Performing in Chidambaram is an experience that any dancer would cherish. Mythologically, it is the place where Lord Shiva came and danced the Ananda Tandava, at the request of the sages. The golden temple of Chidambaram finds its way into many traditional songs, thanks to its splendour and history.When we danced there, one of the pieces we performed was, once again, the much-loved Draupadi Vastra Haran. As usual, I was Dusshasan; this time, my teacher was Shakuni. We were on stage, in the middle of the drama when the music suddenly skipped back. Dancers on stage must never show nervousness, we knew that. The problem was that we had no idea how far back the music had skipped.That's when the real drama began. Duryodhan turns to Dusshasan and asks in dance parlance, "Where are we? What part of the music is this?"Dusshasan calmly replies, "We have a lot of … [Read more...]
Book-Reading – A Different One
An acquaintance who is part of the Teach for India programme asked whether I would be willing to come to a small government school in Chandannagar and talk about my book, about writing and about dance. I was tremendously excited by the prospect, and agreed immediately.When I got there, though, I realised how different it was from anything I had expected. The energy of the class was different. They were restless, not willing to sit and listen. They jumped up and down, walked (or rather crawled - because they sit on the floor, not at desks) around the class. They wanted to talk about everything. Sometimes, shamefacedly, I had to ask for explanations of what they were saying. Yes, they speak English, but sometimes, they just give me the key words and expect me to figure out what the sentences are.I told them the story of the Prologue to The Story-Catcher. They did not know the word … [Read more...]
The Special Green Tile
In the hall where I teach at Sanskriti Cultural Centre, there's one Special Green Tile. It's different from the other tiles. For me, all it does is mark the centre of the hall, which makes helps children orient themselves when we have performances. For the children, not so very long ago, the tile was special.In 2010, there was one little girl who used to come nearly half an hour early for class. She loved to dance there, in the centre, and it was her tile. There was no dispute about it.Then, she left class, and there were two girls who wanted to stand there, on that special green tile. Whoever came first got to stand there, so both of them started coming earlier and earlier. One fine day, naturally, a quarrel sprang up."It makes a different sound!" moaned one child. "It's not fair that only one person stands there!""I also want to stand on that tile," piped up a third child, who … [Read more...]
Raising Children
Every so often, I realise just how difficult it is to bring children up. Of course, there are all the financial aspects of parenting, and the tension of finding a school, monitoring TV, internet, books... The list of things parents do for children is simply endless.Recently, I was introduced to another side of parenting.A friend of mine, a young mother with a five-year-old son, was teaching her child an important lesson in sharing. The little one, with his perpetually happy glowing face, offered us a single chip each. His mother corrected him, telling him that it's normal to offer the packet, and let us take however much we wanted.The little boy was sceptical about the plan, but he offered us the packet the next time around. We were happy with the improvement, and said our polite "No, thank you!"This much was part of normal parenting for me. The third round was the most … [Read more...]
Getting into the mood
Before any performance, my dance teacher encourages us not to talk about anything unrelated to dance and the programme ahead of us. She asks us to be silent, thinking about what lies ahead of us, meditating in our own ways. In keeping with the idea, if ever we dance to recorded music, I try and play the music while we get ready. Make-up is a long and tedious process, and having the music in the background helps us settle into the mood of the performance. I also play the music in the car while getting to the venue, to avoid getting stressed about the traffic and the stares we get, dressed as we are in full costume.As usual, when a friend and I were to perform at Softbridge Solutions, Magarpatta City, we played the music during our long journey there. Entering the township, we were happily in the mood to perform together, having spoken of very little apart from the presentation and … [Read more...]
Southern Adventures
Travelling with two friends in the south of India was the experience of a lifetime! Our plan was essentially to go to Pondicherry, but friends convinced us to go to Kodaikanal as well. Buses to and from Kodai were very frequent, so we were willing to try it out.Going to Kodai was longer than we imagined. We did not get a direct bus from Pondicherry. We had been told to go to Madurai, but that was far too, farther than we'd been mentally prepared for. Finally, we took a bus to Vettalakundu, a place we had never heard of. We got another crowded bus from there to Kodaikanal... Never mind. Kodai was beautiful, so once we got there, we were happy enough.After that, though, began the nightmare of getting back to Chennai to catch our flight back to Kolkata. On day two at Kodai, we went cheerfully to book tickets on any bus to Chennai - and discovered that no buses at all were available. … [Read more...]
Trains in India
I remember when two friends of ours were coming to India from France, and wanted to travel across the north. We warned them that reserving tickets on trains here is necessary, unlike in Europe. We had to book two months in advance (it was two then, not four, as it now is). They were surprised, but accepted it and made their travel plans well in advance.In France, by the way, and in large parts of Europe, for regular trains (not fast trains) there's absolutely no need to reserve. My sister and I had a rail pass and we made one reservation in all during two weeks of travel. For all the other journeys, we could simply get on to any train and go wherever we liked.When we got to Howrah station to take our train out of Kolkata, both our French friends were stunned. In the beginning, I thought it was simply because there were so many people. Indian stations can be slightly overpowering. … [Read more...]
After the Burggarten
I wrote, some time ago, about how we hunted for, and eventually found the city garden - https://varshaseshan.com/blog/burggarten-bitte/. In English, somehow, people we spoke to called it the 'Rose Garden' rather than the 'City Garden'. Not unnaturally, we expected to see roses, but we saw none. The garden was truly beautiful, but we saw no roses; did we not look hard enough?We went after that to a place that stands out in my memory as a unique experience - a Schmetterling Haus. We were told it was a kind of greenhouse, and speaking no German at all, we had no idea what 'schmetterling' meant, and no desire to look it up. The people who told us to go have a look at it perhaps lacked the vocabulary to explain what it was too because they told us no more than that. They told us it was a greenhouse that was worth visiting, and that's all we expected. We went inside the greenhouse and had a … [Read more...]
Power Cut
I remember going to a creperie in Grenoble a few years ago - an important part of my French experience. I was in a large group of Indians for once, and soon after we had placed our order, our delicious lunch was served to us.And then, there was a power cut.We were surprised, but power cuts are not such a new experience for us. Particularly since we were out for lunch and not dinner, we calmly continued to eat, merely commenting on how bizarre it was for this to happen to us in France.What drew our attention away from the food before us though was everything else that happened. The reactions of people all around us were priceless! The people in the restaurant were astounded that something like a Power Cut could possibly take place. They came to us and apologised for the inconvenience. "What inconvenience?" I wanted to ask, amused at the waiter's bewilderment. A candle was placed on … [Read more...]
The Golden Rule
During our exchange programme with a school in France, my sister formulated for me The Golden Rule. If you don't know a word in French, pronounce the English word that you do know in the French way. The likelihood of its being the real French word is very high. We used it for the first time with the word 'superstition', and I marvelled at how well it worked.My sister herself broke the golden rule once, though, when we were with French friends in Calcutta. We were in an area dominated by Chinese restaurants and Chinese shoe-makers and I wanted to point out the fact that there are tanneries everywhere. It's a locality that's noteworthy for that, but I didn't know the word for 'tannery'.My sister did not know the word either. 'Tannery' does not sound like a French word. Glaring at me for wanting such a complicated idea explained, she launched into a detailed story of the whole process of … [Read more...]