A tribute to legendary guru

While India was celebrating its freedom from Britain on August 15, 1947, VS Ramamoorthy was all set to make his guru proud with his arangetram in Chennai

Guru VS Ramamoorthy, who passed away in Hyderabad on October 2, was 101. He is known as the best human being and a sincere Guru who had taken the responsibility of moulding hundreds of students into best performers and best faculty members.

The legendary Guru received his training in Bharatanatyam from Natyacharya Dandayuthapani Pillai. His first dance school ‘Sri Devi Nritya Niketan’ was started in Madras in 1966. After moving to Hyderabad, Guru Ramamoorthy established ‘Sri Rama Nataka Niketan’ in 1970 and rendered yeoman service to the training and propagation of Bharatanatyam in the twin cities.

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His 75 years of dedicated service to Bharatanatyam as a devoted artiste and teacher was seminal, continuous, and impeccable. He is survived by his wife and daughter Manjula Ramaswamy who continues to take forward the tradition by teaching.

Lovingly called ‘Master’ by his own students and others, Guruji was teaching Bharatanatyam in the city for more than five decades. “We artistes at Hyderabad were blessed to receive his blessings, as recently as December 19, 2019, when we celebrated an amazing and loving Centenarian Guru.

He would come to all our programmes, come backstage, bless us, before the show and afterwards, and then call us the next day, for detailed praise and blessings,” said dancer Ananda Shankar Jayanth who has been “recommending this doyen Guru’s name for the Sangeet Natak Akademi Puraskar for more than five years now”.

“Even this year, what is it about us, and our cultural institutions that we cannot recognise such Gurus? Indeed sad that we can’t see and recognise a centenarian too,” added the renowned Bharatanatyam dancer and bureaucrat from the city.

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