On music and Bharathanatyam

I have always identified myself as a Bharathanatyam dancer. Atleast I used to  .People around the family circle identified me as the girl who danced .  ‘And hey!She is also a dancer’ was how my friends introduced me to their off-circles.  Bharathanatyam gave me my identity. It made me feel a whole enchilada –complete, beautiful and intellectual. Bharathanatyam taught me ethics. It taught me acceptance. And the willingness to think out-of-the-box yet stick to the conventional designs that seem to govern my thought pattern. Bharathanatyam taught me beauty. Bharathanatyam taught me freedom. The freedom that spurs out of that momentary passion, the freedom of self-expression, the freedom to be tough and the freedom to comprehend meaning that underscores the logic. Bharathanatyam also taught me abstractness, the mind and intellect to understand that you need not have logical answers for every darned thing that defied laws.  Dancing taught me love. It taught me how it is like to love and lose, and how the perception of love matures with age. Bharathanatyam taught me how it is like to feel intellectual, to feel special. It gave me tales to remember. I was Shiva’s Meenakshi. I was Arjuna’s Draupadi. I was the Ardhanaareeshwar. I was the kutti Krishna whom the Gopikas’ adored. I was the village belly who built castles out of thin air. I was Kannamma’s mother. I was the Aazhwar’s daughter. I lived my dreams, I made my dreams. I danced for the sheer mad passion. For a point , I was that passion. I danced all through the weekends, performed endlessly , danced for laughter, danced for sorrow, danced for myself because  my me was my dance.

Oh and then, like all great tales of passion surrender to abruptness I stopped choreographing and attending classes. Politics overruled passion.  Ego overruled obsession.  Dance had conjured its ill-ways on me.The more I danced the tough I became. I have and still believe I lose out on a lot of guilty pleasures because of those stupefying walls of ‘morale perception’ that Bharatharathyam has built around me. Maybe I lapped it up  that way. The endless liberation was binding demarcation in guise. The confusion prevailed coupled with the teenage angst, PMS and the need to fit in. I gave up on my seventeen years of Bharathanatyam training because I wasn’t able to figure out the whys. And clearly, I was not being sane.

Later and then out of sheer boredom and lack of creative stimulation, I took to Carnatic Music. I learned of the trinity. I listened to Tiger Varadhchaariyar tapes. I figured Revathi made me feel powerful and intimidating. I decided that I would name my daughter ‘Aahiri’ if  I ever got married  and started family. That is very much living in the future, but yeah we have  our own idiosyncrasies I surmise .

Singing Ranjani makes me giggle. Vanaspathi makes me sober. Chandrajyothi is pain coupled with the pleasure derived out of pain. Kaapi is happy. ReethiGowlai is my Love. Ataana is my pride. Gowrimanohari is adoration. Sindubhairavi is my change. Hamsanaadam is my alcohol. Sanmaarkahindolam is Bhakthi. Naagagandhaari is ancient. Lalitha is my mother. Bhageshri cures  me of depression. On the whole, I have learned to prescribe my own medicine for every season of mood change and deflate my ego. Music also makes me irrelevant. Like now ,for  I have no idea why I started writing this post. Yes!I miss dancing for I would  be fooling around only to herald the sinner badge if I ever said that singing Krithis makes up for the stomping Adavus. But deep down, I know both are the expressions of my soul. They make me connect with myself more. These days people identify me as the ‘girl who sings aaaaahhhhh aaahhh songs’. It feels nice like it used to but really it doesn’t matter what tag I go by to the world around me. I am so glad that I am a very Happy person.It is that simple.

‘The Pursuit Of Happiness is not a sin ‘.

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