The Good, The Bad, the Binge and Karma
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| Photo taken by Sagar on our boat ride on the Yamuna River. |
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| Boat launch near Yamuna Devi Temple |
Then of course there is the challenge to balance my energies
on a day-to-day basis so that I feel like I am taking advantage of the
opportunities available to me while I am in India. I can be compulsive, and I know
it is crucial for me to take breaks from any activity where I lose track of
time. In the studio I am constantly vigilant about trying to pace class and
rehearsals to fit the schedule and the focus of the dancers. But when meeting
new people, writing, preparing the next day’s projects, taking pictures, or
even shopping for necessities, I find myself lost in time. So I use
“background” noise that has a proscribed duration to keep me aware of how much
time I have spent in an activity.
In Delhi, there is no TV for me to use as background noise or
occasional distraction. So I log onto Hulu and watch “This Is Us”, to regulate
the length of breaks I take from other things. The danger for me is getting
caught up in the storylines and watching the next episode… I think binge
watching goes with being compulsive. Ironically, growing up in Jamaica has
tinted my perspective on life in ways I am still discovering, and watching a
show based in the USA while I’m in India, just makes the characters and their
environment seem all the more like a fairytale. I do love fairytales, but I
don’t think that is quite the intent of the series.
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| with Santosh Nair (on my left) and his dancers |
Everyone to whom I have been introduced, mostly by email or
text (WhatsApp is definitely the most preferred “Instant Message” (IM) platform
in India), has been incredibly generous in meeting with me. Last week alone, I
met with five different people whom are integral to the institutions to which
they are affiliated. I’ll make note of people and places when I have news to
put them in context, otherwise this will become like some weird genealogical
listing of names. Remembering who put me in touch with whom and to which
organization an individual is associated is still quite challenging for me to
keep track of myself. At least, I am feeling more settled in Delhi and I am
fairly comfortable (after my third solo excursion) shopping for fruit and
sundries. I even got a haircut! It’s funny how that feels like a huge
accomplishment to me.
Beyond just meeting to introduce myself and to find out more
about the extensive dance scene in Delhi, I am learning more about the
competitive culture of training dancers and running companies/studios in India.
Based in a centuries old tradition of guru and devotee, very few dance teachers
work for multiple training academies, as you might find in the “open class”
system in New York City, where students jump from studio to studio to follow
certain teachers. Similarly this becomes true of the dance students as well,
where they train exclusively under a single guru or at one institution.
All of this said, I am very grateful to Ashley Lobo and his
Danceworx academies in Mumbai and Delhi for welcoming me, based solely on a
reference from the US-India Educational Foundation (USIEF) that oversees my
Fulbright-Nehru grant. Having a chance to work consistently with different
levels of students over the weeks I am here is allowing us time to explore
different approaches to learning and dancing so that every dancer has a chance
to find their own sense of achievement and growth. And I hope the directors and
staff find my presence supportive of their goals with the dancers.
For the dancers who may never have a chance to travel
outside of India, or be able to afford to see in person, the rare appearance of
a ballet company or Western contemporary dance company locally, it is hard to
conceive how movement they see on YouTube videos might actually feel in their
own bodies. I remember being the only boy on the island of Jamaica taking ballet
classes at one point, and my teacher, Punkie Facey, trying to explain advanced
grand allegro steps to me that were not in the syllabus for the girls. In my
day there were no videos to watch, and conceptualizing a step and movement I
had never seen was a feat of will power. At a certain point, when I could do a
new “step” I started to find the rhythm inside of the action or complicated
technical feat and just imagined that what I was doing was correct. After all,
I could successfully execute the step repeatedly, and my teacher moved on to
teach me new movement vocabulary. For the dancers here, I have been getting
them to improvise how they think a piece of classical music would make them
move and usually it’s pretty close to the ballet or modern “step” I want them
to perform. If they understand the “heartbeat” of a movement, it is pretty easy
for me to refine the finesse of the execution. Sadly, I feel like my ability to
demonstrate certain things has “moved on from this life.” So I am challenging
the young dancers to imagine the unimaginable.
