Raja Reddy
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Personal life
[ From the archives of the Times of India]
Purba Dutt
‘Differences dissolve when we dance. Raja Reddy, Kuchipudi dancer, is married to dancer sisters Radha and Kaushalya
You don’t quite know what to expect when you put the trickiest question of the interview to Raja Reddy over the phone in Hyderabad, where he’s performing at the 40th anniversary celebrations of Natya Tarangini, his Delhi-based dance institute. “Double expenses,” he says cheekily, puncturing the high-stress moment, following a query on the downside of bigamy.
For the 68-year-old dance veteran, finding harmony in a marriage with two women is as easy, or challenging, as maintaining rhythm at a concert. Reddy married his first wife, Radha, in 1959 when he was 11 and she, his first cousin, was five. They were little children from a village in Telangana in Andhra Pradesh. Six years later, the teenager was sent to Hyderabad to start a new life with Reddy. A shared passion for dance saw the two learn Kuchipudi under famous guru Vedantam Prahlada Sarma. An offer to train in choreography, a few years later, made Reddy move to Delhi with his young wife. The urban disconnect left Radha weary, pining for the life she had left behind. Her parents bundled off younger sister Kaushalya, then only four, with an ayah in tow, to cheer up their homesick daughter. “It worked like a charm,” says Reddy. “Radha was delighted and back to being her usual self. The twist in their domestic life came in 1979 during a performance tour of South-East Asia. Their usual conductor stood them up, and Kaushalya was made the nattuvanar or head of the orchestra. “The adulation Radha and I received stirred something within Kaushalya,” remembers Reddy. But it was only the next leg of the tour in Mexico that revealed Kaushalya’s love. The three were invited to a crazed female fan’s home. “She had pasted my life-size photos on the ceiling! She was an unabashed admirer, and insisted that I marry her.” For 15-year-old Kaushalya, this was the time to act. “That same night she declared her desire to marry me. You could tell it wasn’t a sudden decision. She had thought it through. While I was happy, I was taken by surprise. I did love her but I was her bawa (brother-in-law in Telugu), a term she uses to this day to address me.” Radha, admits Reddy, was upset but only for a while. “She loves her sister to bits, and in her happiness lay Radha’s happiness.” Radha laid down one condition, though, that’s never been compromised — only she could play Raja’s lover on stage. The extroverted Kaushalya performs solo, plays nattavanur and oversees the organisation of tours, events and sponsorship. Radha is in charge of the Reddy household. “We do have our differences but everything dissolves when we get together to dance. Dance has been the greatest unifying force,” explains Raja. Lord Krishna, he says, had two wives and 16 gopikas. Lord Venkateshwara too had two wives. “If there’s harmony, there’s nothing wrong with it. I am honest enough to have both my wives at home. The wife-athome-mistress-elsewhere arrangement doesn’t agree with me.” Even his daughters, Yamini and Bhavana, one from each wife, have taken it well. “Bhavana once asked me why only she among all her classmates had two mummies. I told her it was the Lord’s blessings, and that she was lucky. We all believe so.”
