The Nrityagram Dance Ensemble

So the fun starts when I get a late night call from my editor telling me to wake up early in the morning coz I'd have to interview a troupe of Odissi dancers. I groaned for two reasons. Waking up in the morning was alien to me. One of the best things about my job was I could wander in at 11am and still be one of the earliest ones. And the second reason was coz they were dancers. I knew nothing about Indian classical dance and I hadn't even seen Odissi before.
I reached the given address in the morning and found myself in a nice tharavadu style house hidden away in the middle of the city. I rang the bell and this old dude opened the door and asked what I wanted. I said I was from City Journal and he promptly replied, 'No, we don't want to buy it and shut the door'.  I wept inside for the circulation people.
Upon further clarification, we were invited to sit inside and wait for the dancers who were having their breakfast. And when the came, they weren't exactly what I expected. There were just three of them (I had expected a whole horde) and they were as lively and as interesting as they came. After introductions, I promptly confessed I did not have a clue neither about dancing nor about Odissi.One of them asked me if we could start talking about who they were and what they did and that was the start of a very interesting conversation that lasted for an hour and half almost. We talked about all things ranging from how 'normal' people perceived us 'artists' to the Commonwealth Games opening ceremony. A very interesting conversation for me carried out in the most informal way possible. I had my repertoire of bad jokes and even left with a 'dint take down anything so will need one of your phone numbers for the actual interview'. Oh the horror!!. And they made me promise that I'd show up for their performance later in the evening.

I got back to my office and figured I'd try find something online about Odissi and their troupe and imagine my horror when Google decides to autocomplete when I start typing out their names! Surupa Sen was the present artistic director of the Nrityagram, Protima Bedi's disciple and her successor. Bijayini Satpathy was twice judged the best performer in any arts in the country and Pavithra Reddy was the rising star of the Odissi world. Articles about them had appeared in the New York Times and Pittsburgh Post. I was stumped. Me and my stupid big mouth!

That evening, I went and attended their performance and it is hard to describe it. I'll just say that most of us snore at classical dance coz we're regularly fed shit in our schools and colleges.  The real deal is as interesting as they come. Anyway as I walked off, I started thinking about what would have been if I had known they were such a big deal when I went to interview them. Would I have been more careful? Probably, but would would it have been that interesting? Naah.

On a side note, one of them told me that to lose weight, all I had to do was stand on my hands. I have to find out whether they were kidding or not.