Sunday ka Funda

"Most days it feels as if the world is whirling around me and I am standing still. In slow motion, I watch the colors blur; people and faces all become a massive wash."
- Sarah Kay

When I posted the sidebar image, I also found another one by Henri Matisse called Still Life with Dance. I was immediately struck, not so much by the painting as by the title. Dance is movement and fluidity; still life is, well, still. How and why did they come together.

I have been looking at it frequently, and the more I look the more I find the dance to be still and the still objects to appear moving. The flowers  seem to almost quiver, and the fruits glisten with new dew.

Naturally, then, I'd say the same about all that happens in life too. The moving and the static can interchange at any time.

Sunday ka Funda

“Those who danced were thought to be quite insane by those who could not hear the music.”

- Angela Monet

"Let us read and let us dance - two amusements that will amusements that will never do any harm to the world. never do any harm to never do any harm to the world"

- Voltaire




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Today is World Dance Day

Let's dance

People were dancing, some close, some in a frenzy. The cops landed up and arrested them. This was private space in Mumbai, the great metro. Goes against our culture, say the moral police. Encourages unhealthy activities, they continue.

I can understand if they were in the streets or in places that families with young kids frequent.

Anyhow, another case came up for hearing to let the place remain open until late and permit people to dance. The comment by the judges is curious:

“One may think 3 am is too late; others may not. Customers want to dance. Somebody putting their hands up and dancing cannot be objected to. Innocuous dancing can be permitted. As long as nothing obscene or objectionable is happening… If police comes like this, then customers will be afraid.”

This is in a five-star hotel and people are not forced into it. What does putting hands up mean? What if the hands are not up? Is this a call for surrender? Some dances do not need the hands to be up.

Have the cops and those who are concerned about our culture ever objected to drunken street dancing during festivals? What about the ‘eve-teasing’? What about marriage functions? The young do dress provocatively at many of these. Only because it is ethnic clothes, it does not make them less titillating. And the hip swaying even in our kiddie talent contests on TV should tell us that we aren’t really a whitewashed culture.

Dance is an important manisfestation of our culture, anyway. Shiva’s nataraj dance, Krishna’s ras leela, and Menaka’s seduction of sage Vishvamitra are well-known. What about the mad-as-hell dervish moves at Sufi shrines?

I am a bit surprised that while passing the judgement, the bench mentioned that not allowing dancing would be a dampener for tourism. I do not think people from outside come here to dance. This is about us and how the urbanites socialise. The cops, the same cops who have often been caught molesting young girls, need not look beyond their own little dirty minds before they arrest people who are doing so of their own free will. Certain big industrialists have private parties that openly serve drugs. Has anyone heard about arrests there?

I don’t understand why every report mentions ‘dirty dancing’. And, yes, some years ago a television channel had taken shots of a discotheque to serve some voyeuristic purpose.

Dance can be a release or an elevating experience. The gliding on the floor, the meeting of eyes, the touch around the waist, the bend and the curve. It is a beautiful sight. People may lose control, but that happens even when you are not on the dance floor.

Feet in a trance

“How can we know the dancer from the dance?” – W.B.Yeats

There are some marvelous moments when even the dance cannot be separated from the viewers. It isn’t merely about watching but partaking.

This one is from one of my favourite Satyajit Ray films where you demarcate debauchery and good taste at your own peril. This is what life is about – chandeliers that light up the room or crash as glass shards to pierce souls.

Roshan Kumari in 'Jalsaghar'

Violent Dance

What were they thinking? Does this picture make you cringe? Does reading the copy make you feel better? Would you enroll for dance classes because it says doing the cha-cha-cha or samba can be violent unless you are under the kind and trained care of a choreographer-teacher and you join the academy?

You might do so because you want to learn or you think the person in charge is worth it. But I doubt it would be for the reasons mentioned: “In a month’s time you’ll move swiftly (not to mention non-violently)”.

Since when has dance become associated with violence? There are passionate forms with some level of aggressiveness, but they are not meant to physically hurt. By using images such as these, the truly demonic aspects of domestic and social violence are reduced to nothing; in fact, they are shown as accepted facets of life.

