‘Ananda Tandavam’

Mayday, Mayday, Mayday!!

Had I been aboard a plane or a ship, the situation would have demanded the official voice distress call used to communicate the most serious level of distress, such as with life-threatening emergencies!

 “Just dance with the rest of the class, pick up whatever you can remember” the Guru’s compassionate eyes rested on me as she spoke.

Clearing her throat, she began to sing “Ananda tandavam” in her clear, soothing, yet powerful voice that I was so familiar with.

I stood rooted to the spot.

My throat felt like it was closing up, as if  anaphylactic.

While my plummeting self-confidence told me to grab  my belongings, make a beeline for the door without a moment’s delay and save myself from embarrassment, the gentle fluidity in my Guru’s voice cajoled my ruffled feathers. In fact, it was like a shot of liquid adrenaline being injected into my body.

I paused, holding my breath, letting my eyes soak in the intricacies of the choreography before I even dared to move.

 ‘How long has it been’? 20 years? What are you doing here?  Do you realize that you are crazy, no… not the regular kind of crazy, but stark raving mad! You have to be…to have even entertained the thought that you can pull off a ‘Bharatanatyam’ item after a twenty year long gap!

‘SHHH…! I glared inwardly at my internal negative board.
Closing my eyes, I hauled my vacillating mind to my center.

“For God’s sake, FOCUS!” I told myself in a voice, soft yet firm, the kind I had used on my children all these years.  

 “Isn’t this what you have always wanted to do? You could not then. YOU CAN now. So don’t let anyone or anything tell you that cant. Not again. Not now. Not ever.’

 ‘Ananda Tandavam… the divine dance performed by the Hindu God, Shiva. A dance symbolizing the cosmic cycles of creation and destruction, as well as the daily rhythm of birth and death.

“Create Shiva! I must see Him in your dance!” The Guru ordered.

I danced then, striking my feet on the floor in perfect rhythm; mesmerized, the stunning composition uplifting me to a higher level of spiritual consciousness, where I was Shiva himself… the creator and destroyer reveling in dance so graceful, with gay abandon, displaying rich exuberance.  

I wasn’t perfect, of course.

Did it matter? No.

What mattered was watching myself hone the art, which was more breathtaking than the new flowers of spring. What mattered was that I had taken the first step like an opening flower or a bird aloft, where every expression through movement was my genius and to feel the movement was new breath for my body and soul.  

I danced until the sweat dripped to the stone floor and my legs ached- the sweet ache of passion.

I know that tonight, sleep will come easy, embellished with dreams of more exquisite dancing that promises to touch your soul as much as it touches mine.

 “Ananda Tandavam’..of course…I must create my own  joy…the dance of joy!