The oldest ballet school in India is turning 60, but it has always been en pointe

For actor Ayesha Dharker, who discovered the school when she climbed a wall at age six, Tushna was the kind of teacher who becomes a North Star. “She taught me to tell stories with my whole body,” she says. Later in life, when performing for cameras and crowds, Dharker could feel her teacher’s guiding hand in spirit—stern yet warmly invested. Other alumni recall the flair of an institution that was born during the Swinging Sixties: ballet shoes handcrafted by a bus conductor on Route 106, white pinafores with maroon sashes and those gentle first steps that would, in time, become a lifetime of motion.

If Tushna built a cathedral of discipline, her elder daughter, Khushcheher Dallas, aka Khooshoo, infused it with light. Khooshoo, who has now led the school for decades, is that rare teacher who balances rigour with irrepressible joy. “Her sense of fun shaped me as much as her technique did,” says former student Tarika Hidayatullah Ingram, now a ballet teacher herself.

Khooshoo during a performance.