Dancing is the strain

 The title of our blog today, a take on the title of a recent Indonesian film about autism and of a Yugoslav film of the early sixties about misunderstanding ruining relationships, is not a misnomer. It is deliberate. 

Oh, yes, it is a social phenomenon that needs exploration which we would partially, and rather superficially,  attempt in our blog today. Ours are aspirational times, and ours is a driven, determined and motivated polity. Post/past 1990's, moreover, young Indians are at a crossroad of careers that is more confusing than the Piccadilly Circle, nay, circus, and literally!

Add to this unique offering the sizzling of the "I, me, my" choice and space. As a result is ready on platter this mode(l) of be(com)ing, known as dancing. Just as every second family these days has someone or the other settled abroad, every third household has a dancer, gender being no bar! 

Dancing is everywhere. Every lane has a dance school, next often to an Ayurveda center offering the "panchkarma" therapy. No, that is not because the first brings the second patients, as everyone, the young as well as the old, is dancing!

Well, the real reason appears to be that both are 'trending',  are 'the' trend(s) these days. Just as every  channel has a "Dance pe Chance" kinda of programe for every age group, toddlers to their toothless, dentured yet adventurous grannies n grandpas, every third household these days has a dancer! 

Of some variety or the other, ranging from the classical to pop to folk, and their very many versions! In schools, colleges, universities, let there be anything approaching a 'cultural programme', and the entries for dancing, individual, couple, group, would be longer than the famous tail of Lord Hanuman in Ravana's Lanka! 

Why, every wedding these days has to have a "sangeet" which has less to do with singing, and everything to deal with dancing, everyone, bride to 'bhataji' (who croons the 'manglashtk' to some famous dance tune), obsessing over, yes, you guessed it right, dance! 

Yes, 'come September', and there mushroom any number of dance institutes specialising in 'garba'. That brings us to a moot point. Well, forget the sexualising of tiny bodies on the television, is there indeed any future for so many dancers who punish their own bodies so very mercilessly!?! 

Hope every fleet foot lands on very strong n sure terra firma because while learning to dance, to appear accomplished, each hopeful twists in to impossible gyrations, resulting in to everything from spondylitis to weight gain, hormonal imbalance, and so on! Is dancing indeed a strain(ing)? 

Pratima@ Can dance be a career? Or does it reduce itself to a time consuming hobby that (re)tires the body and the soul!?! And empties the purses-n-pockets of every doting and hyper-ambitious parent!?!

Quote of the day:                                                 "Every savage can dance," says Darcy in Chapter VI of "Pride and Prejudice" by Jane Austen whose two hundred and fiftieth birth anniversary is getting celebrated this year. 

Word of the day: pirouette.                                     'Pirouette' is a fast spin on one leg in the ballet mode of dance. In daily lived life, it refers to a graceful gentle movement.

The King of Wisdom!

 The King of Wisdom! The Monarch of Divinity and Spirituality! The Emperor of Devotion! The only Bosom Friend, Boon Companion, Soul Mate the Lord truly cared for! Whom do you think I am thus describing? Yes, the saint of saints, Sant Dnyaneshwar. 

2025 marks the seven hundred and fiftieth birth anniversary of this unique presence who defined Marathi-ness. Yes, it was his translation of the Sanskrit 'Bhagwad Gita' that 'made' Marathi. How puny appear the contemporary (f)rigid fights over dialects in comparison with this genuine contribution! 

What a Himalayan presence he is! A brilliant scholar with infinite awareness and deep knowledge of Hinduism (and the antagonistic traditions), a subtle thinker without any ideational obscurity or deluding obfuscations, he is divinity itself. 

He is, moreover, a great poet. His brilliant, deep, subtle thought reaches us through great poetry that is both rich philosophy and simply superb verse. His "Haripathache Abhang" are such sweet simplicity that the illiterate of the illiterate can easily grasp them, and learn them by heart most naturally.

He initiated the Bhakti Panth in the thirteenth century Maharashtra. Actually, his guru, his elder brother, Nivruttinath, belonged to the Shaivite tradition. His Nath Panth would not be a road to spiritual awareness that can easily be traversed by the common man. Sant Dnyaneshwar made it accessible to each and every one, beyond caste, gender or ethnicity.

