Hand in hand, on the edge of the sand, they danced by the light of the moon-Edward Lear

It was the day after my birthday, September 2^nd 2019; the bus was ripping through the mountains to reach Anaikatti. On this trail, for few kilometres phone network gets suspended. At this stretch, I rest my head on the window & count the number of mountains I see; sometimes with music on. Clouds were set for a shower, the silence of the mountains took over the noise of the bus’s engine. It started to drizzle, so I didn’t let music distract my solace with mountains. When the network resumed, I opened YouTube; the first song that appeared was “Nila Kaigirathu” by Sid Sriram; hesitantly I played the song. I got down from the bus, listened to the song as I walked to school. The chords of the song hit straight to the heart & ripped a smile on my face.

I heard it the second time, third time and about 1000^th time (No exaggeration). When I hear an unplugged version of a song that I have never heard before, I look for the original version. I searched for it, listened to it on loop and this time the chords hit straight to the heart & to my legs & to my hands & to my eyes. I listened to this song on repeat, all the time. I would sit & dance imagining choreography in my head. As my understanding of Tamizh, is minimal; I looked for the translation of the lyrics.

Not being able to be a dancer is the biggest void in my life, there are days I have spent looking at the mirror-posing as a dancer with drenched eyes. This song, ignited a spark to fill that void.

A week later, plans for Children’s Day was setting in. Prema Akka & Vaidehi Akka told me, they have been wanting to do a Dance-Drama for many years. The universe conspired I thought but I had my own self-doubts. I was not sure if I would be able to do justice to the song. I skipped this song, looked for other songs but I was hardly convinced.

As it was for Children’s Day I was looking for a song sung by a child artist and this song happened to be sung by Ms Harini when she was 15 years old. I shared this song with Prema Akka & Vaidehi Akka, they loved it. Every day I would listen to the song, for me to get engulfed in it. As there was a language barrier, I had to prepare myself a lot more than required. Word by word translation is what I needed, all thanks to the internet.

Once I understood the lyrics, the choreography was the next step. I am not a trained dancer, I have learnt Bharatnatyam from a few teachers but it was just to fulfil my void. I lacked the confidence to choreograph or even dance, I watched a few videos of dancers performing for this song; this inspired me. Whenever I had time, I would listen to the song and choreograph steps in my head; be it during lunch or even when I am conversing with someone. The song kept ringing in my head, non-stop!

10 days prior to Children’s Day, we started our practice. I have no dreams to be a performer, neither did I anticipate that I will be performing someday in front of my lovely children.

The first few steps and act was a bit challenging to communicate exactly how I had imagined. The first day was satisfactory but not as much as I expected it to be, I was still under-confident. The second day it all appeared like magic, dance flew through our nerves and showed up on our face.

This song will always remain as a song that let a dancer out of me, a performer out of me, a choreographer out of me, an artist out of me.

There it still rings in my head, “Atho pogindrathu aasai megam…” There it is where it grooves my heartbeats.

Blooming…

Wild Flower