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| Prakriti at Triveni Kala Sangam |
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| Shridarani Gallery at Triveni |
Visiting Triveni Kala Sangam and the India International
Centre was suggested by a longtime associate of mine from the San Francisco Bay
Area, Renee, who is friends with some of the most esteemed classical Indian dance
gurus based in Delhi. I will definitely write more about these institutions as
I will be returning to them very soon for a variety of events. But it was such
a pleasure to wander the various galleries and grounds of Triveni Kala Sangam
and contemplate my own views of what I find most distinctive about an Indian
aesthetic in Art and architecture.
On Sunday, I was invited to join my friend, Sumeet, at a
location shoot in Vrindavan, for a Bollywood musical movie that he is working
on as choreographer. Vrindavan is about a three-hour drive South of Delhi on
the banks of the Yamuna River which also runs by the Taj Mahal in Agra. It is
known for its many temples and as the childhood home of Lord Krishna which
factors into much of the mythology for which different temples were built.
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| Cows, Cars, Cycles, Trucks, Busses and Auto-Rickshaws |
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| On the road to Vrindavan and the roadside "vehicle tax payment center!" |
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| View from the highway in Uttar Pradesh |
I
decided I would hire a car and driver for the day, and my liaison at Danceworx
here in Delhi, Sagar, kindly offered to accompany me on the excursion. He had
arranged the driver, Mr. Kamlesh, whom I think is a friend of his. Sagar’s
company would be fortuitous in bridging my language deficiency in a few crucial
moments. The first was in getting me out to the Yamuna River by auto-rickshaw
where he negotiated the fare for us, as there was a possibility that cars were
not allowed in the area I wanted to visit. Then he asked if I wanted to go out
on a boat ride, which the “water tiger” in me always wants to do, and again he
negotiated the cost, and I used my “privileged tourist” resources to hire the
whole boat for the two of us, rather than wait for other visitors to fill the
boat. In this particular area of Vrindavan I did not see many foreigners
around, and the mostly Indian tourists who were deciding if they wanted to go
on a boat ride did not seem anxious to join us. Large bodies of water really do
bring me a sense of calm, even when I have been in life-threatening situations.
And on this day, the boat ride was the perfect prophylactic panacea. 
Sumeet was
late arriving in Delhi, and thus I had time on my hands to sightsee with Sagar
and the Mr. Kamlesh, and ultimately, I also had to find my own lunch. Sagar to
the rescue once again. My only quirk about my interactions in India is the
social divide between the privileged who “have means” and those that “serve.” I
could not convince Sagar and Mr. Kamlesh to eat lunch with me, and so I went
into a restaurant they found for me, and had lunch on my own. I randomly
ordered one of the dosa selections, a vegetarian tikka masala and steamed rice.
It is nice that since a large proportion of India’s population is vegetarian,
the first question when being asked about having a meal is, “Do you want veg or
non-veg?” The second question is, “Do you like spicy?” Fortunately I am happy
with spicy food and I am not usually desperate to eat non-veg all the time. The
seasonal vegetables and wide range of beans used in Indian cuisine are
spectacularly delicious and filling dishes.
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| rehearsal |
Three hours later than scheduled, I finally got to meet up
with Sumeet, and I chuckled to myself that my friend Kim, in New York City, had
jokingly said she would be looking out for any “Taylor” moves turning up in
Bollywood films. I have no connection to this film other than knowing the
choreographer, but I have been teaching classes to his company. Location film
shoots are pretty much the same everywhere, there is a lot of set up and
preparation, blocking and testing camera shots, and in this case there were
multiple takes with different camera setups: a steady cam, a stationary camera,
a drone camera, and the multiple lens options. And I was happy to just sit by
and observe. The unique aspect of this particular shoot was that it took place inside the temple courtyard sanctuary of
ISKCON (International Society of Krishna Consciousness) Vrindavan where cameras
are not generally allowed, and this was the first time this temple was allowing
a commercial production shoot to take place. However, it was also being shot
during some of the busiest times while the temple was open to the public. I
don’t envy the production assistants who kept pleading with visitors to the
temple to focus on the temple and not the goings on of the film shoot, and then
keeping said visitors out of camera-shot. Oh the magic of film editing and
multiple camera viewpoints. The lead actress was surrounded by trained Odissi
dancers, and she had a hard time keeping up. But the few playbacks I saw made
her look pretty good.
