The past master of silent feelers — Niranjan Goswami

“I was in college when I first started miming. My first naive performance received such appreciation that I decided to take up the art form as my profession. I feel great that today I have been recognised for my work because when I decided to take up miming,it was not appreciated as an individual talent,” says Goswami,whose involvement with the world of art began with him being part of “Bahurupi”,a famous theatre group in the city.

Gowami later enrolled into the course of theatre at Rabindra Bharati University and his life started revolving around book reading,watching mime theatres,learning the techniques of the art form and ultimately starting off his own group with seven to eight mime artistes.

Today,Goswami is considered one of the pioneers of the mime art who skilfully networked with mime artistes across the country and beyond and organised mime festivals,appeared as guest lecturer in various art universities to spread the word that miming can be the most expressive form of art where,without verbal communication,one has to relate to the audience.

“I have taught miming students and fellow artistes. I started off with a few artistes and today I am trying to build an institute of Indian Mime Theatre where students can learn the art. We also teach the hearing-impaired children how to use the art to express themselves on stage,” said Goswami.