Rita Ganguly is an exponent in the Indian classical arts. An accomplished dancer, musician and vocalist, she was honoured with the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award in 2000^[1] and with the Padma Shri in 2003.^[2] She is the mother of actress Meghna Kothari and the younger sister of the famous Ravindra Sangeet singer Gita Ghatak.

Biography

Rita Ganguly was born in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, into a Bengali Brahmin family, and is the daughter of K. L. Ganguly, and Meena Ganguly. K. L. Ganguly was a freedom fighter and member of the Congress party. In 1938, he was selected by Jawaharlal Nehru to become the first editor of the National Herald, a newspaper founded by Nehru.^{[3] [4]}

Rita therefore grew up in Lucknow, where the newspaper was based. She started learning Rabindrasangeet at the age of 12 under Gopeshwar Banerjee.^[3] She later joined Visva-Bharati University, along with her elder sister, Gita Ghatak with an emphasis on the arts whilst studying the Indian classical dance forms of Kathakali and Manipuri.^[4] She did further studies in Kathakali under renowned gurus, Kunchu Kurup and Chandu Pannikar^[5] and trained in modern dance at Martha Graham School, New York.^[3][4] She performed at various stages including the Bolshoi Theatre, Russia and joined the National School of Drama (NSD) as a faculty member of dance where she is known to have introduced a new course of Movement and Mime.^[3][4][6] She taught at NSD for thirty years^[6] and during her tenure there, she is known to have contributed in productions and costume designing.^[3] She is also credited with efforts in the recreation of the classical theatre and in the construction of Vikrishta Madhyam Auditorium.^[3] Under the aegis of NSD, she visited many countries such as Australia, England, Sri Lanka and Israel where she presented performances and held workshops on Indian Classical Theatre.^[3]

In the fifties, a chance opportunity to sing during a performance in Delhi changed her career and she started concentrating more on singing.^[4] Encouraged by Shambhu Maharaj, renowned Kathak guru, she performed at many places in India along with Siddheshwari Devi, a known classical singer.^[3][4] It was during one of these performances, Begum Akhtar, renowned Hindustani singer, met Ganguly and took her as her disciple.^[3][4] The bond between the singers lasted till Akhtar's death in 1974.^[3]

Ganguly is a Ford Foundation Fellow and has a doctoral degree for her thesis on the female singers of Indian subcontinent.^[3] She produced a multimedia production, Ruh-e-ishq, incorporating the seven stages of Sufism, in 1997, to celebrate the fifty years of Indian Independence.^[3] She is known to have a liking for nazms, a genre of Urdu poetry and has composed music for the poems of such Bengali poets as Jibanananda, Shakti Chattopadhyay, Subhash Mukherjee, Shankho Ghosh, Sunil Gangopadhyay and Joy Goswami.^[3] She was involved with the Soumitra Chatterjee production, Homapakhi for which she composed the theme song.^[3] She has also acted in Darmiyaan, a feature film by Kalpana Lajmi.^[4]

Ganguly has performed at the Festival of India events held in UK and France. She is the author of a number of books related to art and music such as Bismillah Khan and Benaras, the Seat of Shehnai^[7] and Ae Mohabbat... Reminiscing Begum Akhtar.^[3][8] She is the founder of Kaladharmi,^[9] a non-profit organization to promote young talents in arts and the Begum Akhtar Academy of Ghazal,^[10] an academy for nurturing Ghazal tradition^[3] which has instituted annual awards to recognize excellence in Ghazal music.^[11] Her play on Begum Akhtar, Jamal-e-Begum Akhtar,^[12] has been staged on many occasions^[6] and she is planning a film on the life of Begum Akhtar^[4] in association with the known ghazal singer, Anup Jalota, involving filmmaker, Ketan Mehta and music director, A. R. Rahman.^[11]

Rita Ganguly received the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award for music in 2000.^[1] The Government of India honoured her with the civilian award of Padma Shri in 2003. She is also a recipient of Priyadarshi Award, Rajiv Gandhi Shiromani award, Critics Circle of India award and the Lifetime Achievement Award of the Broadcasters Association of the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting.^[3]

Rita Ganguly is the founder of Kaladharmi,^[9] a non-profit organization for the promotion of performing arts and Begum Akhtar Academy of Ghazals (BAAG),^[10] a ghazal academy.^[3]

Rita Ganguly was married to Keshav Kothari, a former secretary of Sangeet Natak Akademi and the couple has two children, son Arijeet a poet^[13] and a daughter, Meghna Kothari who is an actress in Hindi films.^[4]

She appeared in the film Parineeta (2005 film) and is credited for the song Dhinak-Dhinak-Dha^[14] composed by Shantanu Moitra penned by Swanand Kirkire.

She has also sung for the film Sarkar (2005) the song Deen Bandhu .^[15]