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Mallika Sarabhai

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Years active
  
1969 – present

Awards
  

Name
  
Mallika Sarabhai

Siblings
  
Kartikeya Sarabhai


Born
  
9 May 1954 (age 69) (
1954-05-09
)

Occupation
  
Kuchipudi and Bharatanatyam dancer, politician

Website
  
www.mallikasarabhai.com

Role
  
Vikram Sarabhai's daughter · mallikasarabhai.com

Education
  
Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad

Parents
  
Vikram Sarabhai, Mrinalini Sarabhai

Children
  
Revanta Sarabhai, Anahita Sarabhai

Movies
  
Sheesha, Katha, Himalay Se Ooncha, Amma, Mena Gurjari

Similar People
  
Mrinalini Sarabhai, Vikram Sarabhai, Revanta Sarabhai, Kartikeya Sarabhai, Lakshmi Sahgal

Dr mallika sarabhai s speech at swim 2012 great lakes institute of management chennai


Mallika Sarabhai Shah (born 9 May 1954) is an activist and Indian classical dancer from Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India. Daughter of a classical dancer Mrinalini Sarabhai and space scientist Vikram Sarabhai, Mallika is an accomplished Kuchipudi and Bharatanatyam dancer and performer who has specialized in using the arts for social change and transformation.

Contents

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Guftagoo with mallika sarabhai


Early life

Mallika Sarabhai was born in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India to Vikram Sarabhai and Mrinalini Sarabhai. She completed her MBA from IIM Ahmedabad in 1974 and Doctorate in Organisational Behaviour from the Gujarat University in 1976. She is a noted choreographer and dancer and has also acted in a few Hindi, Malayalam, Gujarati and international films.

Career

She started to learn dancing when she was young, and started her film career in parallel cinema, when she was 15. Mallika played the role of Draupadi in the Peter Brook's play The Mahabharata. Mallika has won many accolades during her long career, the Golden Star Award being one of them, which she won for the Best Dance Soloist, Theatre De Champs Elysees, Paris 1977. As well as a dancer, Sarabhai is a social activist. She manages the Darpana Academy of Performing Arts located at Ahmedabad, a center for the arts and for the use of arts as a language for behavior change.

Performance

In 1989 she performed hard-hitting solo theatrical works, Shakti: The Power of Women. Her performance Sita’s Daughters has toured the world and been performed over 500 times in three languages. After that, she directed and acted in numerous productions reflecting current issues and awareness among people. Amongst them are An Idea Named Meera; In Search of the Goddess and SvaKranti: The Revolution Within.

Mallika Sarabhai also wrote the script for the play 'Unsuni' based on Harsh Mander's book 'Unheard Voices' to raise awareness amongst children in elite shchols and colleges to the real issues facing India’s marginalized. The play went around 120 schools and colleges. Arvind Gaur later directed it as a play, with the same name. Darpana Academy has launched the people awareness movement through its production Unsuni which travels all over India.

In 2009 Mallika Sarabhai acted in an Indian adaptation Bertolt Brecht's of The Good Person of Szechwan (Ahmedabadki Aurat Bhali-Ramkali) directed by Arvind Gaur in 34th Vikram Sarabhai International Art Festival.

In the year 2012, Mallika co-directed 'Women with Broken Wings,' an international production with film maker Yadavan Chandran and Swiss pianist Elizabeth Sombart, an ode to the millions of women who have been the victims of violence. In 2014 she recreated, with Yadavan Chandran, Kadak Badshaahi, a multi media production on the 603 year old history of the city of Ahmedabad. The performance ran for an unprecedented 33 full nights in Darpana’s venue, Natarani.

Television

Mallika has also used film and television for social change, especially for women’s empowerment and environmental consciousness. Through Darpana Communications, she has been responsible for the production of three thousand hours of TV broadcast programming, all of which has been shown through Doordarshan, Gujarati. The programming uses the most popular genres of TV. She has anchored many shows on STAR TV and Doordarshan as well as the first NACO series on HIV, Talk Positive; the science series Turning Point; Vaividhyotsav, the culture quiz and Srishti : The Environment Quiz.

Writing

Mallika first started writing when she produced and performed Shakti:The Power of Women. Since then she has scripted her own shows, TV serials for ISROs educational TV in Madhya Pradesh, film scripts and more recently new contemporary lyrics for BharataNatyam. She has been a columnist for Times of India, Vanitha, The Week, DivyaBhaskar, Hans and DNA.

Politics

On 19 March 2009, Mallika Sarabhai announced her candidature against the Bharatiya Janata Party's prime ministerial candidate L K Advani for the Gandhinagar Lok Sabha seat, as an independent candidate in the 2009 general election. She had won from the Congress to contest election, the first being in 1984 from Rajiv Gandhi. She eventually lost to L K Advani by a huge margin and forfeited her election deposit in the process.

She protested against Gujarat Chief Minister, Narendra Modi during Sadbhavna Mission in September 2011. She accused Narendra Modi of scuttling the petition filed in Supreme court by her on the 2002 Gujarat violence. She joined the Aam Aadmi Party on 8 January 2014.

Personal life

Mallika met Bipin Shah in 1982 and married him. They separated after seven years and later divorced. They have two children, a son, Revanta and a daughter Anahita. Bipin and Mallika co-founded Mapin Publishing in 1984 and continue to run it together.

References

Mallika Sarabhai Wikipedia