Jatinder has the distinction of being the first ever Sikh Bharatanatyam dancer in India, who has made it to the Limca Book of World Records. And he has indeed made it to our hearts and will stay there forever.

46 year old Jatinder, residing in Nerul, Mumbai, was head of the Dance and Music department of Delhi Public School in Nerul, teaching Bharatanatyam and Indian folk dances. At the age of 26, he gave up a cushy job with Pidilite, to pursue his passion for Bharatanatyam and Indian folk dances.

A student Guru Rajee since 1990, he learnt from her not only Bharatanatyam but also Nattuvangam and Natya Sastra. He assisted her in teaching the students of Nritya Geethanjali and was ever so popular with the students, whom he encouraged with gentle coaxing and kind words of encouragement.

Jatinder had participated in all the dance dramas and group programmes of Nritya Geethanjali and given several solo stage performances in Bharatanatyam. He performed for the NCPA, National Centre for the Performing Arts in 1996, the 6th Bharatam Dance Festival in Chennai, the Ramakrishna Mission in Mumbai and other Sabhas. In June 2008, he was in London, where he performed at the Nehru Centre, for the second time. A devoted Sikh, he made a novel presentation of Shabad, the devotional Punjabi bhajan on stage, keeping its religious sanctity intact. He has given about 250 performances all over India and also in London and California.

Jatinder was a graded artiste with Mumbai Doordarshan. He won the men’s freestyle solo dance competition on the popular TV programme, Boogie Woogie, on Sony channel. He has been featured in more than a hundred episodes of Aao Seekhen, a children’s programme on Doordarshan, demonstrating the use of waste material in handicrafts and fabric painting.
He was skilled in teaching the visually, hearing and orally impaired, mentally challenged, spastics, as well as paraplegic children, not only dance, but also handicrafts and fabric painting, as a means towards gainful self-employment. He used Bharatanatyam as a Dance Therapy, for mentally challenged children.

Jatinder was a natural artist – very good at making interesting things, especially for children. He had held exhibitions of his work and conducted workshops and demonstrations, held inter-school competitions in fabric painting and handicrafts, in various cities all over India.

The Rotary Club of Bombay Midcity confered the Vocational Excellence Award - 2004, on Jatinder, for his excellent contribution to the field of Indian Dance. His most notable achievement is the Best Dancer Award he received at the 6th Bharatam Festival in 1999, at Thyaga Brahma Gana Sabha, Chennai. His most memorable moment, he would always say, was when he performed at Vani Mahal, Chennai, in 1995.

Jatinder’s swan song was at Jodhpur, where he had gone for a dance programme, presenting ten students from Delhi Public School, on Saturday, 19th July. Following his students’ performance, he presented a solo item. Later backstage, he suffered acute pain, followed by a massive heart attack that he did not survive. Jatinder has passed away, doing what he loved to do the most… and leaving a terrible void in our midst.

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