SANYOGEETA PATIL, DANCER

“My single mother has made unimaginable sacrifices in making me the person I am. From selling vegetables, stitching clothes, sewing sari falls, she has done it all”

Meet Sanyogeeta Patil, who says, Bharatanatyam is her life, without which she would cease to exist. A native of Kolhapur, Sanyogeeta remembers being mesmerized by the classical dance performances on Doordarshan (when she was all of 3 years old) and started to train formally at the age of 13.

So deep rooted was her passion for Bharatanatyam that she danced non-stop for 13 hours to raise awareness of this beautiful dance form. During the performance someone asked, “Will you achieve a world record?” and that one question inspired Sanyogeeta to take it up as a challenge. What followed were seven years of dedicated preparation. With her mother by her side cheering for her, Sanyogeeta finally attempted the world record and danced from 4 December 2008 to 7 December 2008 for 66 hours straight. But Alas! Due to lack of funds, they could not invite the Guinness adjudicator and even though it was clearly a record, it was not officially recorded as one.

Determined on not giving up on her dream, Sanyogeeta took the attempt to the next level. On 10 January 2015, nearly 2100 participants from various states in India performed 12 minutes of Bharatanatyam on the same beats and it was recorded in the Guinness book of world records as largest Bharatanatyam performance. And post that, under the guidance of Sanyogeeta another world record was set with 573 participants performing the Maharashtrian folk dance Lavani, ‘Lavani Manvandana’.

With much more to be accomplished and many more dreams to fulfil, Sanyogeeta says the journey from ‘Sanyogeeta’ to ‘Nrityachandrika Sanyogeeta was sometimes a bed of roses but lot of times a bed of thorns. She hopes that this little glimpse into her life will let every struggler know that if you want to make something big, then ignore the tiny obstacles that are bound to come your way.