Day 82 : Alarippu

Today's dance item of choice was the Alarippu. It is the first item a Bharatanatyam student learns - as it really works your arm and leg muscles in preparation for future items and also helps you refine the neck movements and perfect the rhythm and timing.

I found a really nice video on Youtube and quickly learnt it. The last time I performed this was when I was in 6 years old or so, but I could remember most of the movements and the music for the footwork.

However, I felt completely spent after just a couple of rounds of dancing to it and I found myself crashing in heap on the floor when there are quick transitions from a full squat to full standing postures. Literally, the most basic item in Bharatanatyam brought me to my knees.

All that awesomeness I felt yesterday about my fitness levels was quick to evaporate. I guess it was the universe's way of telling me to keep it humble. Oh well - lesson well taken!

I persevered for about an hour, with little progress, but enjoyed every minute of being a humble student of dance!

418 more to go. 

Day 81 : Baby Grasshopper Pose!

I think my flexibility is at an all time high!

First, I could notice that even though am getting back to dance after several years, I am able to do a lot of the kicks much more easily than I could ever do.

Today, after the dance practice, I realized that I can do the Baby Grasshopper Pose - a pose that I had discovered in one of the yoga classes a few weeks ago, but couldn't do then. Well, I still can do it only on one side and can't hold it for too long either, but any progress is good and I feel awesome!

419 more to go. 

Day 80 : Bho Shambho!

The excitement around dance continues! I couldn't wait to get back from work and dance again, so that's exactly what I did. And as of today, I have learnt the entire piece of Bho Shambho. I can't describe how good it feels to be able to dance an entire Bharatanatyam item, that too to my all time favourite song!

Super duper awesomeness!

420 more to go. 

Day 79 : Dance!

After a gap of many years, I am practicing Bharatanatyam!

It all began with Anita Nair's "Mistress". The book is centered around a Kathakali dancer and whenever the character talks about his dance, I got transported back to my own days of dancing! I had trained in Indian classical dances like Bharatanayam and Mohiniyattom for more than a decade, but have been completely out of touch for several years now. And thanks to Nair and her book, I wanted to get back in touch with what used to be a huge passion at one point in time.

So that's what I did. I chose a Youtube video of one of my most favourite pieces Bho Shambho - an invocation to Lord Shiva, the God of Dance, and started to learn it. I had performed this about 15 years ago but every version is choreographed differently, and I chose one which I liked.

Well, I shall admit that all the years without dancing was very clearly obvious. I struggled with some of the basic postures like even getting a proper aramandalam (half squat) consistently right, but I pursued on. On the other hand, thanks to all the yoga, am flexible and nimble enough, maybe even more than I ever used to be, so I could easily do a lot of the high kicks and deep stretches that tend to come with a dance dedicated to Lord Shiva.

My first practice back lasted a good two hours. And it felt incredibly good! I have a feeling am going to dance a lot more now!

421 more to go. 

Day 78 : "Metamorphosis - A World of Puppets"!

Madam's school holidays have started and I was looking at fun stuff for her to do. And at the very last moment, I got tickets for this puppet show called Metamorphosis by Bernd Ogrodnik  from Iceland. I had never watched a live puppet show before and this was only an hour long, so I thought it was perfect for a family outing.

So with much pomp and show, the whole family - myself, the husband, the in-laws and Madam - set out for our first school holiday outing.

It was Madam's first theatre experience of any sort, so she promptly asked for popcorn - because obviously, any dark place where a show is to be held is similar to a cinema and should serve popcorn. After getting over the initial disappointment of being told there will be no popcorn to go along with the entertainment, she settled down to watch the show.

And she was completely mesmerized for the next one hour. Not just her, all of us! It was one of the most amazing shows ever! The creativity, the mastery of the craft and above all, the simplicity of the storytelling was just astounding. With just a few props, a little bit of music that he played himself, and some voice modulation, Ogrodnik was able to weave such beautiful stories. It was amazing to see how much one can do with so little. Plus the guy was so multi-talented - he is a good actor, he could play the harmonica and clarinet, he could do acapella, he could sing, he is obviously a creative story writer, director and exceptional puppeteer and he even makes the puppets himself. Too much! And there was a very humble yet inspiring Q&A with him and his wife as well.

