After a disturbed sleep last night, getting up at 4.30 am seemed a big torture today. Normally, I get a sadistic pleasure in waking up my husband also if I lose my sleep. But today I resisted that temptation. After all, it was his idea to get me into a basic course of “Art of living”. So I spared him for a while and made my way to kitchen for a cup of Pudina Tea and afterwards, to get ready for the classes which started today. The entire course is a week’s programme only but my mind was clouded by the thoughts of all my past outings with different activities which never saw the day light after initial enthusiasm... While watching Hindi movie “Lakshya”, many a times, I have felt like Hrithik Roshan of the first half… and the song “Mein Aisa Kyun Hoom….” seemed to capture the essence of my life. Neither, I could match the steps choreographed by Prabhudeva and no amount of watching that movie has done any good to my attitude… It has always been static, really, no change at all… As a class five student, I went to learn Bharatnatyam because all the girls in my neighborhood went. I enjoyed it but frequent requests from dear and near ones to dance in front of them made me a bit shy, embarrassed and sick… Also, Bharatnatyam involves a lot of foot movement and tapping which everybody cannot bear… My right foot gave away and souring pain made things worse and six months down the line, I was the first dropout… My neighbors followed the suit soon. The pain didn’t go away that easily. Instead my movements gave people an impression that I was limping but actually I was walking. Somebody then suggested eating “bran” (thavidu in Malayalam). Bran is the outer layer of any cereal grain – like Rice, wheat which is rich in dietary fibre with host of vitamins. But our modern day white rice is devoid of this bran and what we eat as rice gets deposited in all the wrong areas of our body. Well, consumption of the laddoos prepared out of bran corrected my problem … But it made me Bharatanatyam-phobic….till now. Concept of Plus two was new in Kerala when I had finished my tenth and college seemed a natural choice for intermediate. Back in Kerala, we called it Pre-degree and I had done it in a Women’s College. Male members in the faculty were like Oasis in the desert containing women. So imagine a situation when a tall handsome hunk and a short dark complexioned man came up with an idea of teaching Karate to girls in our college for self-defense. Chaos broke out. They used to teach Karate for a meagre sum twice a week in the College Auditorium to all interested candidates. I also joined. Problem started with the timings… They used to teach the lessons during lunch breaks of one hour. We used to finish our lunch in 10 minutes and rush for the Karate class. But by the time, we finish the class, more than the students, spectators used to throng the auditorium to watch the lambu and chotu. Their macho man style left the girls gasping for breath and they waited with bated breaths to see their stylish movements…. After the class, it used to take us minimum ten minutes to rush back to our lectures mainly due to the hugh campus we had... This played a spoilsport in the long run and instead of adjusting the timings, teachers found it convenient to oust the lambu and chotu…the reason they found was this: It is highly awkward to see girls jumping and doing all that exercises in front of two men… There ended my dream of acquiring a black belt…and breaking bones of baddies… While I was struggling to tally the figures in a balance sheet in Accounts during Bcom, one fine morning, my mother suggested going for some stitching class nearby. I liked the idea because my mother had done a lot of experiments with stitching and I had been a scape goat for a long time. I felt that my give back time has arrived. Also classes were only on weekends. After three to four weeks, I could nicely cut cloth pieces essential for a salwar suit and I was elated. Well, my excitement was shattered, when that teacher announced during a skirt cutting class that she is discontinuing the classes due to her frail health. That’s all…. My dreams of mastering embroidery and stitching my own clothes sank somewhere… I never tried to resurrect my stitching instincts… According to my neighbors, I was good at singing. When I felt the same, I started pestering my parents a lot and they relented to teach me music. A very young lady used to come to teach me when I was in 7th standard. I got her address from a stranger who was my co-passenger in a train from Ernakulam to Thiruvananthapuram. I wrote a long letter to this lady explaining how I longed to become a singer and so one fine evening she came along with her mother to test my vocal chords. She felt that our vocal chords were tallying and there started my musical extravaganza… Initially, I used to wait and went up to the gate to receive this lady, whom I considered my first guru…But after a couple of days, I found her presence irritating. Out of the one