When dance mirrors life

O-Kayyyyyyyyy. For those who know me, here's that photo of me in a funny orange turban, posted by popular demand.

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For those who don't know me, no, I *don't* look like this on a daily basis! So why the turban and special effects? The photo is from a dance drama that I was part of. On Jan 28, students from my dance school enacted the story of Maharashtra's 800-year old Bhakti tradition. I had a small role in it as a Warkari pilgrim.

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If you want to see what Warkari pilgrims really look like, check this out. The Warkaris go on a pilgrimage twice a year to the Vitthal temple at Pandharpur. As part of our research for this dance-drama, I went with my guru to check out the pilgrims. We wanted to study Warkari costumes, to incorporate it into our dance-drama. I think we did a pretty good job, what say?

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Here's another photo, of us carrying a palki of Lord Vithala. That's my neice Ramya, she played a much bigger role than me in the dance.

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Here's another photo from the dressing room - this beautiful lady is my dance guru Jayashree Rajagopalan.

She got a lot of appreciation from the audience for not just the concept of the show, but also the painstaking research she did for authenticity, and the final beauty of the production.

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If you click on the photo for a better view, you can see the make-up kit that is part of the dance preparation. Brushes, eye liner, foundation, rouge, nothing "traditional" I'm afraid! With a total of 30 performers in the dance, we had a whole army of people in the dressing rooms, including harried mums fretting over safety pins and unruly wisps of hair. That's me in the background, photographing everyone.

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My parents came to see the show, so did my aunt. And I was very pleased to see in the audience, two of my school teachers. When I greeted them, they were pretty surprised. Let's face it, what with the turban and the extra kilos, I wasn't really the skinny kid they knew in the 80's!