Dona Ganguly performs at Bangla Sanskritik Mela. Picture by Manik Bose

Ranchi, May 25: She would prefer talking about Odissi dance than about cricket.

Still, on being pressed, she said that Sourav has made significant contribution to Indian cricket and has been able to stage a comeback in the national team only after putting up a good performance.

A supportive wife and a talented dancer, meet Dona Ganguly, the wife of Sourav Ganguly.

This well-known Odissi dancer performed, for the first time here, on the second day of the three-day Bangla Sanskritik Mela at Zilla School grounds last evening.

She proved to be the biggest crowd-puller at the mela this year as a huge audience were there to see her perform.

This spelt trouble for organisers and the police who had a tough time controlling traffic near the venue. It took over half-an-hour to get into the venue, said those who attended the cultural programme last evening.

Dona and her troupe presented some remarkable dance pieces in Odissi to the accompaniment of Rabindra Sangeet yesterday. Among the most remarkable was the piece based on Sita-haran from the Ramayan.

The Ravan-Jatayu encounter and the scene where Jatayu later informs Rama about the direction in which Ravan had flown away with Sita on his chariot became livid thanks to Dona’s expressive interpretation first as Sita and then as Jatayu.

Introduced to the dance form at an early age, Dona continued training in Odissi under Kelu Charan Mahapatra. “You don’t find such a complete guru anymore.”