dec 24:a dance-filled evening!

I'm neither a dancer nor a dance buff,yet my mom insisted  i accompany her to a dance programme,in which my younger sister was to participate.my younger sister ,always a dancer right from childhood,was always encouraged by her parents to hone her dancing skills making her join dance classes,to learn bharatnatyam. being a south-indian myself,my mom never let me learn bharatnatyam.i dont regret not learning it,but
as most of south indian girls learn this form,irrespective of their interest in it,some of them make it their career later,i too felt i should have had a knowledge about it.nevertheless,i enjoy watching dance,so i relented.
       the programme was to be conducted in a temple.as soon as i entered the premises,all i could see was excited faces of all the participating children and the most happiest were their parents.their zest and enthusiasm was admirable,the proud parents bringing their children all decked up.a huge crowd of all their
parents,relatives had gathered,the premises being small to accomodate so many of them.but nobody seemed to mind,the thought of seeing your child perform in front of such a huge audience made them forget all that.we squeezed ouselves into a small space,just enough to view half of the stage.i watched some of the people seated comfortably on chairs,(a bit envious of them).i was upset,couldn't they even arrange for some place to sit and watch the dance peacefully?while i was wondering at how others didn't seem to mind about this problem,i could notice there was chaos backstage as well,among the teacher and the students,
im sure they didnt anticipate such a huge crowd to show up in such a small temple.amongst all this hullabaloo,the show commenced.
         the 1st dance was presented by a group of  children.i was surprised to see those small children,i guess they must be aged barely 5-6yrs.all of them were looking so sweet in their outfit ,the standard 9yard ,worn in that typical form.i wasnt expecting them to dance those complicated mudras that i have seen,but wen they danced,i was flabbergasted!!so beautifully and effortlessly they executed their moves,with so much grace,with apt facial expressions(facial expressions being the prominent feature of bharatnatyam).that was followed by  a dance by the seniors.they too danced well,their dance clearly showing their years of experience in dance.watching as a layman,anyone would clearly understand the stories of the great gods that their dance represented.the music so soothing,the synchronized movements of all the dancers,on the beat,their salangais or ankle bells(the rhythm produced by those ankle bells was enough,i felt the background song wasnt required!)but still i felt they were no match for their juniors,the juniors clearly were stealing the show!
all parents were pointing out their children in the dance,cheering for their children.whether it was a single song or many songs,it was more than enough for them to see their children perform.Wat a moment of pride it was!some of the parents already dreaming of their children becoming great dancers!
 i,too,felt proud seeing my sister perform.it made me nostalgic,as a child, she would say she would grow up to become a dancer,and nw,here she was!taking her big steps towards her dream!
i returned home ,very much impressed.the programme had not only won the students and the teacher lot of accolades from the audience, but had also gained a fan of this great dance form!

revisiting happiness....

