These days the word is that there's a vaguely military air about Nrityagram. That its managing trustee Lynne Fernandes -- army brat, daughter of a Kathak dancer, stubborn, battle-axe -- is running it in the only way she knows. "The only way I can." Hard-nosed savvy.

She will need that and more to save Protima Bedi's gurukul dream. It turned into a bit of nightmare much before she was tragically killed in landslide a few months ago. It's got even worse now.

Corporate sponsors are drying up. Eight years ago, Raymonds Chairman Vijaypat Singhania pumped in Rs 6 lakh for setting up an Odissi gurukul and since then has contributed over Rs 20 lakh to Nrityagram. He even flew to New York to be with the seven dancers from Nrityagram for their off-Broadway debut-cum-fund-raiser, taking them out to dinner at Sardi's. That was a one-off. The BPL group helped set up the gurukul for Mohiniattam, also a one-off. The Kathak gurukul bears the Inlaks Foundation's name.

It takes Rs 1.5-2 lakh a month to run the courses and maintain the 10-acre campus, an hour's drive from Bangalore; to house and feed the 15 or so dance students, six full-time teachers and administrators and fund various performances.

It's a struggle. Fernandes talks about building a Rs 2 crore corpus which can maintain Nrityagram with income from interest; she says she has collected about Rs 1 crore from past funds and private donations from India and abroad. Part of it is another performance-cum-fund-raiser trip to the US this week, even as the Government of Karnataka's Department of Culture, miffed with Bedi earlier because she wouldn't consult it, says it has nothing to do with the dance village. "When Protima was there she wanted to do everything on her own," says A.R. Chandrahasa Gupta, secretary to the Culture Department's principal secretary. "I think she wanted to project her students more outside Karnataka than here."

This angst is an important yardstick. The Government holds the lease on the land -- 30 years and negotiable -- besides official patronage with grants. Fernandes wants to renew and extend the lease and says she has submitted a proposal offering to hold free performances twice a year for the department. Gupta says it's the first he's ever heard of it. "Patience is the key here," says Fernandes, between supervising an Odissi session and working last-minute details of the US trip on her desktop computer.

It's a statement as much of what she needs to recoup as well as her disgust at a system she feels never took off, something that her friend Protima could never come to terms with. It's as much to do with unsure funds as refashioning attitude and mending fences.

Protima envisioned a system where dancers would stay on the campus for six to seven years before moving on to an independent life as a performer. Only two, Odissi dancers Surupa Sen and Bijayini Satpathy, have lasted more than three years. There was a fallout of her spats -- Kelucharan Mahapatra cut off all contact after a misunderstanding with Protima four years ago. Many have also left because of a regimen they found too strenuous or because they were looking for instant fame. "Everyone wants to be on an overseas tour," grouses a Nrityagram regular.

Fernandes and the village's managing committee members are now planning to claw Nrityagram back from the abyss, as it were. A new fund-raising drive will mean driving home a point to the world outside that it's no longer like a place linked to bad financial planning. And no longer a place where things run on a whim. So, a direct no-nonsense approach is what Fernandes is betting on to get the attention she wants.

"It is important to keep Protima's dream alive," says Bangalore fashion guru Prasad Bidapa, a member of the village's managing committee, "We may have no choice but to rely on private supporters." The committee has even considered translocating if the lease is not extended, shifting structure and ambience to a new property on corporate and private support.

A chance to prove a point and make a pitch will come in the first weekend of February. Nrityagram will host its annual Vasantahabba, or Spring Festival. Among others, it will feature flute maestro Hariprasad Chaurasia, santoor specialist Shiv Kumar Sharma, violinist L. Subramaniam, Bharatanatyam exponent Leela Samson and choreographer Daksha Seth. This is the village's first major outing since the death of Protima. Usually, the dawn-to-dusk programme attracts more than 15,000 people. All eyes will be on how the new caretakers manage things.

-- Stephen David