hour she devoted for me, half an hour, she used to do make up and she couldn’t tolerate a single crease in her Saree and much of her time went in straightening it. My annoyance got larger with each passing day and it started to affect my daily renditions. I was unable to communicate my real problem to my parents who were looking for a chance to end these noisy drama. It sank into their thoughts that my interest and inclination to music was drying up like Bharatapuzha river of Ponnani in Kerala. So, citing reasons of an approaching hurdle of tenth standard, they stopped my musical venture when I reached Eighth Standard. But this didn’t stop me from singing. My music lessons got a fresh lease of life, while I was in degree under a Tamil Teacher and this continued for about five years. Like business cycle, it saw its four phases – boom, recession, depression and recovery. But it lasted for five years until I moved to Kochi. My singing got a splash of colour during my short tenure as a lecturer when other department people also used to summon me for singing old Hindi songs during free hours. But my banking career did not allow me to indulge in this delightful journey and I was robbed off the privileges of practice…over a period of years, my interest was crushed under the wheels of stress and strain offered by my job. Initially, my singing found takers in hostel for some time…and in Friday pujas of the branches where I worked. While in Mumbai, I got an opportunity to exhibit my talent in a Branch Manager’s Conference and that year our otherwise profit making Region suffered heavy loss. Two more such talent exhibition went to wreak havoc and our then Regional Head had to quit his sprawling career and Managing Director of the Bank went into exile. Till then, I did not know the power of music… Well, I am not much into this singing business now…Nobody seems to be interested also…what to do? While working as Branch Manager in Chembur, I chanced to meet a lady in her Sixties who was a danseuse, and a govt scholar in Bharatnatyam. She conducts week end classes for working women and I confided my fear associated with that old flame – dance… She found it strange when I told her my ordeal and limb pain etc … She suggested that I come to her school of dance, check for two three days and then decide whether still I get the pain. I was impressed and thought to give it a try. I decided to go on a Saturday evening after my branch… But that day and subsequent Saturdays also, I couldn’t make it to her dance school. Our system came crashing down one Saturday and another Saturday, our Regional head held a meeting for all branch managers … We had such meetings in the eleventh hour whenever he got firings from HO… He used to call all the local branch heads for passing the baton and it was nothing new. But repeated obstacles were dampening my spirits …. Still I managed …. On the way to home in Chembur, I found out an organization called Bal Vikas Sangh where they conduct yoga, dance and music classes for women and children on a daily basis. I went there one Monday evening to enquire about Bharatanatyam. When I saw a lady taking Kathak class comprising ten to twelve kids in the ground floor, I abstained from the trouble of going upstairs for further enquiry and without a losing a minute, I went for Kathak…. I was thinking about the dhumkas of Madhuri Dixit in Devdas …..” kaahe chedo ….shyam...” My dancing ability left such an impression on the teacher that while reprimanding a cranky kid she said: “See that Aparna Aunty… Even though she is so old and fat, she never complains that she is tired” I had to devote only one day in a week for the class and since it was very near to my place of stay, I found it very convenient and rejuvenating…. My daily routine included Kathak practice which left cracks on the wall and fissures on the floor of the dilapidated building where I was staying…but I danced…until one day! I got a transfer! Crest fallen, I didn’t even bid adieu to my teacher because I didn’t have the heart to do so… She also never called me… After coming to Bengaluru, my priority was to search a job…so far it has not yielded any result…in between I started venturing out to find out something related to dance… kathak would have been best! But when I went for a walk in Cambridge Road nearby, I saw a board for Zumba Classes. I just went inside and enquired…but didn’t have the guts to start immediately…my heart pains when I am forced to stop something just when I have started enjoying it…I may not be able to deal with another heart break… This week long course on “Art of living” seems better because, only one week of devotion and presence is enough…If I am able to finish off this course, maybe I will be happy…It might give me the courage to try out something that I have suppressed for a long time… Hopefully, this time I will come out with flying colours also… Just like Hrithik did in the second half of “Lakshya”
Posted on: Mon, 17 Mar 2014 12:34:35 +0000