i start with the most toughest phase, so far, of my life,i.e my 12th board,the simple reason that i was unable to cope up with !i felt i was packed into a closed room with sooo many people,where we compete to stay  for the longest  time,the most capable gets out successfully!it was suffocating for me those entire 2 years!i looked forward to those 2 yrs with lot of fervour and enthusiasm,excitement,motivated,passionate to do something,but i had never foreseen that those 2 years would see a complete transformation in myself!
my enthusiasm was shattered within 2 days!ohh damn,there were people out there a thousand miles ahead of   me!
soon realisation struck me,that i was not even an ant before those scholars!i gradually started losing confidence in myself, i no longer felt motivated,i always felt dejected when compared with my much better off peers,seeing our professors biased towards students alleviated that feeling!i felt miserable,as if i was of no use!i didn't want to work harder,what was the use!i just wanted it to end!
i started losing interest in everything,unfortunately even in studies!
exams ended,with it ended the most anxiety filled journey!we had been relieved of that tough ordeal,
the holidays after the exams felt heavenly!this was the new beginning,a new phase of my life was to begin.....
after a lot of consensus,pharmacy was what i decided to do!
the year i joined pharmacy,it was as if God himself  awarded me time,time to do all those things that i missed doing in that fierce competition!
i realised that the reason for my disinterest in everything was lack of time!all i needed was just TIME,time for myself!!!
the desire to do something new,to explore,to do something different from the others started building up.
some incidents occured that year that rekindled some of my interests.i wanted to learn a musical instrument,
wanted to revisit my reading habit,wanted to pursue singing again!
i fulfilled all of these wishes!
Learning something new everyday gave me immense satisfaction!singing lifts your soul,makes you forget all your sorrows!playing a musical instrument perks you up.we are CREATING music ourselves,wow!its feels wonderful to see or hear something that you have created yourself!
i started reading books,by means of which i cud pass my time (that too fruitfully)
i was doing all that i hadn't even dreamt of!these activities definitely boosted my confidence,and gave me immense satisfaction!
i was now observing a  change in myself!however my day was,i was always happy at the end!
i was no longer dejected,i stopped comparing myself with my peers!
now was the time to gain maximum,learn maximum!i was now experiencing  true happiness,that time which i was in dire need of,for myself,that time which was impossible to find during my boards.Like childhood,where we are free of all worries,play and enjoy to the maximum,these activities rid me of all tension!
it was now that truely, i was revisiting my lost happiness.....

aug 18th,2011-fraught with adventures

ok,7 in the morning,the day starts on a gud note!i get ready for college as usual,usual monotonous routine!and i leave,completely unaware of what lies ahead today!catch the usual train to kurla(its always a hard time we face climbing ,but always somehow mangae to !),the fast train reaches us to kurla in 15 mins,(phew!a relief),contrary to the slow trains !we reach kurla(i wud describe it as a sleazy place!i simply hate it!).i walk towards the depot,in the company of my dear friend.all of a sudden,somebody calls out my name,i turn behind to see my class mates standing in what seemed like an endless queue!ohh shit!it hit me suddenly!today was this supposedly BEST strike!and that endless queue was for auto rickshaw!standing in that queue would have cost us our practicals today!so we came to a joint consensus!having just 45 mins in our hands,we decided to walk it up!!!!omg!we are going to walk the entire distance,till our college!!bloody hell, it is an entire  5 KM that we had to cover,that too WALKING!having no alternative,we tread on the path!treading on those dirty roads,the loneliness of that path!to add to all this drama,it starts raining!that too heavy rains!ohh god,those merciless rains!nothing at all seemed to have mercy on us today!and the time constraint also!god help us!

                                        we reach the college, almost drenched,that too dot on time!ok forget all that,we had to rush immediately for practicals!no time to even sit,keeping aside all that pain,hastily we ready ourselves for the pracs!ok after that 5KM walk,we stand in the lab,sweating it out for 4HRS!!!god!after the pracs,legs aching like hell,the first morsel of food felt like heaven!eating to my hearts content,feeling so relieved that finally the hectic day was coming to an end!ohh,again,it striked me,i have a lecture !!ooh god!

                             with our tired minds,we sit for the lectures.though i tried hard to concentrate,mind strayed away,thinking about all the weird things that we had to go through today!lectures end,time to go home!hey bt wait,nw comes a big problem,how do we go back?the transport hadnt resumed by then,and we were definitely not prepared to walk it up again!so we wait for some time!every refusing ferry(i felt like banging each of their heads)was making us think of some other alternative!then we see a private bus in our vicinity,a slight ray of hopes in our minds,we ask the driver if they cud drop us till kurla station.the driver agrees,relief on all our faces,and really thankful to the driver,we are finally driven till kurla!ohh no the scene was not at all looking good,there was knee-length water completely filling that area!yuck!to add to all this,we had to wade through that dirty water!but the desire to reach home made us forget all that!we waded through that dirt,we climb the train,every passing station seemed like eternity!finally reached home,

felt like  had accomplished something,passing through all those hassles!i retire to bed,awaiting some new adventure again!