A Time To Reflect

charukesi December 29th, 2006

He tries to whirl a whirling dervish out of whirl. And does it too. With great charm and grace and ease. In what is a highy colorful a touristy version of the whirling dervish’s deeply religious offering to god.

The dancer accompanied by the three drummers (dhafliwale) walk towards the stage and as the three clad in pure white climb on to the stage to stand in front of the mikes, the dancer stops just belowthe stage. And breaks out into a huge smile as he waves to the excited crowds in front of, and all around him. And then begins the magic, with the dancer in a heavy complicated outfit with two layers of skirts over his bright full length body-hugging costume and colorful headgear. He moves wih fluid grace to the sound of the drums behind him and the accompanying claps of the fascinated audience.

As we watch, and gape, and cheer, the first skirt is rolled round and round and round and suddenly the dancer is cuddling an infant in his arms as he continues dancing. There is an audible gasp among the audience; he smiles impishly and unravels the infant in front of our eyes, twirls it some more and throws it off.

As the dance and rhythm progress, the skirts come off one by one, gracefully and imaginatively…. Now it is a fan and then suddenly it becomes an umbrella…

Here is some information I found on the origin and meaning of the ritual, known as sema

The Sema ceremony represents the human being’s spiritual journey, an ascent by means of intelligence and love to Perfection (Kemal). Turning toward the truth, he grows through love, transcends the ego, meets the truth, and arrives at Perfection. Then he returns from this spiritual journey as one who has reached maturity and completion, able to love and serve the whole of creation and all creatures without discriminating in regard to belief, class, or race.

And so the dancer whirled on and on and on…

***
From a performance I witnessed recently in Dubai. Coming soon on Itchy Feet - my post on the long holiday weekend I spent there - Dubai or not to buy - my reflections on a city that is obsessed with size and scale, and all the mall madness revolving around the Dubai Shopping Festivl and surprise, surprise, Christmas.

But before that, I am off to Goa this evening. So, if you wish to wait with bated breath for the promised post, do so by all means. In the meanwhile, here is wishing all of you a wonderful and happy new year.

While on the subject of the year to come and that which is just on its way out, it was a good year for my Itchy Feet - lots of long and short weekend breaks. Shekhawati havelis and overnight cruises with Jain cuisine. A time to reflect very quietly celebrated its third anniversary sometime late August and my roadblog account on flickr saw my camera-eye improve by leaps and bounds (yes, even if I am sayng it myelf - you check it out too!)

• - Cities and places
• Comments(1)

charukesi December 20th, 2006

Is it only me or has anyone else noticed that that lives of those good folks at google seems to rock - with bbq and sushi parties and without any spam. *Sighhhhhs and deletes with great regret kind offers of enhancement of coffers with Nigerian currency of remarkable amounts and of private parts with pills that start with v and then go on in various permutations of alphabets *

• Pot-pourri
• Comments(2)

charukesi December 7th, 2006

Here I am, back on my blog after a long while. And this time, I am blogging from the train, on my way to Chennai from Kakinada. Plug points in every cubicle. And next to it, bold letters saying, for laptops and mobile phones.

(And this pic from the mobile phone, transferred directly on to the laptop through the data cable and so on. Yawn.)

This time last year, and I was wheelchairing to Kakinada via Vizag… I managed to stay “connected” with the world outside (read, my mail and my blog) and my husband with his week old job then through the very moody Reliance mobile cable connection. And in the years before that, autorickshaw trips to the main “junction” in the town to find an internet cafe (bring on the capuccino, kids) that was open and had a free seat for us in all those semi-closed cramped cubicles where earnest young engineering gradutes wrote to prospective employers (always in the US of A) through their yahoo mail accounts and other equally earnest perspiring young men stared at the screen, bewitched while keeping another nervous but steady eye behind them…

Point is, technology and all that… that stuff we take for granted, but not always accessible to everyone… and the small innumerable ways in which we have adapted to it. An architect I met last week in Mumbai was speaking about tech-friendly homes, and described to me all manners of innovation he adds to homes he creates that makes life, in his words, so much easier for the occupants, without them having to do anything major, or sometimes even realizing it. He mentioned the analogy of personal clothing - now we have companies like Levis that make jeans with separate pockets for ipods. Ipod pockets!, I thought…

And then I landed in Chennai last week and on my way towards the city from the airport, I saw a large hoarding for the world’s first sari with a pocket. A mauve silk sari draped oh-so-perfectly around an enviably slim waist, and just below the waist, ta da! a pocket, and a mobile phone peeping out of it. Camera not at hand, I could not stop in the mad traffic. But here it is, for your viewing pleasure… (as the gods say, google and you shall find)

And here is Pavithra Srinivasan on Chennai metblogs with more practical concerns in pocket bonanza

• Technology
• Comments(8)