Kumari Kamala (Later Known As Kamala Lakshman) in “Aduvome Pallu Paduvome” from Nam Iruvar (1947)

[Note, 3/12: Moserbauer had this one removed, as well as the Vyjayanthimala video following this. Idiots! At least the YouTube user remains (so far). I’ll leave the posts up, because I still want to say what I said… This Kumari Kamala dance is great, if you can find it somewhere. Unfortunately, I could not find it in any stores so far. But I’m going to keep looking for this movie…preferably from a company other than Moserbauer.)

While I am no expert in the technicalities of classical Indian dance (and have gone for this in a big way only fairly recently), I can see a major difference in quality between the sort of stuff Kamala was doing at this age and debuts by other dancers in their early teens (such as Vyjayanthimala, in the clip I am posting after this).  This is not to knock any of the other dancers (Vyjayanthimala’s dancing was pretty good even when she was the same age); I am just very impressed by Kamala’s movements and poses and the general fluidity of her dancing.  (As I’ve said before, how was she able to move her arms like that?)  She was only 13 in this clip.  Can anybody doubt that she was a child prodigy,  just as it says in the histories?