dancing the Halay in front of a Doner shop at Sultan Ahmet

My Belgium performance, or the lack of it….....

A visa refused, first glimpse of Aya sofia, matured love, pumpkin dessert, 2 Indonesians, 1 Peruvian and me dancing in the lobby..............

Nine and a half hours before our departure for Belgium, with 90% of the my packing complete, pumped up on a good rehearsal, 4 of us fellows, (2 Indonesians, 1 Peruvian, and 1 Indian to be exact) were told that our Belgian visa didn’t come through. For no real reason, except our nationalities.

I have been travelling in Europe, US and Asia for more than a decade now. It’s the first time my visa was refused. I’m as surprised as I’m angry that such blatant racial discrimination still exists in our world, in the name of diplomacy. It takes me back to the 1920s when Gandhi was thrown out of a railway carriage in South Africa, even earlier to the 1800’s when Dadabhai Nowroji was thrown out of a hotel because of a signboard that read ‘Dogs and Indians not allowed’.
And people thought we were primitive because we eat with our hands.

I didn’t see this coming for miles. Of all the visa stresses I have had in the past few months, Belgium wasn’t one of them. I had spent the last days before our Belgium tour daydreaming about Belgian waffles, fruit beer, chocolates and fries.
Infact, it is only after 2 months of practice, 2 days before Belgium that I began to enjoy dancing! For the first time in this dance fellowship, I knew the choreography well enough to switch off my thoughts and enjoy dancing for the sake of dancing. I had finally re-learnt the phosphorescent sea wave dance without looking at others for cues. I heard the soundtrack like half a dozen times till I could hum the song and do the steps.

There was another choreography called ‘dance of the skeletons’; a poetic reference to Cassandra’s prophecy that even skeletons will return to fight the never-ending Trojan war, a dance I had learnt but wasn’t selected to perform on stage. On the last day of our rehearsal, while all the chosen skeletons practiced the dance, I joined them from the margins. I enjoyed walking the robotic, break dance inspired walk of a skeleton. I enjoyed the collective rhythm, now also my personal rhythm.

So when the four of us were called into the co-ordinators office after practice, I didn’t consider it ominous. When Daniella said she had a feeling we’re not going to Belgium, I told her off for being pessimistic.

I am confused. Sometimes, when I think of the bliss I felt in my last rehearsal, the irony of being unable to perform in front of ten thousands of people feels almost exquisite. Like the taste of the Turkish dessert Kadak, pumpkin soaked in sugar, served with walnuts to be exact. I shall explain the reasons behind that simile few lines down. It’s taken me 48 hours to regain my composure enough to write, surely you can wait a few lines.

Sometimes, when I think of the last minute shock value of the moment, I feel like the hapless participant of a reality show. Or Anil Kapoor from the Bollywood film Lamhe to be precise. When he see’s the lady of his dreams, devastated by her fathers death, running towards him, he opens his arms wide. Only to see her skip him and run into another guys arms, someone who wasn’t even in the frame till then. In short, I feel jilted!

I don’t quite agree with the philosophy that everything happens for a reason. Pointless things are good for health. If you need a reason for everything you do, and everything that you couldn’t do, then you think too much.
48 hours after the disappointment of not performing in the biggest stadium in Belgium, after all the consistent effort a writer could possibly pour into her groove, I know one thing. When I do perform again, it will be for an audience that wants me.
There’s a paradoxical argument most Americans give, about how Americans didn’t want George W. Yet he ruled as president for 10 years. A similar argument was given to me now. The Belgians don’t have anything personal against poor people, yet their embassy refused ONLY the developing country dancers and admitted the rest.

I somehow can’t buy that argument. If the government of a country the size of my palm, with the population of a burgeoning neighbourhood, housing the EU headquarter; if the government of such a country doesn’t reflect its people’s wishes, then democracy is a lie! (It probably is, but rants aren’t known to make astute arguments).
At the end of the first day of moping around in our Istanbul hotel, Oya and Faruk, our adopted Istanbul parents took us out to their favourite fish restaurant for dinner. Which is when I tasted the fantastic Turkish orange and pomegranate juice, cake-like savoury Black sea corn bread and an ‘ooh la la’ array of desserts.
While drowning my frustration with good food, I couldn’t help but notice the silent glances exchanged between Oya and Faruk. The two got married in 1985. When I asked Oya how they met, she gave a succinctly answered how they began as good friends, he, the girlfriend she could gossip and depend on. Till one day they went for a meal and returned as lovers. Before I could extract the menu of this meal from them, Faruk corrected Oya in soft-spoken Turkish. By the looks of it Oya had got things grievously muddled up, forgetting the long distance and two boyfriends she dated in between. While Faruk, the astute historian of their love remembers the date of their dates, 30 years on.

