I saw myself living at some place where hundreds of people had come to stay for some event. That morning when we all woke up, we experienced a lot of deadlocks at the toilet, the kind Indians mainly experience during traffic jams. It was peculiar that the toilets got divided based on religion and castes. For example, I was only allowed access to a certain toilet because one Sindhi was the first to use it that morning. So that became a Sindhi toilet. There was another toilet that became a Hindu Brahmin toilet and some other guy tried to get in but was stopped from going in and had to wait in line for using only that Brahmin toilet. Just before I could get in to use the Sindhi toilet, someone else sneaked in before me! There was another toilet inside a bathroom. One guy who was eligible to use that bathroom couldn't get in because the toilet inside that bathroom was in use.
Some of us gave up on using the toilet and came out into the big ground where decorations were ready for the event. And then the first performance started. We were upset and thought we'd wait for few hours so that during noon we could use the toilet. So we were just planning to kill time till then. But by the end of the first performance I think we all forgot about our toilet emergency. We were spellbound. It was a dance that started as an ordinary classical dance, but turned into a nritya of deities. It were as if the Gods had descended from heaven to perform on that holy soil. That ground was quite pious and known for its holiness and that nritya became a living evidence of that and we became its witness. At one time there was a guy looking like Lord Ganesh, big and heavy like him, dancing with 4 Goddesses, the most popular ones I think: Durga, Kali, Lakshmi and Saraswati. He flung his fist heavenwards and unclenched his fist to release some holi colors (gulaal) of various different colors: green, pink, orange etc. With every dance move he sprayed new colors into the air while the other deities added to the beauty of the whole orchestration with their elegant dance moves. It was as if Ganesh and the four Goddesses themselves had descended into the performers and performed their powerful and timeless nritya in front of mere mortals like us, in a way blessing us in this lifetime.
After the performance we went to congratulate everyone, especially Ganesh (his name was also Ganesh). While he seemed normal and ordinary now, out there while dancing he looked different. I still felt myself under the spell of that dance and a part of me still believed that Gods had descended on our world that day.
Some of us gave up on using the toilet and came out into the big ground where decorations were ready for the event. And then the first performance started. We were upset and thought we'd wait for few hours so that during noon we could use the toilet. So we were just planning to kill time till then. But by the end of the first performance I think we all forgot about our toilet emergency. We were spellbound. It was a dance that started as an ordinary classical dance, but turned into a nritya of deities. It were as if the Gods had descended from heaven to perform on that holy soil. That ground was quite pious and known for its holiness and that nritya became a living evidence of that and we became its witness. At one time there was a guy looking like Lord Ganesh, big and heavy like him, dancing with 4 Goddesses, the most popular ones I think: Durga, Kali, Lakshmi and Saraswati. He flung his fist heavenwards and unclenched his fist to release some holi colors (gulaal) of various different colors: green, pink, orange etc. With every dance move he sprayed new colors into the air while the other deities added to the beauty of the whole orchestration with their elegant dance moves. It was as if Ganesh and the four Goddesses themselves had descended into the performers and performed their powerful and timeless nritya in front of mere mortals like us, in a way blessing us in this lifetime.
After the performance we went to congratulate everyone, especially Ganesh (his name was also Ganesh). While he seemed normal and ordinary now, out there while dancing he looked different. I still felt myself under the spell of that dance and a part of me still believed that Gods had descended on our world that day.
No comments:
Post a Comment