And, mind you, he was hardly twenty-one when he decided that he had fulfilled his mission, and chose to welcome "samadhi" on Kartik Vadya Trayodashi (the thirteenth day in the dark phase of the lunar month 'Kartik') to be felicitated tomorrow. In a lifetime, he completed to immense perfection achievements most would need generations to complete!

All such brilliant performance was attained against, and despite, an extremely difficult life full of conscious harassment for crimes never committed, neither by him nor by his family! And yet such was the power of his empathy that he could make a he-buffalo narrate the first 'Rucha' from the 'Rigveda'. Why, he could make his back in to an oven so that his sis, Muktai, could prepare a simple sweet denied to them by the vicious, jealous, mean status quo-ists. Wonder of wonders, an inanimate wall would listen to his gentle will! He literally  (and not merely as spiritual symbolism) awakened the dead, too!

A towering presence, and yet such was his genuine piety and pity that this young man of twenty-one continues to be the gentlest  motherly presence since the thirteenth century! Hence the title of our blog, the 'King of Wisdom'! 

 The 'pasaydan', the final farewell in 'Dnyaneshwari', the great commentary on the 'Gita' by this wondrous, wise soul ends with a fervent prayer that the wicked would lose their wickedness, and would flourish in the ways of righteousness! No wonder, he is 'mauli', a kind gentle motherly presence till eternity!

Pratima@I can comfortably write a book each on his poetry, on his philosophy, on his contribution to the Bhakti Panth which revived Hinduism. That much I adore, venerate, respect him!

 Well, I am aware that readers of blogs believe in the short-n-sweet format. Hence this temporary full stop to a tale that never fails to inspire, to fascinate and to liberate!

Quote of the day:                                                      Here is my attempt at a translation of the first quatrain of a much loved 'abhang' by this phenomenal presence.                                           "At the divine doorstep, await awhile/           Thus attain liberation quadruple//                       Let lips " Hari" reiterate/                                       Who then can bliss enumerate?//                                                                                                                   Of course, work very much in progress!

Word of the day: martyr.                                             A martyr is person who is made to suffer immensely, even unto death, for holding (mostly) religious opinions inimical to the powers that be.

 Sant Dnyaneshwar and his family were in a way martyred by the orthodoxy of his times. Why, his parents paid with their lives for a sin never committed.

Musical might

 Music is magic. As for an individual listener, it can change his/her perspective, can intensify , enhance and/or wash away the mood of the moment, and energise the soul. As for the larger whole, the community, music has the might to unify the varied group in to something better. 

Why these musical musings? Is that your 'a-mused' query? Well, the immediate look-in is the ongoing Mitr Mahotsv, organised by Mitra Foundation. 

Imagine a lovely evening, dusk setting silently. There is a dapper nip in the air as winter is tentatively deciding to settle down in Pune. Just a hundred or two feet away from the roaring traffic is a well-lighted pandal, perfectly structured, what with giant screens mounted at strategic points. 

The softest delicate notes float in, and the batate wada crunching chit-chatting janta goes quiet. The silence, nay, rather, the peace grows by the second, as transfixed by the sweet santoor notes is the public that does not understand the niceties, especially because the performing artist, Rahul Sharma (the son of Pandit Shiv Kumar Sharma who made santoor, a local Kashmiri  instrument, accepted globally, and both by the classes and the masses) has chosen to play a Raag not much known. 

Yet every trill and each tone of the Raag, Raag Rajeshwari, keeps on unfolding with masterful and yet gentle charm. Somehow, somewhere it touches the sensitive chords of a roughly two thousand strong audience that listens with rapt attention, clapping at times at wrong places which is okay, too, because that piece, may be, touched some cord in the soul.

Next follows a 'jugalbandi' with the tabla maestro. This duet of the 'sur' and 'taal' literally transfixes the audience. So is the artist, eyes closed, as if lost to the world of music which he himself seems to enjoy a lot, accompanied by his percussionist, too. He reveals, moreover, how the melody in that extremely difficult-to-play instrument can create its special harmony, its own rhythm.  The mehfil continues from classical to folk.

On the wings of notes float two hours. The ticking time, measured by seconds and minutes, does not seem to matter as captivated by the empire of music is the audience, even if not exactly initiated. That is the might of music.

