public service announcement

to all folks who live, work or who are fated to be in the vicinity of San Jose, Cupertino area for the next couple of days. The warning is for the below outlined specific denizens:

The non-desis.

Specially the non-desis that are non-telugus.

Specially more so for the non-telugus who don’t care for dancing. Indian dance.

Or any subsets of the above, either by union or intersection. Outliers need to be even more careful.

What’s happening there?

Kuchipudi is happening.

Yeah, as in the Kuchipudi, the dance of Andhra. Tons of kuchipudi dancers are descending on the area.

The organizers searched high and low for a venue. They looked all over from touristy Niagara to misty Seattle, to the picturesque New England to the sunny Florida, they even debated on the Texan ranches to the dry Detroit. It was either too hot, too non-andhra-ish, scarce desi restaurants, and then they did a per sq foot count. Figured why not take the state’s dance to its adopted state outside of India.

California of course!

So, what should you be on the lookout for?

• While you are peacefully cruising along the sunny roads, not only would you see another telugu next to you at the signal as it is wont, but chances of seeing a completely bedecked dancer doing a “thaka diku thomthaka dina” across the crossing is very high.
• You may suddenly also feel the ground shaking below you. Fret not. It is not a tremor. It is the forces of 200 or so dancers stamping their feet to the beats of Jatheeswaram together. A guiness record in the making I hear.
• Consistent jingling for the 3 days. Tinnitus it is not. The bells around the dancers feet would jingle to various beats as various workshops are filled to the brim.
• Sudden increase in female population, dressed to the teeth in silks, stage makeup and paper flowers each having their own accents, texan drawl, the Yankee, the southern accent and more.
• An occasional middle-aged and elderly man in the midst of all these cackling women.
• Yells of “akka” , “mastergaru” , “aunty” filling the air.
• More specifically one may hear in passing dialogs like: “emito, pataakaniki tripatakaniki theda teleedu, veellandaru yakhanga thillanalu chesestunnaru. En chestam mastergaru?” or “aramandi edey, neeku savalaksha saarlu cheppanu, nuvvekkada vintavu, na paruvu teestunnavu kadey” or “emiti, ee pantu ee shirtu vesukuni bayataki velalla? na bonda, suitu bootu, cha, en chandalam idi! Chi chi, America America antoo chankalu guddu kuntoo egabadi ekkesanu flightu, chastunnananuko.” or “inka nayam, aa Udipi vadi punyama antu, rendu idli mukkalu mana mohana padesadu, lekapote, endi poyina bread mukkalu kukkaki padesinattu, mana mohana padesaru ee hotel vaallu” or “Taalam tapputondamma, manasu drishti jathi lo pettu. Aa dikkulanni ee item ayyina taruvata choosuko, aapute, nee meeda vottu” etc etc. (Sorry non-telugus, translating those would just kill it all.)

Jokes apart, there’s a huge Kuchipudi convention happening at the Flint Center off the Stevens Creek Blvd in Cupertino, organized by the Silicon Andhra and it would be an experience of a lifetime. Big names in teh field, reputed dancers, established teachers, performers, my own Mastergaru, the troupe, and various kuchipudi students, teachers and institutions across United States are congregating there since Friday for the weekend. For a dancer, this would be an amazing experience, to see them all together on stage. Thinking about it gives me goosebumps. (Not linking, as I don’t want to get backtracked, but google away if interested)

I physically will be here at home, but my mind would be wandering around the area. Somehow, Cupertino and I are jinxed.

 

cosmic interference

Isn’t that pretty, attractive and just beautiful? The angles, the form and just for what the idol stands for?  Love the Nataraj form for obvious reasons.

Today is Sivaratri.

Up until a few weeks ago, if anyone had told me that March 5th is Shivratri, I would’ve done a ‘heh’ and walked on. This year’s slightly different. No, didn’t get all pious, and no it’s not a sign of age creeping up on me, [well, maybe I am going just a teeny bit soft in the head, but I'd rather go jump off a cliff than admit it!], but more because of this Sunday religious event we go to.

The daughter decided to volunteer to MC the event, and we got strapped onto the Noble King at the hip. The man hemmed and hawed and asked her to do some research and this kept going on until I decided with just a weekend in between, “mommy with the crackling whip” aka me decided it was time I took things into my hands. Up until then this Noble King was given his space and since I knew a sibling of his from another lifetime, I was keeping a respectful distance watching him pave the way. As a sudden realization that usually hit tired, busy moms on the run, I found out there was no way that was being paved! With exactly 10 days and counting, and what with school work piling and me living on the clock, I decided the whole group needed a reality check.

