Flamenco in Bangalore

The stage was back lit in turquoise green - the figure in front was wearing black, strong shadows, gleaming guitar...the first notes, gentle, caressing - reined back fire, lightning, passion. Soon the fingers were moving with blurry speed, amazing music transporting me to another world of wild spirits, boundless freedom, throaty full voices, exuberant lives - lives of wanderers, gypsies of Andalusia - swirling skirts, leaping gold fires, sounds of flamenco guitar and gypsy violin, clapping hands, and tapping feet - close, passionate, recklessly open..all this I conjured up even as the program started. And, as intensely anticipated, the guitar was accompanied by gypsy violin, percussion, voice (what a full bodied, throaty, resounding voice she had!) and beat of clapping hands - and finally "Farooqo". Slim, strong, curly long hair flowing down his shoulders, raven eyebrows, flashy eyes ,and that smile - a supremely confident, vain smile of the really young, really beautiful, and really, really able...his feet moved in vanishing fast beats, his body leapt in amazing grace, and his fair flew in wild wings as he mesmerised us - hand to his heart, another snapping in rhythm, feet stomping wildly, flamboyantly, in perfect accord with the music - the music that played in his head, in his body, mostly his feet - he pirouetted in disregard to balance, gravity, in complete abandon to what moved him inside and what set us, the audience completely wild, sharing, rejoicing - tonight in Bangalore.

When Fairies Descended from Heavens

The palace pavilion glittered to the top with oil lamps flickering in the night breeze. The night itself was colored ink blue, and the royal courtyard suspended in golden light. The Gamelan began, slowly with lingering tinkles, gentle gongs and magical flutes. And then... fairies flew out in gold and red, orange and green, ruby lips, black eyes, with crowns, and jewels, swathed in sarongs and scarves, trailing long swirls of floating silks, descending lightly within the gold light to begin their magical dance - a Legong of slow and sensual grace, flashes of sparky eyes, shivering pointy fingers, flicks of their trailing scarves in graceful disregard, holding us rapt with dances on life, beasts, courtship, valor, humor - one memorable evening in Ubud, Bali.

Megh Swirling Inside

Yesterday afternoon the drama started unexpectedly-after an uniform gray and dull morning, at the siesta hour, the skies suddenly darkened to a heavy blue-black; within minutes, thunder roared, lightening sliced, electrified, water gushed through a torn universe, pelting, pouring, flooding; silver streams curtained my view outside, watery world with watery sounds, gutters overflowing in waves of melted earth; I lay watching in stillness, melting; the unquiet outside, now stirring inside-a dancer, a dervish stood up and pirouetted within my ordinary exterior, in swirls of silver, white, happy in a secretive abandon within the dark blue of Megh- now inside.

Dancing to a Female God

This happens every year. Not just to me, but to all Gujaratis in the country and around the world. Monsoons end and we all get itchy feet. We carry around beats of garba-raas in our heads and try not to clap, leap, swirl in middle of a mundane conversation-we then know, Goddess is sure to arrive.With subdued excitement we get out our mirrored costumes and "dandiyas".Families play garba music and mothers train children in the ways to welcome the goddess-with lots of music, lots of dance.

Then follow, Navratri, "Nine nights" of dancing in circles, circles of many hundreds, thousand, one inside another all the way to the goddess herself, sitting on her tiger, and watching us with an indulgent smile. Clap, swirl, forward, backward, non-tiringly to an ever quickening beat till only the most proficient and hardy remain to a heady crescendo while most watch on in admiration and awe. And then, the dancing begins again, all over again, the Raas this time- a partner dance again in circles-the celestial dance of Krishna with Gopis-the same dance to welcome the daughter goddess home to her earthly abode. Hands hurt, legs ache, bare feet blister with the constant pounding on the earthern floors-yet the heart laughs and people shout "let the dancing continue".