My one last dance

I am scared to show myself to people
Cos I know you wont be there to protect me from them

I hide myself in layers
Cos there is noone who can understand the "me" without them
Like you did

the roads are empty...the bars are closed
I stand outside with my glass of wine

Tell me who to turn to, for my share of love
Tell me who to run to, for my happiness

And don't tell me I am my source of happiness
Cos I lost myself to you
Long long ago...so long ago
No body knows...how long ago

My new year dance with you..is still unfinished
I have yet to bring it to the climax

Hold on for me..till I do that..please

Saturday nights

Saturday nights..some nights when I used to think
"the world is still mine to claim"

Those lonely bus rides to some arbitrary mall..
listening to songs on head phone of some music shop..weird songs
Songs I never heard thereafter

Settling down in some dhaba..feeling like a queen among minions
Is that how it feels when the world seems just a part of you..just a speck
And you feel bigger than the world

Its been a while since I did any of that..a while when I stepped out to enjoy rain and the shiny lights of the city
A while when I was me

Start light..star bright

This feeling to be close to nature is coming so strong these days
Don't know, if it has to do with my Aaru?

Its the fact that I want him to witness all things beautiful and grand in this life and universe
....and nature is the grandest of it all..
..the waterfalls, the butterfly-filled garden and most of it...STAR LIT SKY

I keep downloading nursery rhymes for him(I learnt so many cos of him and he is so addicted to me singing it to him) and there is this one which goes
"Star light, star bright,
The first star I see tonight
I wish I may, I wish I might,
Have the wish I wish tonight"

There is this panda opening a window, all big eyed and running out into the field, looking at start, climbing a ladder sky high to touch the stars, meeting birds on the way

I just found it so close to my heart, yet so out of reach..mysterious and shrouded in some memory from another life

I have seen the moon and stars lying on my back on my terrace and sleeping through the night on the terrace
Watching stars, tracing the question mark(constellation) and each time being overwhelmed by a sense of victory on finding it and also marveling at it

I wonder if I could give the same childhood to Aaru..I show him pictures of moon but struggle to show him real moon from the apartment

The nature in its richness and beauty is an answer to so many things, if only I could go close to it and experience the bliss

Rain, stars, sea, the roar..ocean ...beauty beauty beauty in abundance
Every single part of nature, has the capacity to take you away from mundane and the pain

I wish some day..some day soon...I could show the real stars to Aaru..which he so sweetly shows me with his hand movements

The gynae appointment and next few days

After hearing about possibility of 1 in 10 of a child with DS from anamoly scan, I visited my gynae at the fag end of the day

Dont know what I expected, maybe some miraculous wordsm but what she said went in haze for me

She started preaching me on what a child with DS can have a life, and asked if I wished to confirm it

I said what if I wish to have the child any which way?

She said - Then dont get this expensive test done, if your decision is made, go ahead

I came back so quiet, my mother was also quiet. It was just the 2 of us(its mostly just the 2 of us)

When there is too much happening inside you, and noone to actually blame for it, you go in a shell

When we reached home, it was late, and by then I had a plan...I wanted to get a 2nd opinion as anamoly scnas are not a 100% diagnosis. With that in mind, I felt lighter and thought of telling it to the husband

I called him on face time pretty late and told him whatever happened in the scan and that I wanted to get a 2nd opinion.

His exact words said with a very sheepish, guilty face " meri maano to test kara lo, you should learn and read about DS more and understand what a life with such a child can be. You should take an informed decision"

INFORMED DECISION!

When people say such amalagm of words which sound politically right yet dont make any sense, I shut down completely.

What does that mean, that I either abort, or continu pregnancy in distrubed state of mind?? Cos nothing can be done about DS in the womb!

