Bharatham

Given to searching for zany things in google, I was searching for Mecca. Moved on to Avantika one of the seven cities for Moksha but was sadly unable to find a mention. I found out that I could write and append it to wiki. Then fell in the vainglorious option of writing an entry about myself. Laughed myself out of it.

But was kinda unable to throw away the idea. How superb it would be if somebody searched for me online and found a biography.Probable that they would laugh at it but still.. Googled for my name on google instead.

Of course. Nothing turned up. I havent done anything important or worth thinking about for my name to appear among the exalted. But turned up a very interesting page though. It was of one Gayathri Srinivasan. She was a Bharatanatyam dancer from Kalakshetra and is currently running a dance school in Massachusetts, USA.

Her photos, her achievements, laurels and reviews.

I was impressed.

Turned me on to a track that I have seldom thought about after it faded out from my mind in college. Turning to professional dance.

Dance has been a part of me. If you started learning an art at six, you can be sure that it stays with you till death. It is more like a breath.

I started proper dance classeswhen I was six to be precise. Play all the way to the dance class. Turn serious for an hour and play all the way back home again. Dance mingled with every step I took. My anna used to make fun of me saying "Gumbaloda Govinda". Man! I use to get furious then.

Then came the time when I would dance my way to the mirror, dinner table.Every step I took, I used to make sure some dance form appeared in it. While doing homework, my feet used to tap to the ringing of the nattuvangam in my ears, in my minds as it wafted through dance class and got fossiled in my mind.

Tham Thakitta tham. Thakitta thai..tap tappa tapap..

When I heard a song, I would be making up expressions and gestures that went on to explain the mood. I became the heroine/hero of the novel I was reading and explained my feelings through the abhinaya.

I really wanted to become a good dancer. A dancer who danced for herselves. Not mere pandering of art. Quietly in the halls of Kalakshetra, buried away in time never to change among the hustling neighbourhoods of Besant nagar. Long contemplations, expressions propounded in mystic language. Mano dharma bhavas and expressions.

Dance beyond music, beyond words, beyond expressions, beyond a human experience. There have been times when I really wanted to see Lord Nataraja dancing away in wrath, in happiness, in a state beyond all human instincts to realize.

I wanted to attain samadhi in dance. Even today, I can feel sharp tears stinging the back of my eyes when I think about a passion, an omen, a plea rejected without feeling.

Any art consummates when the artisan has a very good audience. But for an artist to evolve he/she needs an excellent guide. More than apply the stringent terms of a teacher to this holy vocation, I would say a friend. A guide who firmly points, encourages, nurtures, appreciates true art. When someone is a teacher, the first thing they must forgo is ego. There will be students who become brilliant in their own right without the teacher receiving any appreciation.

But teachers are built that way. They are ladders. They accept on being ladders when they accept to be guides. They are great in all sense of the vocation as even God cannot be reached without a guru. Matha, Pitha, Guru, Theivam.

I got a great guru in Chitra akka. She taught me and nurtured me through the prelims of dance before her marriage. But after that, I moved on to the direct supervision of the numero uno of the Saraswati Gana Nilayam in Chennai. It was hell. There were times I wanted to just get out.

The stinging words that went to the heart. The public humiliation for no fault done, Favoritism, partiality ruled the roost. Not to mention the incessant hunger for money. It was always there. Always. My own class mates from Chitra akka's batch dropped out one by one. Some reason or the other. I was there for 4 years after Chitra akka got married. One of the longest.

When one day, I got abused for what I thought would get me instant recognition, I finally quit. That was the day I threw in the towel. Amma was behind me asking me to renounce ego and go for the art.

Middle class status did not quite suit the halls of Kalakshetra. Amma was'nt able to cope with the growing costs that the art brought as an accompaniment. Finally after an year after I stopped dance classes, I stopped dancing.

It was a decision written in blood. Even today when I see a recital, a performance review, a photo, I cry. For there might have been reviews like this for me. I feel like the foetus that was torn from its mother's womb and left to die before it had been given a chance.

Adum Chidambarame. Iyyan Adum chidambarame..