So the last Sunday, off I went, standing quite firmly rooted in the middle of the narrow corridor in my crisp cotton sari, and lectured to the small group - the daughter, another girl who’s older than mine but insits on behaving juvenile, and to the noble king. As he kept hearing me talk about timings, schedules, school projects, homweorks, and deadlines and fending off rapid fire questions as he’d nod and agree, his eyes got rounder, and they turned a nice shade of gray-green if I may say so. As a side note, some noble men have this sharp intelligent look in their eyes and the way they conduct themselves. This guy qualifies with flying colors. Considering he’s noble and we were in a pious setting, I kept my eyes and wandering mind in check and stayed focused. Undaunted, I stared right into his eyes and told him how time was precious and that there was so much ground to be broken into, and scripts don’t just magically get written themselves if left to just 12 year olds. An extremely hard task, but am pleased to annnounce I pulled it off. The proof lies in the amount of work that got achieved by the end of the day.

We then met a few times and exchanged bunches of emails as I’d gently prod him at appropriate times to make changes to the stories on Lord Shiva, and make them kid friendly, after I did my part. Egos needed to be stroked and accolades were handed out where due, and I played my part to the tee. The only part which initially shocked and then later amused me was that he gave me more credence and respect than I probably deserve. He’d start every mail with a namaste and tag on a Ji at the end of my name. Ive never ever been called that before. Me, a JI? That was crushing! little consolation, we conversed in English and not Hindi or Telugu, where I’d have been generously slapped with an “aaap” or a “garu” respectively.

It was weird. Like I suddenly either became a Brahmacharini, or I’d checked into an old age home. Such divine vocabulary addressed to me?!  As I reeled under the enormity of such a burden, revelation hit me. The jinx of spending too much time and email-barters with online folks. In real life [not that am not one online] I am indeed a grand mom of three. 

 One kid, men still treat you with a casualness, perhaps even indulge you, check you out. You are young. Just 1 kid, never mind at what age you have that kid, you are a young mom of 1. No idea ages of moms were in direct relation to their kids age, but apparently they are! The 2-kid mom. Still lookable if they manage to groom themselves, there’s a camaraderie between the men and women. It’s familiar, known territory. 2 kids are the norm. They aren’t old at all, they are very much “lookable“. Everyone has 2 kids these days and all are fair game.  

Then come the aliens. Me. Suddenly, folks are completely confused, dazed and exhibit deer-in-headlights behavior. Three. They say the word with awe, with a shock, with reverence bordering on incredulity reserved just for the mad cap scientists. They are in awe of what’s done and they value their work, but seriously to do such a thing required them to leave their mental faculties behind in the land of the forbidden or some such Timbuktu.

In any case, I mused over the man’s salutations and projected it to the tri-mom syndrome. We are Ji-worthy. I must be old, in many ways. Not wanting to destroy such beautifully crafted vision of me, I let the noble man continue. After my little admonishings last Sunday, he probably thinks worse of me, but over the week I must have made some headway, coz I got a smile, and he laughed. Laughed imagine that! Phew. Ok, am not a freak after all, I think to myself. What I concur from his expressions is going on his head is “Is this woman for real? She sure doesn’t behave like a mom of 3, and her emails, Good Lord, she talks to me like we played gilli-danda back in the galis of my town.”

The guy is confused. Mission accomplished. So much fun smashing at stereotypes.

In any case, I imagine I’ve digressed more than I should have.  

So yes, what with all the research and stuff I’ve managed to put together, I know Lord Shiva in and out. Ask me anything, really, I’d know. Oh did I mention I roped him [the noble king, not Lord Shiva] into describing the symbolic meaning of Nataraja’s form, as the girls show the mudras? I’d say he was quite taken, and a just a wee bit concerned that the girls had to stand on one foot for up until a count of 3.

We’d be okay, I assured him.

A little nagging doubt in my head, I wonder what the chances are that he’d stumble upon this post?  

 

dandiya 07

Saturday we had our small little dandiya evening. We look forward to it as it is a lot of fun and we get to meet many of our friends after a long summer break. The kids absolutely love it, again to meet friends not so much to play dandiya. This year we had the tweens join the adults circle and they seemed to blend right in. A pleasure to watch.

The munchkin of course decided to glue onto her father and me alternately for an hour into the evening. After that she thawed a bit and decided to go find her “friends” - anyone her size was game enough and gravitated, interestingly, towards the daughter of my nemesis [grr!] coz according to her, she wore a pretty ghagra. Oh, the vanity!