Basically these words were just a disguise to tell me to end it

But I ended the call, telling him that it was a mistake to call him

After that I knew that thic child and my destiny are together. I am the sole person to decide on pregnancy, and also whatever follows after delivery(if the baby has DS). But in none of it, ending the pregnancy was a choice

After that days went in a haze

There is a much proclaimed scan center in bangalore where getting an apoointment is a pain

My borther in law stood in line at 6 Am the next day to get it, I got the appointment on the same day at 1 PM, I took half a day from office and reached the center on my own while my sister and mother came there to join me

I waited in a zoned state and held on to my gut when the doc started it, my husband is in healthcare and somehow got contact of this doctor and the doc already knew me and my trepiditions when I went to him

He vehemently rubbished all the soft markers(be it the nose, or the feet ) which actually came true(yet DS)

I heaved a sigh of relief and went about pregnancy happier.

When Aaru, Araadhya was born and 9.34 AM on a wednesday morning on 30th July 2014, I heard my gynae shout "Its a boy", my husband cut the umbilical chord and brought him to me and one look at his gorgeous face and the all my remaining fears were gone

I kissed his forehead and happiness spread like a drug in my blood

I felt so so so proud

During my 6 hours of recovery, I was dying to go out and see my people. To feel the shared happiness. To live this pride with them

I was restless and called upon nurse so many times to ask when can I be released

Sharing cos it does not leave me alone

It was Christmas time, a log time ago
Something looked very mysterious about the way clouds overdid the sun and candle lights would show up in houses during day time.
It made me dream and imagine things I cant put my words into

We had tenants who were christians and had invited us to a chirstmas party that year 25th december

But the cold grew into chilly waves and my father decided against going anywhere..
I was (and still am) the kind of person who has to see a plan take off and get done

It makes me edgy, lost and feel like a loser if I dont execute something I want to..or planned
So I fought and argued but at the age of 10, there is hardly much you can do or control anything

So that 25th December sat heavy on my heart for years, tormenting me in various forms

How we always want to live a part or a moment we could not,
How it torments us, that kandeel(paper lamps) I imagined and could not see comes in my dreams and even waking moments
Its something I was supposed to live but did not

That same moist sunless day tantalizes me with some promises, promises which it did not make but I held it reposnsible for

Those childhood/adolescence particles of hope and desire and magic never let go of us..has us in its grips for life..more so if they are unfulfilled

Orchestrated happiness

Do you recall the last few minutes of you in bed, just before you fall in the arms of sleep, the semi-slumber state?
That unguarded state of you, when there is a slur in your diction and abandon in your words.
You say stuff to someone close to you, things you would not utter otherwise in senses.

You are drifting away, or maybe catching up with yourself
The part of you, you lose in daylight, comes to sense

The smell of the entwined words, of you and the one close to you in the bed, holding both of you in its mysterious embankment

The richness of your being is in it true and full form..in the abyss of the night
Thats what they call bliss

A bliss you never knew existed in such moments
A bliss you remember to miss, when you cant remember when was the last time you felt that

And then you wish to recreate that, you dont even sometimes know you are searching for such trivial moments in your life

A dear friend of mine once told me "R, these moments that are passing us while we laugh, roam around in oblivion to all that has gone and is yet to come..this is true happiness. And once this is gone, for the rest of our lives, we can pretend to be happy."

Some words of wisdom from a guy I thought could not think deeply.

है मेरी  दुआ की जब हम मिले, तो देखे मुझे मेरे दोस्त एक बार यूँ ही
जैसे मिले अजनबी
हम फिर से चले, तो फिर से हँसे, मैं फिर से उड़ूँ ,पाऊ नयी ख़ुशी
जैसे मिले अजनबी

Rustic me

Urbane is not for me, its the rustic which always excites and unstiches me

I am trying to figure out that part in me which relents to something like that..

You appear as some one sauve and sophisticated with the right most expression and gravest smile on your face, but when you break into a punjabi gaali under your breath, thats when you make me smile

You are the graciosu lady who loves to be the perfect bahu, wife, giver for the world
But when you give in to hysterical laughter is when you make me fall in love with you

I guess we strive to find a part of us in any and everyone we meet..
that ME which resonated with something un-accountable in me

And when we see it somewhere..we run after that

Be it a song, a poem, a person...a moment..a love..a hatred..a madness..a sadness
Something which keeps reminding us of what we are...and keeps us alive

How can we ever get past us...and this "I" we so nicely concocted, and coveted

And so this song is also about me..

