Madame Menaka

Leila Roy was born in Barisal, Bengal Presidency, the daughter of Pyare Lal Roy and Lolita Roy. Her father was a Bengali lawyer trained in England, and her mother was British.[1] She attended the Loreto Convent in Darjeeling and St Paul’s School in London.[2] She trained as a violinist in England, but pursued dance as a career, with encouragement from Russian ballet dancer Anna Pavlova, whom she met in London in 1927.[1][3] Her Kathak dance teachers included Pandit Sitaram Prasad and Achhan Maharaj.[4]

Sokhey gave dance recitals in Bombay in 1928,[5][6] and began choreographing and teaching dance to students at the Haffkine Institute. She danced in Paris in 1930,[7] and her Menaka dance company toured Europe from 1935 to 1938.[8] They entered the Berlin Dance Olympiad,[9] in conjunction with the Summer Olympics in Berlin in 1936, and won several trophies.[10] She met modern dancer Mary Wigman during her time in Germany.[4][11] Her company and choreography appeared in at least two European films, the German-language Der Tiger von Eschnapur (1938) and a British documentary in color, Temples of India (1938).

In 1941, with her husband's financial support,[12] Menaka opened a residential school outside Bombay in Khandala,[13] named Nrityalayam.[14][15] One of her students was her adopted daughter, dancer Damayanti Joshi,[16] who later published a book of photographs and memories of Menaka.[17]

Leila Roy married Sahib Singh Sokhey, a biochemist.[18] Their large home at the Haffkine Institute in Parel included her dance studio and was frequently host to visiting scientists and artists.[12][14][19] "Imperious, unconventional, sympathetic, big-hearted, she charms all with her intelligence and understanding," wrote a contemporary. "Her artificialities of vivid make-up and finery in dress are superficial and skin-deep, so to speak; she is, at heart, genuinely natural and simple."[20] Following her husband's knighthood in 1946, she became Lady Sokhey. She died from Bright's disease in 1947, aged 47 years.[21][22] The University of Mumbai awards a Menaka Trophy for excellence in Kathak dance.

• The Indian Ballet Menaka in Europe 1936-38, a website and database covering Menaka's company's European tour, including news accounts, ephemera, photos, and rare film clips
• Cinema Nritya, a dance scholar's blog that featured long, well-sourced and illustrated essays on Madame Menaka
• Saraswat, Shweta. "Constructing Diasporic Identity Through Kathak Dance: Flexibility, Fixity, and Nationality in London and Los Angeles" (Ph.D. dissertation, University of California, Los Angeles, 2019): 45-46, 108-110