For the most part it was fun but there were occasional howls and yelps of pain. Here’s my breakdown on the why’s:

Pent-up anger? No problem, just hit the person’s dandiya in front with vehemence and anger till either yours or their sticks break. Can’t get the sticks to smash, don’t you worry, the strength of the vibrations would send in riple effects late into the evening down your elbow and shoulder.

Then there are a few who have absolutely no aim in life. It’s like shooting in the dark. Blind darts thrown in any random direction you can imagine. The idea is to make contact with the dandiya. NOT with the person’s forehead, arms, hands, fingers, and especially dear little pinkies! So folks go around flailing their sticks blindly, as long as you hit something, it’s fair game. Or so they think. I came home with a badly bruised pinkie. Not funny!

Dandiya playing, or garba starts off with so much laughter, happiness, and enthusiasm. Somwhere along the way it becomes a workout of sorts. People are panting, sweating and huffing and puffing their way around teh circle. There was this one guy who looked like he’d pass out. You’d think with a face going red and the shirt turning a dark brown with sweat he’d stop or take a break, but no, off he went on to ultimately fall on a toddler while his stick went flying close to my neck.

And then of course we have the showoffs. The mumbaiyya ones who proclaim themsleves the whiz kids of dandiya and channel themselves into smaller groups doing their own little dance. Dance as in literally dance, grooving those heads and necks, singing along with the music, amidst shouts and jumping around on their feet like they got bit or something. That’s apparently style. Which it is, if they’d only tone down just a tad and not scare the babies around with the monkey style jumps. Occasionally they’d condescend to include the non-mumbaiyites, but it’s like a lil click, not unlike the ones we form in middle school and throw the lonely girl with braids out. I mean, seriously, who wears braids? *the horrors.

And of course, Kolattam is not dandiya :-)

Growing up with Gujarati friends and the excitement of 10 days of navratri was something I’d look forward to.  This is once a year thing and I should be happy the children want to go for the evening fun and understand what this whole community dancing is all about.

 

maya ravan @ nova

Last evening I spent watching Shobhana and her troupe of 7 perform the dance drama - Maya Ravan..: a fund Raiser for AID India. This venue was a last minute addition to her schedule and with just 3 weeks of advertising and organising the MD AID chapter did a good job of getting the house full. Some stood the whole 2 hour show as tickets were oversold.

And what a show it was!

Shobhana has always been a good dancer and an award-winning actress in Malyalam. [I specify as her telugu roles weren't really what she was meant for.] Versatile as she is and the maturity she exhibits on stage is remarkable. Of course she has the added advantage of being born into a family of dance and arts, but then good genes can only take you so far. What I admired in the performance was her creativity and how she broke away from the norm in bringing Bharatnatyam to the common man.

When you think back, arts all over the world have been privy only to the educated, and the rich. The language used, the medium and forms was hard to understand by the common man. This way of breaking down classical steps into more layman’s language by using Bollywood music, the western classical, flamenco, while still holding onto the raaga, the bhava and the taala requires a certain grasp and understanding of not only the art but to consciously force an open mind. To quote my favorite line “think outside the box, the options are limitless”!

Yet, anyone can choreograph and direct dance. I can too, and if you’ve dwelled in it for a while, the confidence drives you to experiment. To make it commendable and make even the staunchest of connossieurs nod their head grudgingly, as well as get the ignorant to tap their feet requires a certain dedication, foresight, skill, sensitivity and command.

Maya Ravan is a good blend of all of the above. Shobhana’s portrayal of Ravana is at best simple. Therein lies the depth. Kids in the auditorium laughed when she smirked and goofed as clumsy Ravan, a few clapped with joy when she portrayed Ravan beaten in the war kid his wife with a wine goblet, the way she’d shrug her shoulders, swagger on and off the stage as the haughty ruler. The lift of the eyebrow, the smile, the lust in the eyes as Ravan tries to grapple with Seeta, the mockery, the taunting, the anger, the quizzical confused looks…

The nuances are plenty. The mannerisms such that though theatrical seem common placed. Like you could be doing that in your living room with a Poker buddy, with your wife to make her laugh, to cajole, to win her over when she pouts, while brusquely showing off your muscles and establishing your place.
The English dialogs - Indian English add a whimsical authenticity to the show. Naseeruddin Shah, Milind Soman, Suhasini, Jackie Shroff, Revanthy lend their voices. Funnily, apart from Naseeruddin’s gravely voice, I could not place anyone else’s! Maybe because they spoke English, and I was expecting to hear Suhasini in Tamil or Telugu, or maybe I was just too taken with Shobhana’s body language that I couldn’t distract myself any other way.

One can’t help flash back to the farce that’s called SethuRam project now, as we watch on celluloid the monkey brigade build the bridge. The imagery as the clip played for us, was strikingly beautiful.