It does not belong to me in the first few lines
But when it breaks into tabla at 1.12 seconds..its all mine to claim..to love.to hate..to reminisce..to love..to cry..to belong..to disown...to just be ME

Raatein jaagengen raaton mein....Teri bemaani baaton mein..

One of those things

In my last post I talked about lots of things being on my mind...
One of it was me getting on stage with kathak, after 15 years

As you grow, you lose so much of yourself, which can only be revived by doing what you love doing

And in times like these, when you are trying to regain yourself, you realise how much of you has been lost

You find yourself little mellow, in everything you do...or everything that was so you

And kathak was such a thing for me

And I felt I could not be what I used to be (even though the bit I wad doing was no where close to what I used to perform earlier, in terms of complexity), and that made me little shaky..
I could not do that stuff by letting my vigor be chipped away

And for that reason I created multiple reasons in my mind, and told my sister that I wont take part

Cos she was the one who had organised this whole show, to showcase her institute and her students along with a kathak dance teacher caller Murari(who incidentally knew my guru too) and his students

This sister is the one I wrote about here :
http://memoriesofaworldelsewhere.blogspot.in/2011/08/she-is-doing-her-bit.html

and here:
http://memoriesofaworldelsewhere.blogspot.in/2010/09/presenting-malvika.html

I said "I dont like the girl I am dancing with, she doesnt give me right vibes"
then "I am not his student so I guess he is not interested in involving me in this programme" (I was like a guest dancer and not his regular student. But I was the one who initiated this and asked her to ask him to include me in his compositions)
and another "I wanted to do this cos I hoped a more enjoyable experience and an environment of dance and music, but thats not happening here, since they practice separately and I am just like an add-on"

But for some reason she was so adamant on me performing. She said if I dont like the girl, she would ask him to let me do this solo, etc etc. And finally I gave it a shot.
More to try myself than for anything else.

And gradually the enthusisam started creeping in.
When we had the final stage practice, I felt so different.

I was that girl who used to be so sure of herself on stage, I always knew all eyes are glued on me when I dance.
I would look at people in their eyes while dancing and would see them looking at me and that gave me a high
But this time I had no clue, I just wanted to get thru it.

But after that stage rehearsal, when I went down, all the women there(sister's students) gave me a boost which I have been lacking.
Some said "You are far more elegant than the other woman"
Some "I could not take my eyes off you"
And I got my reward in small ways, dance must be in my veins

Here we go again...after 15 years

I am for keeps

I am in Gurgaon - late in the night..a Saturday night
Smell of smoke in the air
I am in a bar, a happening one, as per the standards

But I dint quite enjoy anything inside the bar  till now, I was just trying to sway to my moods, which dint uplift
I had a few beer mugs, but then I am a pro and a few beer mugs do nothing for me now

But suddenly, while I waited for people to finish what they were doing, I sat on the bench outside
Half drunk, half asleep, I looked up

There it was, my moon..I looked around..

There were women, head bent while they text-ed away to someone
Their faces convoluted in some fake misery, over a false love, over an emotion they so wanted in life, that they resorted to faking

I looked up again at the moon, inhaled the smoke, it gave me a high which the beer mugs could now
I was drowning in a sense of deja vu..I was one of those women sometime
Drunk, texting and madly in love..with someone..or with myself?