All in all, a really, really good experience. Now am determined to catch more such shows!

422 more to go.

Day 77 : Pre-Holiday Party

It was Madam's last day of term in school and parents were invited for a gathering. I saw the words "fun", "activities" and "snacks" in the email, so I told Madam that there is going to be a party in her school and I would be attending together with her grandparents who are in town.

She was super enthusiastic and for a change, was quick to wake up, have breakfast and get ready for school. She didn't have to wear uniform but "colour dress", which was of course, made the whole thing a whole lot more exciting.

 The husband dropped her in school first and the my-laws and I went there an hour later after I got through some work in the morning. When we reached the school, they were getting the moms and kids to play some sort of a musical chair - just that this one is with hoola hoops that you have to wriggle through and if the music stops when it's your turn, you get out. Madam was excited to see us and incidentally, so were many of her friends. They were seeing me after many days - I used to drop Madam to school in the mornings but haven't been doing that over the last couple of weeks when the duty was outsourced to her grandparents.

The kids gathered around me, complained about the various wounds, injection spots and mosquito bites on their hands and legs, asked me to take their photos, shared with me their family matters (about expected siblings, working parents who couldn't make it to the event etc.) and also were quite amused that my name was "Shilpa" (I still don't know why).

The in-laws played the hoola-hoop-musical-chair thingy with Madam, while I took several photos. We quit after a couple of rounds because Madam thought the game was rather boring and totally not worth to be sweating it out in the sun.

Later, we accompanied the kids to their classroom. We were allowed to sit in and watch them go through their daily snack-time routine. It was pretty fun to see all the kiddos scrambling to prove to us how they know their stuff - saying a prayer prior to eating, taking out the snack box from the bags, hanging the bags at the back of their chairs, spreading a small towel on the table to avoid spilling, eating on their own, sharing food with their friends and what not. At one point in time, Madam asked me softly, "Mummy, what are you doing here?"

After the snack time, I left the in-laws in school to watch the grand finale - a performance by the older kids - and I returned back to work.

I wrapped up the crazy work week by 6pm or so and returned home and was eager to know what happened at the event after I left. Apparently, Madam refused to part with her teachers. She made a real drama about missing them and not wanting to go home and leave them behind. In fact, she was the last one to take leave of the classroom. This, coming from a girl who tends to say "shcool is boring" when asked. Am telling you, this girl is meant for theatrics.

When I asked her how the show was, she snapped, "It was good, but you weren't there." Wow. Emotional blackmail. Theatrics, again.

Then she went on to add. "Also, it was not a party. You said there will be a party, there was no party." Just when I was about to clarify what a party meant to her, she said, "I want my birthday to come. Then, that's a party. Not this. I don't know why birthdays take so long to come."

Oh well, but it was a nice, fun day and she is on to her first "school holidays"!

423 more to go. 

Days 74 - 76 : Work - The Good & The Bad.

It was a crazy week at work. There were full day meetings followed by calls for at least 4 hours in the evening, every single day. On top of the meetings I was attending, I was also handed over some extra, last minute projects and well, in a nutshell, I felt stretched thin. I was so caught that I didn't even get to do any yoga through the week. That to me a big deal because I usually try to squeeze at least 30 minutes a day. OK, so that was the bad part.

The good part was that I got pretty good feedback all throughout. From peers, from folks who said "Hey I heard good things about you", from my boss who actually went on to call me "awesome" and from my Big Boss (boss' boss) who was in town as well. The Big Boss was especially pleased with the output on the last minute projects that she had handed over to me, so I guess that more or less made up for the rough & tough week.

So yes, there were moments when I felt like pulling my hair out would be a fair representation of my frustration levels, and then there were moments when my chest burst with pride & satisfaction. So I suppose, it's all for the good.

24 more to go.