Ram Dayal Sharma
A Nautanki singer and guru called the Nightingale of Braj, who has given more than 5,000 shows, honoured with the Padma Shri in 2022.
Ram Dayal Sharma is a master of the north Indian musical theatre forms Nautanki, Swang, Bhagat, Raasleela and Rasiya, and the present guru of the Samai-Khera gharana. He was named for the Padma Shri in 2022 in the field of art, from Rajasthan [1].
The Nightingale of Braj
Sharma was born on 2 May 1946 in Samai Khera village, Bharatpur district, and grew up in great poverty, walking 12 km barefoot to school [2]. His singing marked him out as a prodigy, and as a teenager in the 1960s the people of Braj gave him the title Braj-Kokila, the Nightingale of Braj [2].
Old stages, new stories
He has given more than 5,000 performances and worked to restore respect for these forms of musical theatre [2]. He was among the first to write new Nautankis on post-Independence themes, such as girls’ education, women’s empowerment, dowry, the environment, HIV/AIDS, Covid-19 and forgotten freedom fighters [2]. He led a folk media campaign for the Uttar Pradesh government, training more than 150 troupes of Nautanki, Alha, Birha, qawwali, puppetry and magic performers who have since given more than 10,000 shows in villages [2]. In 2007 he directed a folk media campaign on HIV/AIDS for UNAIDS [2].
He has taught at the National School of Drama, the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts and the University of Delhi, and lectured at universities in the United States, including Berkeley and Texas at Austin [2]. He received the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award for 2014 [2].
Sources
- [1] Padma Awards 2022: list of awardees — Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India. Accessed 24 October 2026.
- [2] Padma Awards 2022: citation for Ram Dayal Sharma — Padma Awards, Government of India. Accessed 24 October 2026.
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