I could inhale the smoke the whole night and not budge
I was falling in love again...with something..someone..or the moment
Nostalgia of some kind hit me strong

Delhi of some other time floated in front of me

I dont know what I remembered, who I recalled, but I remember remembering...
That I am for keeps..that who belongs to me can never get away from me

She and Me

No, she is not my role model. There are so many things I would have wanted her to do differently
Be bolder, stand up for what she wanted and deserved, not be a push over..are some of the thing

I believe in breaking things rather than preserving thier ashes
If something does not work out, get rid of it..anything if not wanted in its totality is a clutter..and life should be free of clutter
But she keeps asking me to preserve, to hold on to things till they fall out of my hands without my mistake
And I either get irritated or laugh at her stale values

Yet, when I speak a harsh word with anyone, when I shout at auto-rickshaw guy, I have this nagging feeling of going an notch below in my image in her eyes

Cos I was always this soft girl, who could not fight the world(Now all I do si fight)

No, she was not a dancer. I dont know whose genes I inherited for the danseuse in me.

"हट बे निखाटू गंवारवा मैं तेरे संग ना जाउंगी " - My mother would teach us this dance in her clumsy, faltering, endearing way

Yet to me, till date, thats my sweetest memory of anything close to sweetness

No, she might not be so good in English, or have had as good an education as we had, or maybe we were a tad better student than her

Yet, my oldest  memory of education is about her asking me to write 100 times in a book, something I could not remember easily

My purest feelings, my overwhelming love and my maddening  anger, I feel only for her

Happy mother's day Ma!

माँ और माँ की जाई 

You will not be lost

If ever you thought you lost any part of you
Come to me
I have all your parts intact, within me

If you feel you lost your mirth,
I will give back that you to you
Who smiled as he got up from bed and winked at me
And I knew, that the day dint belong to me anymore

If you have any doubts about your worth
I will be your reminder
Of how you wiped my fears

All the light, all the shine in you
Are etched in my recess, threaded in my pores
You just have to see me, and be reminded of your glory

If right now you feel like nothing
Remember me, and you will become all that a man like you is meant to be

If I exist, rest assured none of you will be lost ever
We will be in love again
With someone like each other

I might be glorifying you in my mind, but that was meant to be

We never held hands like usual couples, neither of us were the mushy kinds. But you would go overboard with disgust for couples who did all that, around us. Your face bore such expressions of annoyance in them, if we saw a couple feeding one another with their hands or something like that.
And I could never understand your extreme loathing towards anything which had any semblance to intimacy.Maybe by showing your utter disgust for such things,you were dismissing something soft and sweet inside you.

But when I hummed a song while making tea in the kitchen, you would reduce the volume of TV to hear me. And if even then you could not, you would ask me "क्या गा रही हो? जोर से गाओ ना.." (What are you singing, please sing a little louder)

Did you know I felt so unstitched in front of you after that, a warm feeling would sweep all over me..no one has asked me to sing ever, noone has showed interest in something which is not my forte
Yet I would continue in my low volume, acting nonchalant

You would never call me anything other than my bare first full name, in its most correct way
Never "Sweets" or "Baby"
But You would do it with other women, friends or flirt-buddies, I had heard and seen you doing that, but never with me

I was always the woman beyond words of endearment to you

Other men have used those words on me, from most sublime to most obnoxious
But noone ever called my name the way you did..it still rings in my ears sometimes and makes me feel whole

But when we spoke to each other, we never knew which words are to be emphasized, where do the punctuations lie...
Our words just flew around when we were together
Spilling...from me to you and you to me
In its inarticulate form , in its uncouth raw form

I never knew what you liked about my face, or if you found me pretty. Men have had exotic words for my eyes, lips, hair and body..but never you


But then you would sometimes say something like this offhandedly: "Where is that black top of yours? The one you wore last Friday and your hair was swept back tightly in a ponytail. Dint see you wearing it after that?"


You never realized but just there in that moment,you splashed a pretty rainbow in the trajectory of my life. A rainbow I can go and grab anytime.
Why wouldn't that black shirt become my favorite?
I don't tie my hair like that often anymore

We never went thru the stage of infatuation, of dreaminess and flitting glances in a room full of people..we were always where 2 people are, after being comfortable with each other.
The first flush of love gone long past, yet the thirst un-quenched.

