To see Sonal Mansingh on the stage is to be transported to the realms of the ethereal. There’s something in that lithe grace, the large, expressive eyes and the neatness of movement that breaks the boundaries of our daily life and builds a connection with myth, storytelling, visualization and the transcendence of the human spirit. The dancer’s form is the medium of articulation but as WB Yeats said poetically, ‘O body swayed to music, O brightening glance,/ How can we know the dancer from the dance?’
The enduring mystique of Sonal Mansingh’s five decades of performative brilliance unfolds in the book she has compiled called A Zig Zag Mind. Here is the story of inspiration and struggle, opportunities and losses, and, most of all, the triumph of a passion for dancing. Looking at Sonal’s dazzling presence and mesmerizing programmes one may come away thinking this is a charmed life, but the book tracks the sheer grit and hard decisions that made Sonal who she is,