I absolutely loved her AR Rehman’s rendition of Vande Mataram: depicting India in all its glory, as dancers moved across the stage enacting the various facets. The epics, the history, the great people who walked our roads, the modern world, the fashion shows, the pagaentry, the India as the world knows now. The crowd clapped in glee, when all dancers lined up as seated in cubicles, and dramatically enacted us [yes, u and me] behind our laptops furiously clacking away at the keyboard. Vande Mataram could not have ended any better than with a portrayal of our good old cricket, as a dancer rolls on the floor with her hand raised in catching an imaginary catch, Shobhana raised her hand to signal ‘out’ amidst laughter and claps. Defining moment I tell you!

The costumes are new, colors subdued yet defining. Some wondered on how they could change a whole outfit under 2 minutes, all I can say is “it’s an art, and it comes with practice” :)
Her troupe is remarkable, and each one deserved a special mention and applaud.

As a dancer myself, it is with excitement that I watched as the familar steps and body movements could be intermixed and produced with such sringara, such bhava, and such novelty. Refreshing.

:

 

the trap(p)s at wolftrap

Every year Wolftrap hosts an International Children’s Festival during the fall - a weekend of fun, arts, dances and the like. For the past 3 years the kids have performed to showcase Indian dances amongst the rest. This year, we decided to take a break and the daughter volunteered to be part of the FLL team that also plants booths in the Arts and Technology side of the festival.

So we joined a few others in her team to spread the word on Robotics and the joy it brings to the ones who build the robot, and then program it to do a set of activities. Since the boys in her team are quite tongue-tied, she and the only other girl on the team were roped in to be the spokespersons.

As by now it’s a given that nothing goes smooth when I embark on a “project”, here’s what happened..

You’d think having spent my whole US life in the area and the fact that Wolftrap is really just around the corner and that I go there every year quite like a pilgrimage, I could drive there with my eyes closed. That’s where I have the curse of the ramp on me.

As is always the case, there are a few different ways to reach a point, and I choose one way, and invariably I lose an exit or VDOT decides to change highways around or am just so focused on my music that I land in a completely different part of town. Every (4) time! It’s funny innit?

Well, the 1st time was when I conveniently watch it go past coz the husband said 2 miles, and who knew 2 miles lands within a minute(?!) did a detour and landed on the other side only to discover that exit 15 only comes northbound! It was exasperating and I landed 5 minutes short of the performance.

The 2nd time, I kept staring at the sign and shot past it. Nope, can’t blame the husband but I did yell at the kids in the backseat. They took it good-naturedly and we had to drive through million dollar homes, and lush winding slopey roads to arrive at the back of the Barns.  Huffed and puffed our way up with the help of the guy at the post.

The 3rd year, it was raining cats and dogs and since I knew I was going to mess up anyway, I was extremely alert and yet managed to do a daredevil stunt and cross medians and took the exit. Very bad of me, but I didn’t get lost!

This morning I was animatedly discussing something with the daughter  and yes, shot past the exit. I didn’t realize it till she started laughing. This is the toll road, so everytime I lose an exit, I pay heavily, with quarters. Quite amusing I tell you!

There’s another story with toll. I hate throwing the change into that little bin they have from the car. I always always lose some part of the change, and then there’s some bozo behind me who’s in an extreme hurry and would start honking at the flustered lady who can’t toss a coin in straight! I tend to take the SUV and usually gravity helps there, but the car is really annoying to me. The height just doesn’t cut it and I quite feel like I am on the floor. Anyways, so yes, lost a  quarter to the angle at which my left arm could fling, and annoyed the daughter since she was saving the Nebraska quarter and had to part with it.

Today I had some time to run around all by myself [ah the joy!] and managed to catch a few nice dances and activities, met a few dozen folks I knew and hobnobbed an hour. Ended it with the cha-cha slide, [click here for some really cute kids doing the cha cha] before I returned home.

Apart from the occasional gray sky and humid weather, which truly made me feel sorry for some of the performers, there was lots of laughter, kids, strollers, some serious techy kids along with some equally serious dancing ones! Those Flamenco dancers from Spain were hot! As in perspiring yet managing to look cool and very sexy!

Enjoy!

 

neela

Discovered this tune - Neela from Bluffmaster album - on Sunday and I’ve been listening to this non-stop. Love it! I watched this movie, and I don’t remember any such tracks in the film.

Didn’t know Trickbaby existed, here’s an interview. Apparently she’s sung in Hyderabad Blues as well.

The 1st 3 minutes of Neela seems to be the only one I am hooked to though. Anyone know of any such similar tunes?

Something that you can close your eyes and see yourself dance to..