Oya loves fruits, and Faruk his Raki. She enjoys heartfelt, honest conversations. And he loves watching her. I noticed this because I sat between them, and only Faruk noticed the unnoticed speck of food on Oya’s face and passed on a tissue to her.
Watching the couple; siblings, lovers, old friends at once sharing their favourite meal with us was a special moment. It sliced through my cocoon of frustration and anger. It inspired me to each twice as much dessert, especially the pumpkin heaven called ‘Kadak’ and masterfully subtle ‘helva’. My better half will be visiting me in a month, and I must have my list of top Turkish desserts ready by then. On our first anniversary, he took me on a dessert buffet. It’s the only part of the meal we agree upon.

While I am the oldest fellow in this fellowship, Maulvi, the Indonesian boy is the youngest. He insists on playing the Troy soundtrack everywhere we go, and practicing the folk dance ‘Halay’. That evening, Danny, my Peruvian pal and I found the music unsettling. While walking back to our hotel Danny threatened to cry if he played it again. And I just threatened him to stop. By the time we had entered the whirling motion of the revolving door though, I got this intense urge to practice my Halay, to fix one of my many ‘out of rhythm’ steps.

So I asked the gang of dejected nationals if they wanted to dance the Halay in our hotel lobby, since it needs lots of space. And they agreed. While the rest of our fellows were performing in Belgium, in a basketball stadium, we, the left-behinders performed the dance at approximately the same time in our hotel lobby at Taksim Square. A confused man by the lift tried to look as normal as he could while the 3 of us danced to music from Maulvi’s mobile.
Something dawned upon me, 2 things to be precise. A professional will sulk at the thought of not performing in front of thousands, an artist will dance none the less.

I am an artist.

A 19th century fort, a five star palace, the desert, lost loves and my first 3 performances…..

“Ban Shubhangi, danseciyim”. Hi, I’m Shubhangi, I’m a dancer. I practice this introduction many times in my head. But when I do meet new people, I just say, “Ban Shubhangi, Hindistan liam”. I’m from India.

After a month of training in the luxurious prison of Gloria Resort in the Turkish Mediterranean city of Antalya, we finally left the place to join the dance troupe ‘Fire of Anatolia’ in Abu Dhabi on world tour.
We had 3 performances, the first in the traditional Al-Jahili fort in Al Ain, the other two in the opulent Emirates Palace hotel. It is difficult to sum up my experiences in Abu Dhabi in a coherent way. Memories of the relentless, burning sun in the Arab desert make my eyes water.

It is a wonder how such an artificial, concrete monster of a city can leave me with such tender moments. I sunk my fingers into the city like a fistful of sand, and lifted them to see moments slip away, like streams of sand escaping.
Moments where faith meant having the balls to sit in a car just after you’ve had a car crash. (Go right back on stage after you’ve goofed up royally to be exact.) When the pervert seemed endearing because he spoke your language. Moments when putting magenta eye shadow felt routine. When the world didn’t feel as big as you thought, people closer than you had imagined. When the taste of dates stuffed with orange rinds bring memories of your love’s skin.

In life we give undue eminence to all our first times. Like first pay cheque, first bike ride, first smoke, first kiss you mistook for love, first time you ate sushi, first time you went clubbing, first rains, first time your teacher said you wouldn’t go far in life, first time you wore a bikini, first adult film you saw, first time you stayed awake the whole night to see the sunrise blah blah blah..
I wonder why though. To me the second time is always more interesting. You’re not completely clueless. Yet you don’t know what to expect. My second performance in Abu Dhabi is probably the most memorable. I screwed up. Everyone noticed. And I got an ultimatum.

Since these were our first set of performances, most of us amateurs were given relatively simple roles on stage. As the biggest amateur around, I was assigned a handful of invisible appearances, beginning with Troy’s bazaar scene where we admire the market belly-dancers and greet the army. In my second scene, Helen is welcomed into the Trojan palace. While all the oriental dancers entertain her with their shimmies and gyrations, I stand in the absolute end and fan the royal couple with a palm leaf. The third scene is the closest to dancing I got. It is the scene where Hector bids goodbye to his wife Andromache. She pleads with him not to fight the invincible Achilles, favoured by the gods. And while the couple are torn between duty and longing, while the gods are busy mapping Troy’s defeat, while Achilles is somewhere losing his temper or sleeping with boys and Paris is frolicking with another mans wife; the sea, is glowing with phosphorescent waves.