Such might, present in abundance, makes the evening magical, especially because instrumental music is beyond words, and yet somehow manages to touch softly the tender core of human(e) beings. Yes, mighty magical is music!

Pratima@ I cannot thank Gokhale Madam enough for the invite because thus could I participate in a miracle!

Quote of the day:                                                    "Music washes away," feels Berthold Auerbach,"from the soul the dust of everyday life."

Word of the day:leitmotif.                                 'Leitmotif' refers to the underlying idea, the  central organic structure of the piece. It is a term that has transcended the empire of music to successfully reside in the realm of literature. 

The Death of Innocence

 This year, November 14 was dedicated absolutely to the Bihar election results. Delhi to gulley, the various ramifications of the result, immediate as well as long-term, were the themes around which discussions and debates developed. Given such ambience, it was but normal that neither the birth centenary of Pandit Nehru nor the death centenary of Hegel got much mention. 

Nehruji's birth centenary gets celebrated as the 'children's day'. One would like to argue that the tsunami of discussions centered around the election results and politics, Indians'  favourite most obsession, washed away that tiny island. 

Why is such a hijacking possible at all? Well, my submission is that there is hardly innocence left at all. Naïveté, that primitive stage of innocence, is almost invisible. Innocence is an entity that is marked by its absence currently. 

Do not you believe me? Okay, let us begin with children. With mobiles in their tiny palms and the politics of reality inscribed there in the forms of wily and violent comics, innocence and naïveté wither away faster than the state in the Marxist ideology. 

A little older, what do children watch? Horribly vicious serials wherein family relationships are mere politicking in the worst possible way! Or the alternative is the 'Big Boss' types which teach hatred, malice, envy, jealousy masqueraded as normalcy! 

Can innocence at all bloom in such a barren mindscape? Much worse are the  dance competitions for children. A kid of five or six gyrates to the vulgarest songs. The young body is thus  sexualised beyond belief. What can such child pornography have to do with innocence? 

Personally, I am absolutely against introducing dramatics or dance in to the lives of children till they grow up to be ten. Why so? Is that your question? Well, when you thus consciously teach a child to falsely feel an emotion, imitate through gestures a false feeling, such 'acting' breeds a false consciousness. You are training your own kid to pretend! Whither(ed)  innocence?!? 

The sizzling to this tasteless broth is the constant competitive fierceness fast (in all senses of the term) bred amongst kids. Within the familial space, vicious and cruel, especially due to its subtle proliferation, is its contamination which has a super fast spread everywhere, in schools, on the playground, for instance. Eternally, parents, highly ambitious, are in to such one-up-manship. As a result, children are in to very many activities taken up not for joy but to prove superiority of the parent's (mostly  mother's, not to foget 'her' maternal family) upbringing. 

Wither naïveté in such a scénario? Absolutely impossible is innocence because, by definition, innocence is freedom from any guilt. Well, guilt is the hallmark for childhood activities today, be it family, be it recreation, be it education. The dirge for the lost innocence is tough to sing. Hence this note of condolence for an era long lost wherein a child, not pushed, instead allowed to be innocent, was not a performing poppet!

Pratima@Nuclear and/or single parent family would not alone be the culprit, I suppose. Whatever be the causes, the resulting knowing cynicism on the perenially pretending young faces is pathetic!

Quote of the day:                                                      "I have always been fascinated," argued Clint Eastwood, "with the stealing of innocence. It is the most heinous crime, and certainly a capital crime, if there is any." 

Word of the day: sanctimonious.                          The word refers to pretending to be superior to others by adding a moral veneer to lowly, despicable motives.

Kind is as kind does

The social media need not always be bad. It was on a WhatsApp group that I got to know of this World Kindness Day. Given the kind of body bags being repeatedly reported across the world, this word 'kind' should surely rule the roost. 

The first kindest persons we meet in this cruel world are parents. They never care for their convenience, comfort, or career. Such is their love that we are the very centers of their universe. Their entire being revolves around us. It is hence very cruel to ill-treat them in their old age. 

Like parents, teachers, too, care for our growth, well-being and development. Truly, kind, generous and affectionate they are, unlike others who may use us and throw us away like a used paper napkin. 

