Early Life and Education
Born Uday Shankar Chowdhury, in Udaipur, Rajasthan, to a Bengali family with origins in Narail (present Bangladesh). His father Shyam Shankar Chowdhury, a noted barrister, was employed with the Maharaja of Jhalawar in Rajasthan at the time of his eldest son's birth, while his mother Hemangini Devi, descended from a Bengali zamindari family. His father was conferred the title, 'Harchowdhury' by the Nawabs, but he preferred to use surname 'Chowdhury' minus 'Har.' His younger brothers were Rajendra Shankar, Debendra Shankar, Bhupendra Shankar and Ravi Shankar, born in 1920, out of them Bhupendra died young in 1926
His father was a Sanskrit scholar, graduated with honours from the Calcutta University and later studied at the Oxford University, where he became a Doctor of Philosophy. Since his father moved a lot on the account of his work, the family spent much time in Uday's maternal uncle's house at Nasratpur with his mother and brothers. Uday's studies also took place at various places including Nasratpur, Gazipur, Varanasi, and Jhalawar. At his Gazipur school, he learnt music and photography, from Ambika Charan Mukhopaddhay, his Drawing and Crafts teacher.
In 1918, at the age of eighteen, he was sent to Mumbai, to train at the J. J. School of Art and then to Gandharva Mahavidyalaya. By now, Shyam Shankar had resigned his post in Jhalawar and moved to London, here he married an English woman and practiced law, before becoming an amateur impresario, introducing Indian dance and music to Britain. Subsequently, Uday joined his father in London, and on 23 August 1920, joined the Royal College of Art, London to study paintings under Sir William Rothenstein. Here he danced at a few charity performances that his father had organized in London, and one such occasion, noted Russian ballerina Anna Pavlova happened to be present, this was to have lasting impact on his career.
Read more about this topic: Uday Shankar
Famous quotes containing the words early, life and/or education:
“Many a woman shudders ... at the terrible eclipse of those intellectual powers which in early life seemed prophetic of usefulness and happiness, hence the army of martyrs among our married and unmarried women who, not having cultivated a taste for science, art or literature, form a corps of nervous patients who make fortunes for agreeable physicians ...”
—Sarah M. Grimke (1792–1873)
“Like children, the elders are a burden. But unlike children, they offer no hope or promise. They are a weight and an encumbrance and a mirror of our own mortality. It takes a person of great heart to see past this fact and to see the wisdom the elders have to offer, and so serve them out of gratitude for the life they have passed on to us.”
—Kent Nerburn (20th century)
“Casting an eye on the education of children, from whence I can make a judgment of my own, I observe they are instructed in religious matters before they can reason about them, and consequently that all such instruction is nothing else but filling the tender mind of a child with prejudices.”
—George Berkeley (1685–1753)