Yet when every Thursday, in-spite of all our fights, you would message me "कहीं चलें?" (Shall we go somewhere?). And that would always make me feel all is well with the world, everything is in its place and I can be saved

But I would keep saying "No", though knowing that eventually we will be out on the streets like vagabonds, excavating our past and future

I remember those winters as summers of my life

When you left on 8th October 2004, and we had a spell of no communication for 2 months(though we saw each other daily), you came by my desk and shook my hand, hesitated for a moment as if you wanted me to come along with you somewhere...far away

I dint even look at you, you murmured something, I ignored and you left

Then I blankly stared at the monitor, numb with a feeling of umbilical chord being cut again and again
And I wondered..what is it that you gave me, when you denied me the very nuances of love?

मैं सारी रात कतिया कतिया करून ..
..नचदी फिरूं , टपदी फिरूं, कीली मैं नपदी फिरूं
हद करूं, हद करूं, हद करूं.....
यारा बुल्ले लुटिया करूं , लुटिया करूं, लुटिया करूं
मैनूं डर हुन नइयो जगदा , तेरे लिए हुन जीयु ते मरूं

(I will spin your cotton..I will do anything for you
the whole night
I keep jumping, dancing
I nab the sticks
I reach the limits, the limits
Beloved, I am enjoying myself
I am not afraid anymore of the world
I will live and die for you)

This song and this scene irrevocably reminds me of my days with you

Though I never kept my head on your shoulders, or held you from behind...and you always had that grievance with me



I dont know how many sat behind your bike after me, how many kept their heads on your shoulder, but I do know one thing, with gut wrenching certainty, that you would look for me in each one of them..as I keep doing that..and tuck you inside my heart, like a sweet dish which is to be relished till everything else is gone long away

I might be glorifying you in my mind, but that was meant to be...

Zara zara behakta hai

...My body and heart are losing senses, slowly

This song can set me on fire any time
Whenever I hear it, it sounds like my long lost love

I have no idea what the lyricist, music director and singer planned to do with this song, when they created it
I dont know what exactly their vision was...

But they surely succeeded in devastating me..

Whenever I wish to be in that special place of mine, in my cocoon..I plug my ear phones and play this..and let the magic begin

Bombay Jayshree's voice here is like sheet of velvet, gliding down clear water

There was a time I had driven people crazy with this song..
If in a car, I would insist this song be played umpteen times..or in a party I would acquire the role of a DJ and make all listen to just this song, repeatedly

I first heard this when I was in Goa in 2001, this song had just come out I guess

I was with my sis, brother in law and a certain someone..whom I had just gotten to know and attraction was already in the air..sparks were flying

We were all playing cards
I remember being a little inebriated..I remember him siding up with me in the cards game...giving me that special smile intermittently and humming lines from this song..

"यूँ ही बरस बरस काली घटा बरसे, हम यार भीग जाएँ , इस चाहत की बारिश में ..."
I wish the dark clouds keep pouring just like this, and we lovers get drenched, in this downpour of love

He was a good singer

I cant forget how an inane smile was perpetually stuck to my lips, during the whole Goa trip and how this song refused to leave me ever since..

The smile faded and withered..but the song remains..it made me its captive

The other day, someone was playing this song on full blast in my apartment. I walked out of my flat, transfixed, and stood outside my door for a good 5 minutes to soak in this song in the air
No thoughts, no desires...just this song and my blank mind were together

It must have been love

I have never given much importance to the niceties in a man(for that matter anyone). The extra sweet behavior, courtesy, chivalry, and all that banal talk about how he is all for equality of women, how he is so adjusting, honest and all that crap

That wont impress me.
But you say something original, something which will make me sit up and notice you, which will hit me as a new wave of thought, then I can be your slave(that's exaggeration)

That's awe-inspiring for me. Then I would want to know every bit of you..with my never ending effort

There are things people have told me which I remember for life.
Small things, which have hit me, made me smile or cry, made me think

And one such is, what you told me, 7 years back?