And I am this minor detail. Rather I am the third row, 5th person in this minor detail. As part of the phosphorescent waves, I had to wear a glittering hat and gloves and poke my head and limbs out of a 10 meter long cloth.
It’s looks like a simple dance, and it is. I wasn’t nervous about it. However, 10 minutes before we were to go ‘live’, backstage mayhem ensued. Heads and limbs were poked into the wrong openings of the 10meter long cloth, when the curtains opened, I found myself to be the 1st, instead of 2nd dancer in 3rd row. This meant that I couldn’t look to my left and copy my neighbor’s steps. Now, everyone has their unique way of learning. When it comes to choreography, I just follow someone else. And I practice it so many times I can do it on autopilot at the same time. I wouldn’t call this cheating. It’s just mirroring.

So you can let your imagination go wild and visualize 5 dancers standing in the 3rd row, wearing a single piece of cloth, with one dancer out of sync. How I wished no one would notice me. The role of an extra is paradoxical. Your job is to create the backdrop yet remain invisible. How I wished to remain invisible when I left the stage. In the group meeting after the show, Mr. Erdogan, the godfather of the dance troupe, looked in my direction and made gestures of snipping me off with scissors. After the meeting, his words were translated from Turkish for my benefit. One more mistake, and I’d never perform with ‘Fire of Anatolia’ again.
When you give something your best, and fail, it doesn’t make sense. You feel cheated. You feel like someone has snipped your beautiful globe into a square. It doesn’t make sense.

The next performance was in less than 24 hours. If I were the author of a self-help book, I would’ve put the nonsense behind me and believed that everything teaches you something. I would’ve resolved to practice, redeem my name and come out stronger.
I sulked instead. I decided I didn’t have enough time to relearn the dance without looking. I decided to skip next day’s performance, instead focus on getting in right in Belgium, our next stop on the world tour. So it came as a shock when the next day, 4 hours before the performance, I was told that I couldn’t do that.

It was also the time I was introduced to rule no.2 by Muge, our fairy god-dancer. “If you can’t perform immediately after you screw up, you can never perform again. It’s like sitting in a car after a car crash.” She also explained that the dance troupe needs each one of us, and I would be letting my team down if I didn’t perform.
Before I went on stage, I feverishly searched for all our senior dance teachers, their feet in particular. I believe that nothing is possible without the blessings of your elders, especially your gurus. At home, I always touch my parent’s feet before a big day, as they are my teachers, my deities, my everything. I didn’t bother explaining to my Turkish teachers why I touched their feet to my forehead with this inexplicable reverence, but they seemed to get the drift. Oguzhan Hocam, perplexed, would say ‘Thank-you’ each time I touched his feet.

Muge made sure that we were all in the right place this time. I made sure I didn’t goof up. After the show, Mr.Erdogan looked at me and gave me the ‘soyle-boyle’ look. My performance was so-so this time. Not entirely there, but nothing blasphemous either.
I’m not mature enough to comment on faith. So I don’t know if faith could have pulled me through from performance no.2 to no.3, but I know rule no.2 did. If you can’t do it now, you never can.

Which brings me to rule no.1. And performance no.1. Muge, like Brad Pitt from ‘Fight Club’ introduces us to a new rule with each performance. Before our first performance, we all, the group of 13 international fellows were selected to perform the various dances we had been training on for a month. A few got to be in all, while the majority got probably one. Many fellows were disheartened. Ironically, the ones disheartened were also the ones in most dances. It seems they wanted to be in all. While people like me, who were just in 1 or 2 seemed to be fine with the idea. It’s difficult for an ambitious person to realize that you can’t do everything, you can’t be everywhere at once. Whereas slow learning, or being the wrong size makes you humble. It makes you count your opportunities, at times even appreciate the ten fingers you have intact to help you count.

Such insecurities and the Aladin inspired Al Jahili fort formed the perfect backdrop for rule no.1. Professionalism. You may be exhausted, you may be messed in the head, may feel wronged or suffering from loosies for that matter, but when you go on stage, you don’t let anything betray your state of mind. You perform your role the best you can, backstage too. You must keep the group spirit high.
A profound, yet simple insight. It seemed to fit in with the simple yet magical setting. Imagine a cardboard coloured fort constructed out of chubby 10 yr old’s imagination, come to life in a desert. That’s Al Jahili fort. It seems like a place Aladin’s flying carpet could crash into.

