When Ram Gopal passed away on October 12, 2003 in his sleep in London, India lost a versatile dancer, an imaginative choreographer, and above all a visionary whose life-long mission was to interpret, in the best possible manner, Indian dance traditions to the west. His whirl-wind tours throughout the world, and his personal charisma which, I presume, emerges partly from his aura of professional sincerity, had all resulted in subverting the western outlook of Indian creative parameters; it is no more 'exotics they thought; it has deeper roots in ritualistic practices and societal celebration. It is the very 'essence of life' as mirrored in the art. That he was, to a great extent, responsible to bring about a change in the western perception of Indian classical dance must by itself, keep Ram Gopal in the best of the company of Uday Shankar, Lady Menaka and Rukmini Devi. He is a legend; a visionary.