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...