Our first audience looked like an endless row of symmetric black triangles from where I stood. A princess from some royal family decided to grace our show with her presence. As a result the entire show was turned into a female only show in minutes, as royal lasses can’t be seen enjoying dance musicals with strange men. According to some dancers there was a lady in the audience with moustache and beard inside her hijab. I wouldn’t know. I was too busy looking left and right to copy the steps.

UAE and the violation called buffets

I love UAE. And I hate UAE. It’s always been a transition point between Europe and India for me, a patron of Gulf Air. It’s the other side of the Arabian Sea. The horizon for me, like most Bombay people, is a vision drawn with an Arabian sea below.

It is at the Gulf airports that one begins to pick bits of Hindi/Urdu and names like Laxman and Kuruvilla. Homely Biryani is as common as exotic Hummous. And there are penguins everywhere, males in their white Arab outfits and females in black. You can’t help but smile when you see a hairy, pot bellied man flick his dish dash back with the grace of a retired actress. You cant help but melt when you seen the same man rub his nose against another man as a greeting. And you can’t hide your surprise either when you see the length of fake eyelashes or heels adorned under a burkha.

In the past whenever I’d halt at the UAE, like most foreigners, I’d look down upon the vulgar artifice. Mock at their vision of a Star War skyline and continent shaped islands. It’s probably the only place that has traditional Arab styled theme housing alongside cowboy and Caribbean themes. They’ve made their own culture into a theme! Bit like having a Dandiya theme birthday party in Bombay.

But this time, after having lived in the bowels of artifice, i.e a 5 star European resort, landing in UAE almost felt like a return to reality. Living on buffets is far more vulgar, more artificial than you would’ve thought. It is like a red light district experience, where lust, not real taste or desire drives you to fill your plate. Buffets are absolutely unsustainable, ecologically and on principle. They encourage you to burden you plates, which lead you to either overburden your tummy or overburden the dustbin. The colossal wastage of food is criminal. For just a bite of 3 different pastries you waste the entire plate. All this passed of as sophisticated behaviour.

I was told it’s European culture to get a separate plate for each course, and a corresponding side plate if required. It’s uncouth to re-use your own plate. Also, the cultural hypochondria recquires you to have your own little bottled water. Unlike Asia, where people mostly eat with their hands, touching food with your fingers here’s blasphemous. Because each person is a source of germs. In India we look at the world as 6 billion people, and not 6 trillion germs.

5 star hotels, like airports and Mcdonalds are the same everywhere. If you didn’t have the city specified on the letterheads, you wouldn’t know if you’re in Turkey, Casa Blanca or Timbuktu.

Another tragedy called Buddha

The spa at Gloria resort has two big statues of Buddha greeting you at the entrance. 5 steps away is a billboard of some Indian spa treatment, which has a naked white man with a saree looking loincloth, lying on a bed. I loved the swimming in the indoor pool in the spa. But each day, the sight of the Buddha unsettled me.

Poor guy. He abandoned his family, starved himself, lived in the forest and went crazy to achieve salvation. To be reduced to a capitalist logo for indulgence, for spa treatments and herbal teas.

Back to the point

There are times when I feel I could eat hummous for the rest of my life. There are times when you can spot a city’s soul in its people, not buildings. There are times when the landscape from Al Ain to Abu Dhabi distils into pure sand dunes. Even in the cooling silence of an AC bus, you can’t sleep. You’re distracted by the mountainous dunes, the stuff daydreams are made of. You are transfixed. The desert begins where your thoughts end.

There are no germs here. No artificial trees and glass buildings. No doubts. No dreams either. No old friends, no new friends, no family, just you and the dunes.

And performances to look forward to….

Flirting with Istanbul by night

This is probably my favorite self portrait, you can see my silhouette in front of the bar. Despite the jet lag and dirty taste in my mouth I was super excited to see the Istanbul skyline- the Bosphorous, the Sultan Ahmet, Hagia Sofia, Topkapi Palace, world famous bridge connecting Europe to Asia; the monumental sites nestled among sleepy apartment buildings, half open windows giving a glimpse of urban Turkish life at 9pm. What I found the most endearing were the mellow yellow lights preferred by every household I could peer into. I was standing on the rooftop restaurant ‘Leb-e-Derya’ in Taksim, an area that prides itself as the heart of Istanbul.

Silhouettes..

