Indu Mitha (née Chatterjee) (born 1929) is a Pakistani exponent of

Bharatnatyam Bharatanatyam () is a major form of Indian classical dance that originated in Tamil Nadu. It is one of the eight widely recognized Indian classical dance forms, and expresses South Indian religious themes and spiritual ideas, particularly of ...

and one of only two in the nation (the other being

Sheema Kirmani Sheema Kermani (also spelled Kirmani) (Urdu: ; born 16 January 1951) is a Pakistani dancer and social activist. She is the founder of Tehrik-e-Niswan Cultural Action Group (Women's Movement). She is also an exponent of Bharatanatyam dance. She ...

). She is also a faculty member at the Rawalpindi campus of the National College of the Arts.

Personal life

Indu Mitha was born Indu Chatterjee in a Bengali Christian family of Brahmin heritage that converted to

Christianity Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. It is the world's largest and most widespread religion with roughly 2.38 billion followers representing one-third of the global pop ...

Lahore Lahore ( ; pnb, ; ur, ) is the second most populous city in Pakistan after Karachi and 26th most populous city in the world, with a population of over 13 million. It is the capital of the province of Punjab where it is the largest city ...

West Pakistan West Pakistan ( ur, , translit=Mag̱ẖribī Pākistān, ; bn, পশ্চিম পাকিস্তান, translit=Pôścim Pakistan) was one of the two Provincial exclaves created during the One Unit Scheme in 1955 in Pakistan. It was ...

in 1929. She studied MA philosophy from Delhi University in 1951. Her father, Gyanesh Chandra Chatterji, was a professor of philosophy and president of the Government College in Lahore, which was where Mitha grew up. Her elder sister

Uma Anand Uma Anand (1923 – 13 November 2009) was an Indian journalist, actress, and a broadcaster in the mid-1900s. She was born in 1923 in Lahore, Punjab, British India to a prominent Bengali Christian family. One of her sisters, Indu Mitha, is a Bh ...

married famous

Bollywood Hindi cinema, popularly known as Bollywood and formerly as Bombay cinema, refers to the film industry based in Mumbai, engaged in production of motion pictures in Hindi language. The popular term Bollywood, is a portmanteau of "Bombay" (fo ...

director Chetan Anand. Her family moved to

Delhi Delhi, officially the National Capital Territory (NCT) of Delhi, is a city and a union territory of India containing New Delhi, the capital of India. Straddling the Yamuna river, primarily its western or right bank, Delhi shares borders ...

from Lahore during the Partition of India. In

, she learned

Bharatanatyam Bharatanatyam () is a major form of Indian classical dance that originated in Tamil Nadu. It is one of the eight widely recognized Indian classical dance forms, and expresses South Indian religious themes and spiritual ideas, particularly of ...

from Vijay Raghava Rao and Shrimati Lalita.Dance is thought and feeling, says Indu Mitha
DAWN - 4 April 2008 Mitha learnt modern expressional dance from the iconic choreographer and actress

Zohra Sehgal Zohra Mumtaz Sehgal (born Sahibzadi Zohra Mumtazullah Khan Begum; 27 April 1912 – 10 July 2014) was an Indian actress, dancer, and choreographer. Having begun her career as a member of a contemporary dance troupe, she transitioned into actin ...

. After Independence, Mitha continued her dance training at Sangeet Bharat School and then later from S.V.Lalita. In 1951, she married Captain Aboobaker Osman Mitha, a

Mumbai Mumbai (, ; also known as Bombay — List of renamed Indian cities and states#Maharashtra, the official name until 1995) is the capital city of the Indian States and union territories of India, state of Maharashtra and the ''de facto'' fin ...

Memon Memon may refer to: Ethnic group and language * Memon people, an ethnic group originating in the ancient Sindh (modern day Pakistan) * Memoni language, the language of Memon people historically associated with Kathiawar, Gujarat, India People wit ...

against the wishes of her family, and moved back to

Pakistan Pakistan ( ur, ), officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan ( ur, , label=none), is a country in South Asia. It is the world's fifth-most populous country, with a population of almost 243 million people, and has the world's second-lar ...

with him. Their daughter, Tehreema Mitha is an accomplished

dancer.

Career

In the years following her husband's retirement, Mitha began teaching

. Her first position was at the Lahore Grammar school, where she became a celebrated dance teacher. Her students and her were even able to put on a full-on performance at the end of her first teaching sojourn. Her early performances were at private all-women parties, military functions, and Red Cross charity shows or in front of the All Pakistan Women's Association.Veteran dancer wins over Pakistan
BBC News - 11 August 2009 She now does one show a year for private audiences, mostly all-women groups, due to the heightened atmosphere linked to the rise of the

Taliban The Taliban (; ps, طالبان, ṭālibān, lit=students or 'seekers'), which also refers to itself by its state name, the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, is a Deobandi Islamic fundamentalist, militant Islamist, jihadist, and Pasht ...

. Mitha ran an academy/school "Mazmoon e Shauq" to teach classical dance where she taught many students like Amna Mawaz Khan.

Adaptations

To suit

i cultural norms, Mitha has altered the performance and style of the Bharatnatyam she teaches. She has composed Bharatnatyam songs in Urdu, due to her lack of understanding of

Tamil Tamil may refer to: * Tamils, an ethnic group native to India and some other parts of Asia **Sri Lankan Tamils, Tamil people native to Sri Lanka also called ilankai tamils **Tamil Malaysians, Tamil people native to Malaysia * Tamil language, nativ ...

Telugu Telugu may refer to: * Telugu language, a major Dravidian language of India *Telugu people, an ethno-linguistic group of India * Telugu script, used to write the Telugu language ** Telugu (Unicode block), a block of Telugu characters in Unicode S ...

Sanskrit Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had diffused there from the northwest in the late ...

, the three languages Bharatnatyam

song A song is a musical composition intended to be performed by the human voice. This is often done at distinct and fixed pitches (melodies) using patterns of sound and silence. Songs contain various forms, such as those including the repetit ...

s are traditionally composed in.

Awards

Mitha received President’s Award for Pride of Performance Awards (2020–2029) in August, 2020.

Notes

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mitha, Indu 1929 births Living people Bengali women artists Pakistani Christians People from Lahore Pakistani choreographers Pakistani female dancers Pakistani music educators Dance teachers Pakistani people of Bengali descent Bharatanatyam exponents 20th-century women artists 20th-century dancers Women music educators Teachers of Indian classical dance Recipients of the Pride of Performance Indian emigrants to Pakistan