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New Indian Express

What the space of dancer Vaswati Misra's home says about the rhythms of the house

In a four-storey building in south Delhi, there is an artiste on every floor. Each of them has his or her 'territory', individual practice rooms with presiding deities and different peak hours of introspection and creativity. But there is also a coming together for creative exploration, experimentation, and a shared life of the arts. Living together in the same space works, not because they are family, but because they are a family of artistes. This is the home of Kathak gurus Vaswati Misra and her elder sister Saswati Sen, who famously danced the kathak before Amjad Khan's Wajed Ali Shah in Satyajit Ray's Shatranj ke Khilari. Vaswati and her husband, Pandit Krishan Mohan Misra, son of Shambhu Maharaj, who brought Kathak to Delhi, and their daughter and son-in-law occupy two floors. Saswati's space is connected to her sister's floor by a beautiful wooden staircase, which starts from a cosy sit-in area separated from her living room by an open cabinet on which sit rows of Ganeshas. The Ganesha idol –the right patron saint for an artiste's home –can, in fact, be seen all over the house, in various moods and materials. 'Ganesha is a dancer and he is the player of the pakhawaj,' reminds Vaswati, as one's eyes moves from Ganeshas over and above console tables and on Rajasthani inlay-work side-tables to Ganeshas as wall decorations, a marble-turbaned Ganesha, and finally a baby Ganesha in black stone that sits hugging a shivalinga before a patch of green on the terrace before which we pause. 'It is one of my favourite spots in the house to just be, to think, or when I am working on a composition,' says Vaswati, as she and her husband—he is also the first cousin of Birju Maharaj—accompany us to the terrace. Early mornings are spent here with birdsong in the company of squirrels.