Our friends are an asset precisely because they are kind, right? At times, the very ambience can be kind. Want proof? Right now, India and Shri Lanka are jointly holding a world visually impaired women's cricket jamboree in which six countries are participating.

Such kindness in action is the need of the hour. Kindness betters the world, often inhuman and cruel. Hence the need for kind activities that make it a better place. Let us be kind, generous and full of consideration for each other, and, most importantly, let us be kind to ourselves.  If thus you receive kindness, you would be kindness incarnate, sure to make the world a place truly worthy and genuinely kind. Long live kindness!

Pratima@Animals are in fact kinder than most human beings. Better hence to say that kindness makes human beings less devilish, and more divine!

Quote of the day: "Kindness is a language the deaf can hear and the blind can see, " says Mark Twain

Word of the day: altruistic.                                    This adjective refers to a kind person who looks after the well-being of others. Mother Teresa was an altruistic person, right? 

Murderous Memes

 The social media has its own contours such as memes and stickers. Memes have been a rage for quite some time. Some five years ago, when they were just bursting on the internet horizon, one of my PG students chose to write her term paper on memes. 

Of course, I encouraged her. Yet it was rather a shocker for me that she could 'describe' them ('very kindly' - in her barely suppressed opinion-ated air - for me!). She could not, however, 'analyse' them. I wanted her to explore the communication strategies therein  which, in my opinion, are both verbal and visual. 

That is that. Let me not get in to theory here, hated as much as intellectualism currently. Ah, yes, these days the sibling of memes, that is, stickers rule the social media empire. Even then, the fascination for memes is yet not over though.

An example or two to prove my point. We all know the sad saga of the reportage of Dharmendra's 'demise'. It must be hurtful to his immediate family. For the netizens though, it was a field day to freak out. 

One meme had the typical 'Garam Dharam' grimace and lingo, namely, "Kutton! Zinda hun. TRP ke chakkar pe muze hr ghante marwana band kro" which can loosely be translated as "Curs! I am alive and kickin. Stop murdering me by the hour for the sake of the TRP"!

The one that did the most rounds was that famous " tank" scene from " Sholay" with the equally well-known caption " Gaw walon, marna cancelled!" which can loosely be translated as " Hey, folks! I have cancelled (my resolve) to die!" In the foreground is a pic of an aged Dharmendra. 

These are witty takes in a way on that impossible situation. Really 'wicked' was the sense of humour of a video. It showed an equally aged Jitendra who suffered a fall in some other function. It was an absolutely crappy crop which collated both these unfortunate events with a giggly "Dharam paaji ke chakkar me/aj Jitendra paji chale jate" which can be roughly translated as "all that hullaballo over Bro Dharam today would have claimed Bro Jitendra."

Nutty, nasty, notorious. Thank goodness, I have not as yet seen the "Dharam paaji ki tarikh pe tarikh!" Hema Malini would drag the person to court, I suppose! Hey, like every other person under the sun, I, too, dearly love a laugh. I am not being a spoilsport. Yet in my scheme of things, silly, cheap laughter, especially at something as grim as imminent death cannot be a grin! Amen! 

Pratima@A titter cannot tatter decency, right? A smile is at least a mile away from cruelty, meanness, and downright goofy madness! 

Quote of the day:                                                     "Humour is the best way," maintains Mary Ann Shaffer, "to make the unbearable bearable." 

Word of the day: frivolous.                                   'Frivolous' means without much sense or seriousness, rather silly. The memes at the cost of Dharmendra's 'declared' demise are absolutely frivolous.

Couples

 November 11 is unique. It is 11/11. On 11/11 at 11.11, I got a bright spark. Why not write an acrostic cum limerick on couples, a relationship as quirky as the date! So here we go. 

Couples constantly bicker n fight.                        Oh, names each other call at its height.               Usual causes lend a fight its might.                  Painful swipes at the other that bite!               Love at the end is but sorry n slight.                Each home, every family repeats the plight!  Save the togetherness that better be bright! 

Pratima@A couple is yet another relationship of the 'cannot live with you but cannot leave you' variety, right?

Quote of the day:                                                      A couple should be "a single soul inhabiting two bodies", the classic definition of love according to Aristotle.

Word of the day: nuptials.                                 Nuptials refer to the wedding ceremony. It is a formal term for the event itself and its celebrations on that day.