By Durga Jasraj [singer and producer] MUMBAI MIRROR (November 26, 2014)

Kathak queen Sitara Devi breathed her last after a prolonged illness on Tuesday. She was 94. I had almost come to believe that she would be there for us forever. Even at 94 years of age, she still had ghungroos tied to her feet and was ever ready to dance to the song of joy called ­ Life.

I was merely 6 or 7 years old when I first watched her perform. She was accompanied by Ustad Allah Rakha's son on the tabla. She was so impressed with the young tabla player, that she gave him her garland and predicted that he will one day become a great artiste. The boy was none other than tabla maestro Zakir Hussain.

The last time I met her was at Zakir Hussain's house. I thought she would have forgotten me and avoided the formality of reintroducing myself.

However, as luck would have it, while returning home, we were in the same car. She suddenly said: “Why don't you come and meet me Durga? You do so much to promote music, but there is so much to do for dance as well...“ I felt really stupid and sheepishly apologised. It is then that I realised how sharp she was even at that age.
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By Khalid Mohamed (MUMBAI MIRROR; November 26, 2014)

Scrunched up on a bed, she was sans her mandatory cosmetic coated face. No moon-sized bindi on her forehead either. She was caught off guard and detested that.

I had sauntered, unannounced, into the first floor Napean Sea Road apartment of her musician son Ranjit Barot, who was using a section of the apartment as a recording studio. Sitara Devi was accustomed to the stream of singers and musicians. A journalist suddenly gaping at her annoyed her.“That's mom,“ Barot said quickly hustling me towards the studio. And she laughed, “His mother and a big star in my time. Do you know of me?“ “Yes, of course. Who doesn't?“ I lied shamelessly.

Emaciated with age but her eyes flashing like torches, she ordered her son, “why are you whisking him away? Let me talk.“

Obviously, she liked borrowing an ear. Sitting up, ready for oration, she gestured, “Sit! I know who you are. My son thinks I'm deaf. I'd heard him saying, a journalist was coming over for an interview. Once they wanted to interview me... and I would mesmerise them. Now they come to interview Ranjit and I'm sure they are bored to death.“

Frankly, time had zipped past for one of the first divas, so to speak. She had oozed stardom and seduction in an era, which was a mystery. Or should I say barely chronicled. For the post-independence generation she was a hell-raiser, bold and brazen, as evidenced in the surviving photographs of the whoopee Holi celebrations at the R K Studios. She was a regular having the time of her life, literally let ting her down. For a kid bred on the Mumbai movies and the magazines, trade papers of the 1960s particularly Filmfare and Screen, I'd wonder, “who's she?“ She had appeared in a palmful of films ­ take, Mehboob Khan's Mother India in which she was Lord Krishna to a coy Radha.

That was her last screen appearance, it seems. No, she wasn't a household name. Kukoo and Helen were. And her nephew, Gopikrishna, could dance up a thunderstorm, landing the lead role of V Shantaram's Jhanak Jhanak Payal Baaje. She could never grab that kind of grandstanding, which could have us lamenting her loss today at the age of 94. By 'lamenting' I mean according to Sitara Devi, the adieu, perhaps deserved by her.

Yes, there is no doubt that she was the proverbial woman of substance, fiercely independent and the sort who could drive the men in her life, insane, and bankrupt, or both.

The most vivid, and perhaps, the only pen-portrait of Sitara Devi was authored by Saadat Hasan Manto. It is not a flattering one; Manto makes her out to be a predator, a cougar. The very fact that Manto chose to write about her, indicated that she was not an ordinary citizen of showbiz. What Sitara Devi wanted, Sitara Devi got. Apologies? Forget it.

Her inflexible personality would inspire a spate of biographies in Hollywood, as they did of Jean Harlow and Marilyn Monroe. Besides Manto, no other dared to cross the path.

That day, at the studio-apartment, she wanted to talk ­ about her passion for kathak, about her lust for life perhaps. She saw my eyes go blank, perhaps, as she elaborated on kathak. “You're not interested,“ she said correctly. “Go, go talk to Ranjit about music.“

I bolted from the bed. Ranjit Barot wasn't embarrassed. Clearly, he adored her, but wasn't going to let her hold forth, on kathak, for hours. “Get him a cup of tea,“ Sitara yelled out to the kitchen. “And lage haath mere liye bhi chaai le aana.“ That's the last I saw or heard of her.

Judiciously, Ranjit Barot has never discussed his star mother, rewinding to her glory days. Wikipedia talks about her brief marriage to the movie moghul, K Asif, about her transition from a child artiste to a woman who led her life on her own unwritten terms. Rabindranath Tagore had praised the child dancer. Manto had disparaged the woman, painting her scarlet. And when I pass by that apartment on Napean Sea Road, I feel guilty. Sitara Devi's story ­ from her point of view ­ will remain untold.