Jayanti Mala put in a lot of effort and devoted most of her time in learning and performing Kathak from a tender age and today she is known as a Kathak Queen. She exhorts young people to carry on our Indian culture and prevent its extinction.

Jayanti Mala Mishra is a legendary Kathak Dancer. Recently, she collaborated with Bhartiya Vidya Bhavan, Mumbai, to organize a classical dance event at SP Jain Auditorium, where she represented all the young dancers in front of the Governor.

Jayanti Mala was born in Banaras, in the musical family of Acharya Pandit Sukhdev Maharaj, who proudly professes to be the originator of the Banaras Gharana of Kathak. She spent her childhood in Kolkata and then moved to Mumbai.

Reminiscing about her childhood, Jayanti Mala claims that she started learning Kathak at the age of two-and-a-half years, and she performed as a Kathak dancer just at the age of five. She asserts that there would be no such conference, event, classical celebration, or festival that she did not attend. She shares that rather than playing and having fun in her childhood, she was forced to dance by her family and a strict vigil was kept on her, as her dance used to be introduced among iconic artists, singers, and sitarists.

According to Jayanti Mala, females from brahmin families were not permitted to sing or dance in public before the custom of girls performing Kathak began. She reveals that her mother and her aunt started this Kathak legacy, which has a history of one-hundred-and-fifty years. After that, the women in their families kept participating in this tradition and continue this practice even today.

Advising today’s generation, Jayanti Mala says that you must stay active. Sports, dancing, yoga, and other activities that enhance blood circulation in your body can help you stay physically healthy and look young, instead of relying just on going to the gym. She also advises them never to look for shortcuts but to strengthen their foundation with hard work and advance in their career.

Jayanti Mala advises youngsters to pursue their careers in Indian Classical dance forms as she feels the rush to adopt western culture has resulted in the extinction of our Indian culture. Owing to this, she first asks them to look for a trustworthy guru, under whose guidance they won’t be misled. She further suggests moving forward while keeping their end goal in mind. She also tells them to focus on themselves and look for solutions to relieve themselves of their troubled thoughts rather than becoming sidetracked in other directions.