The Kiss

As part of our kathak training we were also getting lessons in dancing to thumris and bhajans...one such was " kahe rokata dagar pyare nandlal mero"...ofcourse it has now been made famous by Madhuri's performance in Devdas.But when I was learning it ,it was all new for me....and I was too young to completely appreciate the meaning and naturally could not do real justice to the facial emotions...so our Guruji took a break and sat us all down and started enumerating the song line by line and showing us the change of emotions .....the voyage began from Radha requesting her Shyam not to stop her on her way back from collecting water...one moment she is pleading, then again she is angry for having her vessel being broken and threatening to tell Kanha's father....and then Kanha did the unmentionable " barbas mori laaj leto".....we honestly had no clue what that meant...so Guruji asked us if we knew what a kiss was. A moments silence was followed by giggles and shy red faces.....and presto that was the emotion that she needed us to portray for that concluding part...

I tell u learning was never more fun...

My first performance

I still remember the pride I had felt in being chosen to perform at the annual programme of the academy within one year of my joining the school.I was so nervous...yet so delighted at my first association with the makeup kit.As the performances began my heart started beating real fast..then it was our turn..three of us were performing the basics of kathak steps....but once on stage my fear was lost....I was dancing to the tabla bol from my heart.....but as we concluded the dance my enthusiasm took the better of me and I ended up doing one more circle than was needed( apart from the 27).

I was so scared at the possible reprimand I would get from "Pishi"-thats what we used to address our guruji as.But strangely she never scolded me ...but told me that I need to improve on some aspects of my mudras and even appreciated my tatkar.