- "R, you do not have soft edges around you. They are these sharp ones. A person has to slide off a little around you and will get hurt by your barbed wires. Things which other women can get by using their femininity, you make it all so righteous. You would never use your charm to get anything, always your conviction that you deserve it."

Though I was very annoyed about something at that point, this statement made me relent.
In a fraction I realized what you meant and in spite of these not-so-nice words, I felt a sense of relief. Relief for seeing the real me. Relief for being with someone who can tell that to me. I went quiet and just looked at you.

Encouraged by my silence you added : "Its like walking on tenterhooks, one small glitch and I fall off."

To that, I giggled and added - "But it has a thrill..an anticipation, right? What if you make it till the end without falling? It gives you a sense of a portentous victory! And you desire to still tiptoe, cos of that one feeling?"

Its not about the sweet things one says, or the harsh things..its so much about the right things..
Blatant honesty is the most innocent thing in a human!.

That's what makes you fall in love with someone..cos they see you as you are
And they can tell you in a way, which is so endearing

Bad or good, polite or rude does not bother then..
What you feel at that point is..maybe a part of your heart can still belong

So, I dint object or accept but we just smiled and savored that feeling, of ....of belonging to someone again..

There is one thing I would like to tell you, if I could..
Your memory is always a reminder of a smile lost in time.
You are the tucked away laughter in my heart.
Whenever I want, I can take an ounce of those smiles and smear my day with that

It must have been love..but its over now
It must have been good..but I lost it somehow

These fragments I have shored against my ruins

udate pairon ke tale jab behti hai jameen
Mud ke hamen koi manjil dekhi hi nahin
( Roads glide past my flying feet,
I never looked back at any milestone of my life)

But this one road, I can give anything to walk them again..to relive those days and months and years

Someone shared a picture of my institute on FB today (the one above)

Oh! how my heart tugs along that pathway, as if the wind blowing there craves out my heart and pulls it along..on those dreams-laden streets

It shocks me how I wish for what has been and never again will be
Are we all such puppets to our past?

How I want to be there again, the walks, the laughter, the insane talks

My my...the follies of youth and the vagaries of heart..
Anything to do it one more time

Those were my golden days...my, mine, for me

I can picture myself sitting near the hostel fence, with a cup of tea, dreams in eyes, song on lips

The small room which gave birth to the three of us who shared that room, birth to maddening laughter within us and boy talks, birth to unknown facets of friendship, love and vodka

As I lay there in the middle, feigning interest in "Fountainhead", while the two of you chatted about boys in our class, and tried desperately to make me laugh

I have trodden those paths many a time, so much that smell of yellow grass still feels fresh on my skin right now

Paint me purple

"What do you like the best in me"

"Hmm..I think its the way you pronounce my name. The right most way!
The "aa" after "R", as it is meant to be. Not the single "a" which usually people pronounce it as

"Anything else?"

"And the way it leaves a ring in my ears when you end it, leaving me wanting to be called once more..as if you kissed my name before saying it"

"Oh is that all :)"

"Yes, I like the fact that there are no words of endearments before or after my name. I like the way my name is naked on your lips. Yes I guess thats it!"

I would like to frame my name, in your voice..

Pukaaro mujhe naam lekar pukaaro,
Mujhe tumse apni khabar mil rahi hai

Friday night

Its friday night and I want to be drunk

Friday nights cry for that
They demand that from you, to lose it, to live..to love

I want to be in someone's warm arms
Swinging to my moods, the mood of the night

Wear a pretty black dress
And lose myself in the smoke

Its the stubborness of reviving all lost things, that awakens like a ghost in me..
On friday nights like these

When fighting with reality and giving in to drunken stupor seems right

Its crazy that what you once had, torments the very gut of your soul!

Moving back in time

Udate pairon ke tale jab behti hai jameen
Mud ke hamne koi manjil dekhi hi nahin..

She finds coming back to any erstwhile trodden path very difficult
Its difficult to move bakwards, isnt it?

