From being a government servant, Lashiram Karuna Devi’s rise to fame has been phenomenal. She is not only a great dancer herself, but also nurturing budding talents and thereby maintaining the great heritage of Indian dancing.
This truly magnificent Manipuri lady set foot on Guwahati’s soil right back in 1968 to get settled here. She spent the better part of her life as instructor in the Song and Drama division of the Information and Broadcasting wing of the Government of Assam. But dance had always been her passion. She didn’t receive any formal training except for a few tips from her aunt when she was young. It is through his single-minded pursuit that she developed expertise in different dance forms like Bihu, Xatriya, Rabindrik, etc. but Manipuri has always remained her forte.
Even during her service days, she was always under tremendous pressure from many quarters to teach dancing. Although it was very difficult for her to manage time after meeting the demands of her job, she still obliged and somehow balanced things. Her retirement in June 2005 made her free and she could start devoting more time to training youngsters. So, the Karuna Dance Academy was formed in 2006. The fruit of her training was realized in later part of 2007 which catapulted the Karuna Dance Academy the ‘icchecho’, as Karuna Devi is belovedly called, meaning elder sister in Manipuri, following big time recognition. In September 2007, Karuna Devi received the National Nritya Bhusan Award in the 15th All India Drama/Classical and Folk Dance competition held in Orissa for her outstanding performance, extraordinary contribution and excellent service to the promotion, preservation and popularization of Indian Performing Arts. Her troupe of classical Manipuri Basanta Raas was adjudged the winners in the dance competition.
So impressed were they with her performance that she and her troupe again got a call up in November 2007 for the Bali Yatra Cultural Utsav 2007 and she was again honoured by Government of Orissa.
The Manipuri Sahitya Parishad, Assam also honoured her with the Award of Excellence for taking Manipuri culture to such a height.
Karuna Devi still remains down to earth and simple despite all these honours. She runs the academy totally on her own with the good wishes of her well wishers. According to her, recognition has perhaps come as a shot in the arm to popularize her and her students to set higher standards and go about attaining it.
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