Birju Maharaj

"I was born in Lucknow 1938, 4 February. It was Friday. A hot day as it usually happens in spring...in that home where I was born there were only girls. I was the only boy. So our neighbours came saw that that there were all girls and just one boy... like Krishna and gopis they used to say. So my name became Brijmohan Misra. Brij is the name of the city where Krishna was born and ‘Mohan ‘means attraction. Brijmohan is a way of saying Krishna, the god of love and dance."

"Solo dance was complete by one. Now because everybody is bored, feeling bored by one dancer only they are taking 10,20 people."

"Earlier one person would do a sam and the audience ten feet away knew that a new tukda was about to begin but now fifty of us did the same movement with the same precision; the audience even two hundred feet away knew and understood. Yes, we connected to many because we were many presenting one. We simply enlarged ourselves by being many more of us and we engulfed the stage."

"Brijmohan Maharaj’s Kamdeva matched grace with grace. To the loving he added fear, and a secret knowledge of his fate. Together they devised a poignancy that was memorable and must surely be rare in dance."