The off-beat path

Her father told her to do something off-beat, something unusual. So she studied agriculture, as the only girl among thirty students.

She wore shorts to work in the fields, just like her American professors. And she questioned her grandmother's rules about how a girl must cover her body.

She also argued that strength comes from within a person, not from bargaining with God through prayers and offerings. These ideas led, years later, to her dance Panch Paras, about the five senses.

A chance meeting at a railway station led her to join Ram Gopal's famous dance company in London.

Ram Gopal was a strict teacher. He demanded perfect technique from his dancers. Then, once they had mastered it, he would say: now throw it overboard, and dance. Technique must become so natural that you no longer think about it.

Question rules, but master your craft.