When the then prime minister Morarji Desai offered the chair of the President of India to Rukmini Devi Arundale in 1977 she politely declined. She decided she could do without the trappings of the state that a stint in Rashtrapati Bhavan brought with it. But she was not a stranger to fame or power. She had occupied a niche in the arena of Indian culture long before that. Her powerful personality, her contribution to the renaissance of Bharatanatyam and her creation of Kalakshetra, the world-renowned temple of arts in Chennai, earned for her great admiration. Less widely known is her work for animal welfare and vegetarianism long before either of these causes became fashionable.
Rukmini Devi had grown up under the shade of the famous banyan tree in the sprawling Adyar campus of the Theosophical Society of which her father was an important functionary. In her 20s, the theosophists proclaimed her the Mother Goddess -- the Devi -- embodying the great spiritual values of Hindustan, even as they identified J. Krishnamurti as the new messiah. JK refused the mantle and went his own way; Rukmini did not, but the attempt to promote her as Mother Goddess fizzled out. Nonetheless, the concept behind the move influenced her perception of Indian culture in spiritual terms and of the arts as the embodiment of that culture.
Interestingly, after her controversial marriage to George Arundale when she was 16, it was western ballet that first caught Rukmini's fancy. She turned to Indian dance only when the ballerina Anna Pavlova advised her to look at the "native arts" of India for inspiration.
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