The character in the photograph does not look like she was on the dance floor just before getting hurt. Her expression does not seem nonchalant about accidental wounds. The use of the word 'victim' is revealing. These are photographs that denote real violence and the ad is using a negative message to lure the readers to notice. As I said, people will not sign up for the classes because of this, but there will be an internalisation of what they see, whether they dance or not.

Violence has become a marketable commodity. And you need to buy it to protect yourself because danger lurks – at the borders, in the street, at home and by a process of reductionism on the dance floor.

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This is another ad for the same. Look at the bruise. Is this about jiving? Damn, why am I so angry?

Dance and Dunce Diplomacy

Shashi Tharoor talking diplomacy? Nah. Not really. He is making ambassadors of different countries sit through Bharatanatyam performances. The reasons are supposed to be seen as a way forward in promoting detente:

“I wanted to give diplomats a feel of our precious cultural heritage. Diplomacy tends to be practised in rather predictable patterns and I wanted to break free of the mould and try something different. This is the first time I am experimenting with familiarising ambassadors with Indian culture, I hope it becomes a sustained process.”

This man is clearly an outsider and his experiments are rather stale. Every diplomat is given a dose of our culture in varied forms. Some get so taken up that they end up marrying the performer. We have Shovana Narayan who is married to the former Austrian ambassador? I don’t think it has done much to improve our relations with Austria. As for familiarising these diplomats, they are already quite well-versed in these ‘artistic’ aspects just as they are with elephants and camels.


Among his first victims was the ambassador of Egypt, Mohamed Abdel Hamid Higazy, who said:

“We must thank the Indian government and the minister concerned for the performance. It was a wonderful, colourful, spiritual and folklorish dance where spirituality, visual arts and history merge with each other. We in Egypt share this spirituality with India through our colours and god.”

He has read Lonely Planet or one of those glossy travel magazines. Each one will say something similar about colour, spirituality, history.

I wonder how our minister will fare with the Americans and the Brits (who might well go, haw, we were here and my grandpa saw it all before you were born). I think he should invite them for one of those long Kathakali performances that last through the night and relate epic tales. Do you think they’d get anxious when the character transforms into a demon or will they suspect us of having nuclear arsenal?

Oh, I forgot to mention the seating arrangement:

The “gushing” envoys, at least 10 of them, were seated in the first two rows while Tharoor sat in a special seat upholstered in rich green silk and brocade.

What? Why? I think he is really mucking it up. Is he some maharajah who has invited lesser rajahs from other kingdoms to watch as the ladies perform? Is he promoting Indian culture or a version of urban feudalism?

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Our home minister P Chidambaram has come up with something else:

“Infiltration has not reduced. Incidents of violence have reduced...and I attribute it to the army, paramilitary and J&K police,’’ he said. They are rattled by various factors—quiet talks being held, the PM’s reconstruction programme and a stable government in the state.

This is being monitored. So the guys are entering our shores and twiddling their thumbs because they are frightened out of their wits by quiet talks, a reconstruction programme and a stable government? Excuse me, but if we can tell there are no real peace talks, do you think militant groups will not? What stable government? Omar Abdullah seeing a Pakistani hand in stone-pelting incidents (really, I think the across the border guys must be devastated)?

Army Chief General Deepak Kapoor said:

“Our neighbour is continuing to infiltrate militants from across the border into J&K. It (infiltration) will continue. Forces are deployed along the border and they will make all efforts to stop the infiltrators there.”

If forces are deployed and making efforts, then why is he saying they will continue to infiltrate?

I think Shashi Tharoor must be deployed there so that he can arrange some dance performances. It will divert attention or act as a real barrier for the committed jihadi who would not tolerate such kafir things, and see no colour, spirituality and the rest.

Mallika rules...and damn the voter

What a charming picture. Mallika Sarabhai is indeed a worthy candidate and she takes on no less than L.K.Advani.

