Oh My India!

Last weekend i got this wonderful opportunity to be with SWARA Community Arts Center at Publika, Solaris Dutamas for a show organised by Prevail Productions and this time i was doing what i love most....yes, taking pictures! Since Swara's photographer guy was not available for the weekend i just came in to help take a few pictures for our documentation. I was absolutely delighted as i always felt theres something about taking pictures of dance and dancers or any kind of performances on the whole which is totally satisfying. For instance you catch a move which otherwise might only last a few seconds in life...you get to freeze their beautiful expressions to be admired again and again. Sometimes you in fact get to see a lot more in a picture then in life! But only problem was, at the moment i have a simple Canon powershot camera which though is good for zooming in 30X, it is not able to freeze movements clearly as the features of this camera isn't really meant for sports or movement. Still, since we had no choice and all we needed was some pics for the records i agreed to do my best.  

This show had 10 different genres of indian traditional dance, 9 of it being classical and one folk. Truly amazing performance from all dancers! And i was pretty satisfied with the shots i managed to take! I was so happy to know that everyone in Swara liked my pictures a lot  So, i will let my pics say the rest :)

This one is my fav pic of this amazing dance called Yakshagana, originating from Karnataka, India. as i was helping her, i was amazed at the number of accessories it required, it was all so heavy and took 3 hours to get dress with make up done!

As i was helping her getting dressed up, i told her that no Odissi or Bharathanatyam dancers should ever complain about having to wear too much for performances :) 

And here she is after 3 hours with her amazing performance

Below is the popular dance genre called Kathakali, a dance form of the Malayalees from Kerala, India performed by Geetha Shankaran Lam 

Below is a picture of the awesome Kathak dancer, Nitin Shirale. I am sure you can see how graceful he is from this shot, every turn and every pose is picture perfect though he swirls like a tornado! Truly breathtaking moves and grace. This is the third time i watched him perform and i am falling in love with Kathak already! 

Here's our very elegant and graceful bharathanatyam dancer, Neha Mondal Chakravathy. She does the most aggressive Shiva thandavas with such lightness, almost floating around the stage, simply beautiful!

The emcee explaining about the folk and classical dances with the folk dancers 

Joyous and fun to watch :) 

Below is Geetha Shankaran's son performing Odissi!

Here's the entire team!

I always loved photography but somehow never took it seriously. This recent opportunity and the feedback from Swara members, family and friends made me realise that i should take it further :) 

Big thanks to my sitar master Samuel J Dass who trusted me with my tiny camera for such a huge and important show!! It was quite funny to be standing next to the"canggih manggih" (Malaysian term for professional/ Hi Tech)  camera persons with their huge cameras balanced on tripod taking pictures and video!! One of the photographers actually smiles at me, looks at my cam and says "that's nice" which clearly sounded like... "what are you trying to do with the toy, lady" hehehhe....but well, you just wait OK?? ;)  

The Master Plan

How often do we pause to wonder "how did i get to this point?" to realise that we did not plan it to be what it is currently. While we planned something else, with some idea about how we want to go about life and what we want to do, let it be work or family, something interferes here and there, blocks your route, puts the lights out, gets you groping in darkness, bump into walls till we find an outlet somewhere desperately and take the chance (mostly because there's no other choice!). 

Then on this new route we find some light again so we keep going in that route though it might seem blurry, but we are once again stopped! and the whole process repeats itself leaving us exhausted beyond our limits. We drop! and pick ourselves up even if its with the last ounce of courage that's left. Again groping in darkness to find another door, this time the light gets a little brighter. 

So we keep going almost believing that this will be the final route only to be blocked again! The interesting thing is, by now we have become immune to these obstacles that even the boulders on our path begin to look like little pebbles....we have gained that much strength with all the work out we got on the way. So, we stop calmly at the boulders, knowing that something or someone will soon remove it....for that's how its has been all the way, and we wait patiently instead of knocking our heads on it, unnecessarily. Soon enough, the boulders magically roll away, leaving the path free and bright for us to continue. This time we take the route knowing there will be more boulders, and yet we are not distressed by it as we also know that they too will be removed :)

It is at this point, we gain the presence of mind to pause and think about where we are! And we are surprised that we just love the place and couldn't have planned it ourselves to get there! And we wonder in amazement..."How did that happen?" 

Well if you could draw a map of these series of routes, diversions, obstacles and blackouts in our life, we will SEE that they fit perfectly into a MASTER PLAN.  

We are meant to get there but since we did not have the wisdom to find our path in early stages, we keep resisting and trying to adamantly stay on a less difficult route. But no one escapes the Master Plan.

LIFE is WHOLE, there are no individual life as it seems to be. The system is WHOLE. Every ant needs to be in its place for the system to work. The universe cant afford to let us choose our paths. Or it will be in total chaos. So, all we need to do is to learn how to fit into this master plan. The best way to avoid much injuries would be to let ourselves flow in with it. By being joyful despite the chaos of the moments. By making every point of our life a memorable one. By enjoying the simple pleasures. By knowing that the "bad" people in our lives are put there to divert our routes and emotions. By learning as much as we can from every situation. By not repeating the same mistakes. By trusting the Master Plan who always knows better! 

When we practice these things, life instantly gets lighter...this is what the scriptures refer to as SURRENDER. Leave it to the Master Plan. Stop resisting and hurting unnecessarily. 

LET GO! and DANCE with LIFE :)