This post is very close to my heart. I had learnt one of the most amazing art forms, Bharatnatyam for a few years when I was very young. Sadly, I did not pursue it further and lost touch with it. It wasn't until a few years back that I started learning Bharatnatyam again along with my then 4 year old daughter. I wanted to introduce her to this beautiful art form at a very young age. My prime motive behind going to classes with her was to understand the lessons being taught in class and teach it to her at home. But little did I know at that time that both of us would begin to love and enjoy this journey so much. I'm going to be very honest here and say that the initial days, months and years were quite frustrating, demanding and exhausting. Bharatnatyam is a very intense art form which requires a lot of focus, patience, physical and mental strength, stamina and coordination. As a young child, D found it very difficult to grasp the basics and follow through with it. The practice sessions at home used to be very tiring and D needed a lot of coaxing and cajoling to practice. Some days tears would stream down her face and she would storm into her bedroom and slam the door shut because she wasn't getting the footwork right. Before we knew it, we had spent 2-3 years learning the basic adavus and korvais. At the back of my head, I wasn't still confident and was always questioning my decision to have enrolled D at such a young age. Some days, I used to get the feeling that she hated the dance and would get irritated at the very mention of it. I had almost given up on it and made a mental note to myself that if she doesn't begin to show any improvement in another 6 months, I would withdraw her from classes.
I now want to talk about the main idea behind this post, our guru: She is one of the most beautiful, resilient and amazing persons I have ever met so far in my life. She is a very tough teacher, like any other dedicated teacher admonishing us always when she spots casual attitude in class or if we show up without practice. She keeps us on our tracks and never let us slack off. As years rolled by, we worked really hard at home after classes, trying to perfect nrittas and facial expressions and it wasn't until last summer that D finally got it. It was an unbelievable transformation watching her go from struggling with the simplest of adavus to mastering the footwork for a complex jathi. She loves the art form so much now that she wouldn't hesitate a second when called for practice at home or wake up at 7 am on a weekend morning to show up for classes. The encouragement she gets from our guru is tremendous. I am so glad I didn't withdraw D from classes. We are both indebted to our teacher for cultivating in us the dedication, passion, perseverance, strength and focus to not just dance but tackling anything in life. She taught us what it is to never give up and just take a challenge head on with full gusto until we got it right. What I love the most is learning dance under her tutelage is a complete experience - We don't just learn the dance but she takes time to explain the meaning behind every word of every song and dance we learn. She may not spend all the classes teaching dance. Some classes are all about listening to her talk about the richness of our heritage, the lineage and legacy of traditions, the temples of south India, the dances of India, the mythological stories. Some classes are all about learning taalas, nadais, the structure of different dances and we spend a lot of time working out the taala numbers on the board for footwork. At the end of every class, I walk out with even more passion than I had before. She has amazing clarity in her speech and I can spend hours just listening to her talk about anything in this world. My motivation comes from the very fact that at more than 60 years of age, she is at the dance studio on every Saturday and Sunday from 8 AM to 5 PM with complete dedication to every student who attends classes. Apart from this she works through the week training 12-15 students every year for arangetrams. D and I are blessed to be under her tutelage and wish for many more years of learning this beautiful art from her.
I got the book I've mentioned here from our guru recently after a class when she talked about the history of Bharatnatyam. It has the basics of Bharatnatyam - the different hand gestures, the postures, and a few other things about the different items in Bharatnatyam. There are a lot of shlokas/verses for each hand gesture and I thoroughly enjoyed reading about it and the dasavatharam gestures too.
I will continue to find books which delve deep into the history of classical dances, the South Indian temples and the famous dancers of India. I am so glad that both D and I have finally found something that we are so passionate about and enjoy so much. We can't imagine a world without dance now!
