The Light Within: Rani Khanam’s Journey of Dance, Faith, and Identity

Rani Khanam always wanted to be a dancer. “The day I started thinking, I knew I wanted to dance,” she says with a certainty that feels like destiny. At four or five, she could hear rhythms and melodies in the sounds which surrounded her and swayed to them as if the world were a stage designed just for her.  

There was no hesitation. No “if” or “but”. Just conviction. “I would listen to all the music I could lay my hands on. I would sing along to the azaan,” she recalls. When she told her mother, “Mujhe seekhna hai. Bahut shauk hai,” (I want to learn to dance), she took her little girl seriously.

Having lost her father when she was just five, it was Khanam’s mother who anchored the family, quietly nurturing her daughter’s artistic spirit. A young Khanam moved to Delhi and began learning formally at Kathak Kendra, receiving a `300 scholarship—wazifa—which, in 1978, was both a respectable sum and a mark of honour. “That’s how it started,” she says. “And I never looked back.”

Her first performance, when she was just six years old, took place under a makeshift tent in Bihar. “We didn’t have auditoriums back then. People sat all around, and the dancer performed in the centre,” she remembers, a smile softening her voice. “I still remember the frock. It was pink with stars on it. I was so happy. I couldn’t believe someone would let me wear such a beautiful hand-stitched dress.” The performance was a roaring success. 

Finding Rani 

Nearly 50 years later, the applause has only grown louder. But the journey has not been easy. In the beginning, she was enamoured by her guru, the legendary Birju Maharaj. “Mere guruji aise naachte hain, toh mai bhi aise naachungi,” she remembers thinking—following his every word, every instruction, every move.

“But when you stand under a large peepal tree, you cannot be seen,” she says, outlining a story that became a turning point in her life. “When I was 20, I was invited to perform at an event in Indore. I did the show; it went well. On the train back, I met a few people who had attended the show. They gave me a box of sweets and a rolled newspaper that had my photo and a review of the performance. The paper said, ‘Rani Khanam danced supremely well. She performed a thumri—unmein guru ki chhaap dikh rahi thi’ (her guru’s imprint was visible through her performance).” 

Khanam was delighted. “I kept the newspaper, but as the train pulled away, I also wondered, ‘They could see my guru’s style, but where was mine?’”

This question haunted her. It took 10 years—filled with mistakes, experiments and what Khanam describes as “unnecessary” competitions—before she found her own voice. A flirtation with fusion music left her disoriented. “I found it ridiculous,” she laughs now.

She was young and trying to prove herself. “When you’re under pressure, you dance differently. It’s just the way it is with you writers—how your words sound when you write for a deadline,” she says. “Dancers are also writers—they write with their bodies, their hands and feet becoming their ink.” She was also paving an unknown path. 

“There was no one to guide me because I was doing something different. I faltered and fumbled. But that’s part of the process,” she says. 

Ironically, Khanam found her way only when she stopped trying so hard—when she surrendered to the philosophy of Sufism and began listening to her body. “What had to come,” she says, “came naturally.” 

Dancer, philosopher, believer

Early in her career, Khanam recalls an examiner correcting her vandana (the first movement in Kathak, which traditionally pays tribute to a deity or guru). “The examiner told me which hand to use, which finger, to correctly depict the movement. I listened, took note of it and went home.”

At home, Khanam began wondering: if devotion was what she wanted to show, why not express it through namaaz, the prayer tradition she knew and had grown up with? What if her own belief system could find a voice through her dance? This became the start of Khanam’s journey as one of India’s few Kathak dancers who perform to Sufi musi. 

“Sufism is not tied to any religion,” she explains. “It stands beyond any orthodoxy, just as Bhakti does.” She reflects on the overlap between Sufi and Bhakti traditions, both of which emerged in India between the 8th and 12th centuries as rebellions against rigid religious structures.

“Indian Sufism speaks of a buland awaaz (a strong voice), a freedom. Ibadat (devotion) leaves no room to judge what’s right or wrong. It only asks that you don’t hurt anyone’s thoughts or feelings or insult their viewpoint. It is a deeply personal choice, a personal belief system. It takes you away from rituals and towards meditation. The sky and water are the same for everyone.”

Khanam’s art blurs the lines between spiritual practices. “I perform Kanhaiya and Ganesha; I worship Saraswati. I also chant Allah’s 99 names. Only the words change, but everything else remains the same.”

Her students, too, learn without the constraint of boundaries. “They dance to Krishna, Jamuna and Sufi hymns. You’re teaching them a language, introducing them to ideas. It is not about imposing beliefs—it is about inviting exploration.”

Dancing the light

For her upcoming performance at the NCPA, Khanam draws on the vibrant traditions of Indian Sufism. “In Noor, I present different expressions of Sufi thought—Persian poetry, Bulleh Shah’s verses, folk traditions from Assam and Baul music. There’s even a qawwali from Hyderabad where the lyrics go: ‘Kanhaiya, tumhein meri yaad hi nahi aati.’ These ideas could only come from a place like India.”

Noor, she explains, is the light that resides within all of us. “It is about recognising the formless within the form. If you have no night, there can be no day. If there is no body, there can be no soul.” For Khanam, art reflects life—and life, in its purest form, is secular. “Art shows you the face of a country. When a nation’s art is vibrant, it means its people are alive. Jaise jism mein ek hararat hoti hai (just as a body is warm with life), a country is cold without its art.”

Looking back, Khanam wouldn’t change a thing. “Hardships are necessary—they shape you. Every struggle was part of the dance.” I ask her about dancing for her entire life and the changes that come with time. “Physically, I’m not as strong as I was in my youth, naturally. But that’s nature’s beauty—when one thing diminishes, something else grows.” 

Now, her performances are driven more by soul than sheer energy. “Sometimes, miracles happen onstage. The mind doesn’t even register a move, but the body just responds to the moment. It is the ease that comes from years of sadhana. When you perform with soul, it feels effortless—it becomes almost meditative.”

She describes the lightness that mastery brings: “When you immerse yourself in your art, you begin to feel weightless, as if the dance is carrying you.”

By Shayonnita Mallik. This piece was originally published by the National Centre for the Performing Arts, Mumbai, in the November 2024 issue of ON Stage – their monthly arts magazine.