For over 50 years now, one man has worked to save dance history of India. Prof. Mohan Khokar, born in Punjab, left it to study dance at Kalakshetra in Chennai in the late 1930s. he was among the first male students of Bharatnatyam at the institution and that too hailing from Punjab.

When Rukmini Devi Arundale saw his seriousness, she waived all rules to accommodate him. Later he married star Bharatnatyam dancer M K Saroja and the couple combined theory with practical demonstration of the art of dance, teaching it at the first university to offer dance as graduate course, the M S in Baroda.

Commissioned by the Sangeet Natak Akademi, he served it for 20 years, last five as Secretary. Today, the man and his mission have come a full circle. What started as an initial attraction towards learning the art of dance led to a more serious study of the subject when he realised that there was little or no available literature on the subject. He was the first in the country to roam in small villages capturing forms like Bhagavata Mela, the Chhau, Yakshgana, Ottun Thullal and Kodiyattam. Along with Charles Fabri, he was the principal architect of revival of Odissi as a classical dance form. His camera recorded the folk forms, while his inner eye captured images of gurus and teachers, dancers and devotees. All the material he collected stayed on to become what today is called the Mohan Khokar Dance Collection. He has authored several definitive books on dance.

This precious collection - the only comprehensive record of dance history - has been sought by museum in America and Europe. But being a patriotic Indian, he has not allowed it to leave India even when India has done nothing to support it or help organise it. Most institutions merely want to possess it, like a feather in their cap, but few have the devotion, the dedication, the vision to augment it or think, of its public dissemination.