and it is a ritual by Acharya Choodamani Anitha Guha where she felicitates and honors exponents in the field of arts for their commendable contribution. The awards were conferred upon by Dr.Pappu Venugopala Rao, Secretary, Music Academy and Prof.Sudharani Raghupathy, Founder, Director, Bharathalaya. What started as honoring young artists 8 years ago has now turned to the older people. Says the ever-smiling Anitha Guha, "Being an ardent Baba devotee, I try following his saying 'Love all, Serve all'. This is something that I can do to my artistic family from my side and it is not an award function. It is just a thanksgiving function from Bharathanjali to the doyens of the art field.
This year being the completion of 20 years of Bharathanjali and 10 years of Bharathanjali trust, around 8 personalities like Yagna Raman, Former Secretary, Sri Krishna Gana Sabha, Karthik Rajagopal, Founder-Secretary, Vice President, Karthik Fine Arts, D.S.Ramanujam, Former Secretary, Karthik Fine Arts, Leela Sekar, Chairperson, I.D.A, R.Srinivasan, Senior Executive IOC (Retd.), Member, LAC, TTD, Chennai, Nandini Ramani, Bharatanatyam Exponent, Managing Trustee- Dr.V.Raghavan Centre for Performing Arts, K.Hariprasad, Lecturer in Vocal Music, Kalakshetra, Dr.Gayatri Kannan, Principal of Nrithyodaya. The title given to each awardee was uniquely titled by Anitha Guha herself like Sathya Parama Kala Poshaka Sundaram, Sathya Gandharva Gana Sundaram and Sathya Gana Kokila Sundaram. "These people have been with us helping with our productions from time immemorial and that is why I thought of felicitating them."
Coming to Anitha Guha's function and going back home without seeing a dance performance from Bharathanjali sounds ridiculous. Students with the perfect Nritha and Abhinaya gave a few performances which kept the audience in rapt attention. One fact what quite evident and true, Anitha Guha is definitely a boon to the artistic community as she has groomed her students very well.