If her bus drops her at a stop before her destination, she does not mind walking a distance of a kilometer to reach her place.
But if the bus drops at a stop, which is after her destination, walking a distance of 100 meters back to the place she meant to go, seems like a herculean task

How can you come back to something which you left?

Anything cant be re-lived or re-born..whats gone is gone..

She believes that you can not fall in love again, if the love disappears even once..
And you can not be friends with someone who has done something to make you question friendship

Life can not be lived in retrospection!

This feeling right now

Today for some reason I was reminded of those days
When I used to get drunk a little beyond control
And then message people whom I should not have..
Then regret it big time the next day

But then it had some charm..a delicious nagging feeling
Of doing something which I always wanted to do..but never dared to do it in my senses
Of feeling vulnerable and open to hurt and wound
Of drama and disaster..of life and listlessness

And all this leaving an exiquisite dull ache in my heart...

Of jasmine and lavender and a musk smell..which hung to my palms

My Teacher

Yesterday I got to know that my kathak dance teacher , Shri Madhukar Anand, expired of liver cancer.
He was a young man, must be 39-40.

After I heard this, something broke inside. Something which I held so dear to me, something very core to my being.

It was as if a part of my childhood , my adolescence, my youth, was cut off from me.

I still remember the first time I met him, a shy sweet looking guy with a smile lurking around his lips.
I was new to the class, all of 10 years, did not know if I would fit into the class, did not know whether my mom's assesment of my dancing abilities were true. (My mom had put 3 of us into dancing and singing, thinking we had the talent).

He had asked a set of girls (including me and my 2 sisters) to do some steps and very hesitantly, but with concentration, I tried emulating him. After we all repeated after him, he pointed at me and said "She is doing it perfectly"...
Cant explain what I felt that time. It was that deciding moment when I thought that I wanted to learn dance for as long as I could. And I wanted him as my teacher.
I still remember that moment so clearly..after 24 years!


He was a dancer with tremendous potential. Very few male dancers can dance so gracefully and elegantly and carry themselves, the way he did.
A charming person, non-exhibitionist, humble with a terrific sense of humour.
A very affable person, whom one could get to like instantly...curly hair, disarming smile, good looking..

We would be practicing for some program, and then break into splits cos of his funny comments on someone dancing vaguely. My younger sis, Belu, also used to be butt of his jokes. She was a bad dancer, very thin and gawky at that time. He used to say she dances like Amitabh Bachchan :)

I used to look forward to my dance classes all through the week. Looked forward to learn dance, to explore my capability, to be appreciated and admonished by him. And if for some reason, he wasnt there for any class, I would be so listless, as if the entire week had gone to waste.

Sometimes in the class, he would call me aside,ask me to stand in the front and do some tukda, to show to the class. Then he would tell them "This is called elegance and delicacy. I want all of you to do it with this grace".
My heart swelled, my eyes shone, I felt light...and fell in love with him for making me feel so special and unique, for letting me know my own capabilities.
His saying "She is my favorite student", is something I treasure as one of the most valuable things in my life.

After 6 years of association, we went our ways. He went to Delhi, to learn from Pt. Birju Maharaj and I started concentrating on studies and career aspirations.
I met him once in between, during my studies , and he told me "If you had concentrated on dance, you would have been a great dancer". But probably I did not have the guts to puruse a career which was uncertain.

Then he got married and our dance institute held a program to felicitate him. I performed and he came backstage to give me a 100 rupee note and said "I could not believe you could emote so well".

So many times during all these years I thought of meeting him again, dancing and knowing from him if I have bettered or worsened. I kept imagining how will it be to see him again..and now I would never get to see him!
Fills me with a strange feeling of loss and hollowness..wish one could act quicker than life, cos people just go...leaving behind a sense of "never again"..

I know that we did not keep in touch for 15 years or so, and his passing away does not make any difference in my day to day life...but there are certain people who are icons in one's life, someone you look upto, someone with whom you associate some of your very fond memories and they become an intergral part of your life.

I dont know how important I was to him, but he was such a person for me. A shining, smiling figure..