Dhananjayans - Personal Life

Personal Life

V.P Dhananjayan was born into a Malayali Nair family on 17 April 1939 in Payyanur, Kannur District, Kerala, India. He was born into a family with eight children struggling to make ends meet, when a chance meeting with Kathakali Master Guru Chandu Panicker of Kalakshetra made his father decide purely on instinct to send his son and V.Balagopalan to Kalakshetra under his tutelage. Dhananjayan joined Kalakshetra on 5 October 1953 and was a leading male dance under Rukmini Devi (founder of Kalakshetra) from 1955–1967. He graduated from Kalakshetra with a Post Graduate Diploma in Dance (Bharatanatyam and Kathakali) with distinction, and also holds a B.A in Economics and Politics.

Shanta Dhananjayan was born on 12 August 1943 into a well-to-do Malayali Nair family in Malaysia and traces her ancestry back to Kerala from where her family migrated to Malaysia. She was a child prodigy and by the time she was 3, her parents were convinced that Shanta would be a dancer. They found in her an inborn response to dance and joy of movement and decided to send her to India for her education. They sent her at age eight to Kalakshetra in June 1952, a year before Dhananjayan, where she later graduated with a Post-Graduate Diploma with distinction in Bharatanatyam and also learned Kathakali and Carnatic music. She was a leading female dancer at Kalakshetra from 1955-1968.

The couple have two sons. The elder, Sanjay, lives with his wife in the USA and their younger son, Satyajit, is an accomplished automobile photographer and dancer who lives with his wife and son in Chennai, India.