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| ISKCON Vrindavan |
Now comes my personal “Indian” tale. I had been brought onto
“set” by Sumeet as they were setting up for rehearsal in the temple sanctuary
where shoes are not allowed to be worn. So we dropped our shoes right outside
the entrance to the temple. I never left the temple for the next four hours,
until I was ready to leave. As I exited with Sumeet, I mentioned that I needed
to get my sandals. They were nowhere to be found. Sumeet explained to me that
“flipping” (throwing away) shoes left outside of temples was a common practice,
and in his youth, he would sometimes find some other person’s shoes and wear
them, if his went missing. He had actually left the temple snctuary earlier and
moved his shoes to one of the “shoe-check” kiosks near the entrance to the
temple complex, but had not thought about the fact that my shoes were still
loitering next to where his had been.
The truth of the matter was that I did not really mind that
I had lost my shoes. I was happy that I had my own driver waiting to bring me
back to my door step in Delhi, so I would only be barefooted for a short walk
(or so I imagined) outside to find the car. Still, Sumeet insisted the he give
me his shoes, and we went to the kiosk where he had left his. Sumeet then asked
the “shoe-keeper” for his shoes, but also whether there were any foreign
looking shoes that had been dropped for safekeeping. Lo and behold, the
shoe-keeper produced a pair of Croc sandals that looked just like mine. I tried
them on and they fit like Cinderella’s slippers. In the back of my mind I
thought that this was just too easy, but I was tired and it was getting late if
I wanted to be back in Delhi before midnight. I remember also being struck by
the fact that I did not recall the Croc lettering on my shoes being blue, and
again I rationalized that nowhere else in India had I been seeing any Croc
sandals in the style I was wearing, and these were my size, if a little more
comfortable than I remembered.
However, I did notice there were a lot of foreigners in Vridavan and in the
temple. I was told that a lot of Russians, Australians, Europeans and a few
Americans seeking enlightenment have settled in Vrindavan worshipping or living
at the ISKCON temple.
As I left the temple to meet up with Sagar and then walk
to where Mr. Kamlesh had parked. It was early evening, and the street was packed
with cars, rickshaws, motorcycles, carts and people: hawkers, beggars, families
visiting myriad temples that line the main road for three or four kilometers.
Typically temples are open in the mornings and then again after four in the
afternoon until around eight or nine at night. But it is at night that the
temples come to life, many of the commercially successful ones like ISKCON have
restaurants, bakeries and snack counters, and the temples themselves are lit
with bright colored lights while some temples boast animatronic models of
Krishna and other mythological tales to the delight of younger and older
visitors alike. I was glad I was not walking barefooted.
Once back in Delhi, I started reviewing my pictures from the
day’s adventures, and I noticed a picture taken of me where my sandals clearly
had orange lettering, not blue! I did indeed have someone else’s
shoes, with no easy way to return them or even to find out to whom they
belonged. I even wondered if I dared to write about this, when I was feeling so
guilty that I had “walked off in someone else’s shoes,” and maybe left them to
find their way barefooted. Was I going to suffer some kind of karmic payback for my lack of conscientious
attention to recognizing my own shoes? I had thought they were more comfortable
than I remembered, and discovered that they are a half-size larger than mine.
The next morning I texted Sumeet about my discovery. He messaged me back that the shoe-keeper had heard from the real owner of the shoes, and they found mine at the shoe-kiosk on the other side of the temple grounds. So this other foreign tourist wore my shoes and left. Was Lord Krishna blessing me with a more comfortable shoe, or punishing the other man with walking “home” in a half-size smaller shoe?
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| More cows, sugar cane press, vegetable cart and skeletons of tree and temple. |
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