The Happiness Road: ‘My dance and femininity nurture my happiness’

“I believe I have been created to be happy. I am always soaring in an endless expanse of joy,” says Narthaki as we sit down to have our conversation. “Even when I was going through an existential crisis, of discovering that I am a woman trapped in a male body, my inner joy was intact,” she adds. 

Narthaki makes it sound easy. Her life has not been so though. When she was in her pre-teens, she had to choose between her family and her identity as a woman. Then, when she wanted to establish herself as a dancer, she had to face a conservative dance community that sniggered at her (despite she being a disciple of the legendary Thanjavur Kittappa Pillai, a descendant of the famed Thanjavur Quartet). Yet, she is today revered as a specialist in portraying the Nayaki Bhava, the ‘divine transgender state’, in Bharatanatyam. 

I ask Narthaki how she feels when looking back at her journey of grit. She plays down the adulation when she replies, “My dance and my femininity have helped nurture my happiness which, in turn, has given me the resilience to face and overcome all challenges.” She confesses that she has felt angry over being ridiculed or when people have judged her for being a transgender without considering her talent. Sakthi Bhaskar, her childhood friend, has been a huge support. “Society’s ways can sometimes pin you down. But Sakthi would haul me up, saying my dance flows from my soul and is an offering to the Universe, not to society. So I lost myself in my dance. I healed and I always came back happier than before.” 

I ask her if she believes being spiritual, the way she is, works in a real world. “Sure it does,” she replies emphatically, and explains, “Pain does not cripple, as most people wrongly imagine. It leads you to divinity. I experience divinity when the joy in me blends with the joy in you, through my dance.” 

You don’t often meet someone who has literally poured their heart into who they are and what they love doing. To me, therefore, Narthaki is not just a great dancer and a transgender superstar, she is bliss personified! 

Photo: Vinodh Velayudhan