“ Above all this is the story of a boy from the Patachitra painter community from Raghurajpur near Puri who grew up to become the greatest master of the Odissi dance form. It is a perception of how modern Odissi was recreated from stray vestiges in folk and popular culture over the last 50 odd years. And it is a record of the many famous dance pupils Kelu Babu produced over the decades beginning with the late Sanjukta Panigrahi, Kumkum Das and Sonal Mansingh down to Citaristi herself. Though Citaristi has not personalised the work in any great manner her empathy for Oriya culture is stamped throughout creating a sensitive evocative biography.”
by S. Kalidas, India Today, May 2001
“ Ileana’s book makes interesting reading even in the details known to lovers of dance.. The book will be a valuable source of archival interest for it contains details known only to a few, now aging men and women of Orissa. Aesthetically got up, reasonably priced, the book is an addition to Odissi history. It deals less with the aesthetic of the dance than with the life story of a master admirably told.”
by Leela Venkataraman, The Hindu, June 29, 2001
“ This is a book of love stories. Of dancers for the dance, of a dancing couple for each other, of a nation for a lyrical piece of its own soul. For Kelucharan Mohapatra’s life book is witness not only to his own struggle, enchantment and growth in Odissi, it is a mosaic of Indian cultural history, of hard sincere work making magic… Of teaching values through the example of several besotted dancers who, for love of the art, turned their lives upside down and never regretted it, despite the hardship and discipline.”
by Renuka Narayanan, The Express Magazine, May 6, 2001
“ It is a tribute to both the Guru who inspired this devotion and to the disciple who has spared no effort to make this book such a rich find visually as well as textually.”
by Shanta Serbjeet Singh, Hindusthan Times, June 24, 2001
“ The Making of a guru- His Life and Times, the biography of Odissi guru Kelucharan Mohapatra comes as a welcome change. Citaristi, the Italian student of Mohapatra was so won over by the dance form that she stayed back in Orissa as Mohapatra’s sishya for decades. In the book she recalls the unusual story of Odissi and its most visible exponent.”
by Sudha G Tilak, Tehelka.com literary review
“ This is the story of the grand old man of Odissi by one of his many dedicated disciples…. Told simply and effectively this is not just the story of a great dancer but also the tale of Odissi development and world-renown.. A few typos notwithstanding, this is a passionate life-sketch of a man whose first forty years of life have no written record. A must-read.”