She is contesting as an independent, but like all independents she would not mind joining secular forces. I am not sure what secular forces means any more. Some define it as sarva dharma sambhava (all religions have equal respect) which is rubbish, because the very foundation is to say whose is bigger.

Some say it is separation of state from religion. It doesn’t work in our country where every politician has to go to every place of worship and genuflect before every god or god-like figure, ring bells, light candles, place flowers over tombs. It is a veritable fancy dress competition when they get togged up for iftaar, and Christmas and Diwali “respecting the religious sentiments” of the folks they are going to be fed by. It’s all about food.

Some say you are secular if you don’t believe in god. I know atheists who can be bigots.

Anyhow, coming back to Mallika, I find this carrying a basket to collect money to file for her nomination papers too stagey. As though those dropping notes and coins are genuinely interested. These are people who enjoy a good tamasha as much as she probably did. Or, to be less cynical, they are the already converted.

Had an unknown number indulged in this, it would have been seen as something comic. Because it is a celebrity, it is Commitment.

Now, Mallika is committed – to dance, to her social causes. No doubt about it. But there was one time when she had held a peace meeting and refused to acknowledge that Medha Patkar had been invited only because there was violence and they were beaten up due to Medha’s involvement with the Narmada Bachao Andolan. Later, of course, it became a Mallika issue about being beaten up by Modi’s goons. Patkar had been upstaged.

I see this 'basket case' no differently.

We are watching how our corporate types are being promoted only because they do not have a criminal record and have never been corrupt. How do we know? Will we say the same thing with such certainty if a simple school teacher wanted to contest?

Accept it. We have inbuilt hierarchies and we work strictly along those lines of demarcation.

Mallika could well afford the Rs. 10,000 nomination fee and it does appear like a mockery when we think of, say, a worker at the refugee camp not being able to shell out that money if s/he were interested in contesting. That reminds me: Why would a Mallika or someone in that position not promote one such candidate instead? Would it not send out the right message and in fact be the message itself?

Of course, our dear Sir Salman Rushdie, who is now backing Mallika, would have not given a damn then. Incidentally, what are these prominent backers all about? Aren’t these committed candidates representing the common citizen or are they merely about showing off their liberal faces to each other?

All this sounds like political placebo.

Dancing for god?

She was a striptease artist, an exotic lap dancer titillating men in nightclubs across Milan. Today, she is a nun.




Anna Nobili found her new calling after a visit to the shrine of St Francis in Assisi in 2002. She has transformed her old profession and not given it up. According to a report:

Sister Nobili is due to perform in front of senior Catholic clerics later this week at the Holy Cross in Jerusalem Basilica, one of Rome’s best-known churches. The performance, based on stories from the Old and New Testaments, will be called The Bible: Day and Night. Among the guests expected to attend will be Archbishop Gianfranco Ravasi, who is in charge of the Vatican’s Cultural Department.

Would that make god happy or the clergy? I find this a bit disconcerting. Her change of heart is understandable, but how will those watching justify their position? Will there be nuns among the audience (the report only mentions that she will be dancing before bishops and cardinals)?

She says:

“I was wasting my life dancing for men in clubs. The nights were filled with sex and alcohol. It was an empty life but I liked it because I was the centre of attention.”

This “Ballerina for God”, as she calls herself, is seeking the same sort of attention now. She will be known not for her piety but her moves on stage. She may justify the dances as mystical and her latest performances may well be based on stories from the Bible, but religious tracts and mythology have been used often enough by mainstream dancers. Even pop stars have manipulated these – the Cross, Sanskrit shlokas, the Sufi twirl, such references to god abound. What makes her different?

“But now my life has been transformed. I still dance but now I dance for God and I’m happy. All my choreography is dedicated to Him. My aim is to pray using my body.”

This appears to be the antithesis of what the Catholic Church would like. It denies the devotee the luxury of any vanity and riches and the body is subservient to the soul.

Here, she is blatantly referring to her body as a means to prayer. This is almost like marketing it, whatever the purpose might be.

Would she have grabbed the headlines had she been just another dancer?

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Sister Nobili performs