Some moments are so personal, I wouldn’t have the courage to capture them on camera. Which means I can’t write about them either. There is a part of this journey which is me. No matter how many hints I drop, unfinished sentences I write, it will always remain unspelt. The silhouette will be a shadow. If you pay attention though, you can feel it. It breathes life into these diaries.

Body is the new brain

From today, my body is my brain. Instead of puny 8 kgs (estimated weight of a head), my new brain weighs 58 kilos! 59 actually. Since I have started dancing, I have gained weight. I’m assuming its all muscle.
For a dancer, it’s the body that responds. They hear the rhythm in their feet, not their ears. They feel emotions in a trembling arm, a tightened butt. They express joy in a complex footwork, split second jumps. And they swirl in the same spot, like earth encircling the sun to commune with god.
God, of course, is the greatest dancer if you’re Hindu. The greatest beloved if you’re Sufi. Most just if you’re Muslim. Most kind, if you’re Christian. For Buddhists, you, yourself are the Buddha. If only you realize it. Overwhelmed by the first chills of a Mediterranean winter, all these qualities merge. They seem like different aspects of divinity. If only I could see the divinity in me.
On stage, Muge, one of my dance teachers has the smile and excitement of a little girl in wonderland, and the grace and confidence of a woman. When teaching, she pays attention to all the students, and helps me overcome many obstacles. It may sound like counter-intuitive behaviour, but generally, the slow learners in our class tend to haunt the backbenches, and all the confident, good dancers stand in the first row. Muge insists on telling me that standing in the back row will make learning more difficult. She also expects me to ask more questions when I falter. She doesn’t allow me to give up.
“You think too much! Don’t count your steps, let yourself loose!” she yells, as much as her soft voice permits her. She is constantly telling me to let my feet, not my head do the dancing. To pick rhythms instinctively. So I am trying to make my body my brain.
Most people spend their childhood jumping over gates and walls, punching, kicking, dancing, cycling, playing in general. When I look back at my childhood, I have no clue what I spent my time on. I skipped school, I skipped the swimming classes, cycling, badminton. I would cheat in exams, space out in singing classes. I am probably the only adult on this planet who can’t hit 3 balls in a row with a racket, cant balance, can’t even jump!
Out here I am constantly told to carry my body’s weight in my abdomen. If I want to spin or jump and land in the same place, I must carry the weight of my body in my tummy. It’s a beautiful thought. Using your navel to find equilibrium. But I have no freaking idea what this means. Period aches and gas are the only times my awareness shifts to my belly. I am sure most of you will be laughing at me at this point. Which twat doesn’t know how to clench their tummy when someone punches them, or when they jump. Guess what, some of us just get punched.
All brains need to unwind, especially when they are burdened by their own weight. And swimming, I’ve just discovered, is my body’s meditation. The water steals the weight from my feet, gently picks my knees and carries me instead. It washes away most aches and helps me stretch after hours of intense tightness. It’s the closest to my mother’s hug I get these days.
But sometimes, actually very often, the pain doesn’t go away. You stretch, you swim, you sauna, you sleep, you pray that when you wake up, the pains gone. But as soon as you lift your leg to get out of bed, the pain wakes you up to remind you you’re human.
Since I’m straddling between two worlds; the instinctive and the intellectual, the physical and the mental, I hold on to analogies to make sense of things. Incessant physical pain may be a new acquaintance, but I have lived with pain before. I think anyone who’s bothered to fall in love has.
When an activity is this physical and sensuous, the sexual can’t be far behind. And most of the spare time here is spent practicing the peacock dance of display and attract. I, though, am a penguin. I waddle miles away and towards my emperor penguin. This means I generally come home immediately after practice and read a book instead of coffee with big nosed, six packed beings.
And on one such early night, I happened to go through special folders in my email inbox, full of intense exchanges, passion and heartbreak. In life, after each heartbreak, I’d not only shift continents, I’d also pack all those email relics away into a folder and change email addresses altogether. Don’t ask me how many email addresses I now have.
Anyway, I could never go through love mails the past without crying, without feeling cheated, hurt, and worse, heartbroken all over again. Each mail would rip the fragile scabs time had placed.
But for the first time in my life, in a totally new country, I could read my cherished love letters without shedding a tear. Ofcourse, there’s always remorse and longing, but the pain didn’t overwhelm me.
I was fine. I slept well.
So I reckon if broken hearts can breathe new life, so can broken limbs (painful knees in this case). And now you know why I’m always a beat late in my dance steps, why Muge yells at me to stop thinking. I’m a daydreamer. I use the heart’s wisdom to pacify knees.

My Turkish date