Posted by arul francis on November 13, 2007 at 15:08:58:

 I googled "thathai mozhiyal" to find out who composed it - and the only thing I came up with was this article in The Hindu:

http://www.hindu.com/fr/2007/10/05/stories/2007100551290300.htm

I know Gowri Ramnarayan is very smart and has a very big reputation as a dance-critic, but she should get her facts straight and not tweak history. It is standard practice for traditional dance teachers to cut off any student who goes to another teacher, especially for a performance. And there's nothing wrong with that. So her account attributing it to a patron is quite unlikely:

"At age 11, Nirmala had her arangetram at the Museum Theatre. One day musician Jayammal asked Nirmala’s parents to send the girl to dance in her daughter Balasaraswati’s kuravanji natakam. With the social stigma attached to devadasis this was not an easy decision. But the father was convinced it was an honour for his child to dance with so great an artiste as Balamma.

The result? <snip> Why did the Brahmin child participate in a dance programme with the devadasis, he asked.
"

Also, the title of the article, "Dance as an extension of music" - I would like to point out has been co-opted as a strategy to push dance down to a second-tier status by deriving it from music.

What's with the website refusing to allow the word p-i-l-l-a-i because it automatically flags it as "derogatory"??? Talk about a freudian slip!
 

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