Courtyard Marriot, Chennai, 8 AM

I sit here by the window, with my mug of green tea, with the sun shining on my face, finally having assimilated everything that last evening gave me. And I think I can see the sea. I am sure I see it.

Yesterday. Last evening. I danced to Bombay Jayashri akka’s singing. She opened for me that realm of divine dreamlike dance.

A podium high up on top of a hill. Surrounded by misty hills and fog for as far as I can see. A stone structure, with pillars for walls, open to air, light, life. That’s where she took me yesterday. The music transported itself there, with it, it took me.
And I danced. For every note that she sang. Each rhythm playing out itself. I danced. Endlessly. Tirelessly. Danced. Lived. Danced. Would shiver. Would have light shine through me. From inside me. At all moments. Spreading out like a wave touching its shore.
That purity, clarity, the reverberating soul in her voice. It took me along. And I danced.

The lyrics playing out in Abhinaya. The instrument Swaranjali, where I would stand there absorb her melody and follow it up with my dance along the Kanjira, Mridangam, or the Violin.
Every dance performance that I have watched, every bit of it that I have attempted to learn, the Bharathnatyam, Kuchipudi, Kathak, Odissi, dance in its different forms, under different names, were just words. It was just dance. DANCE. My dance. I danced them all. Danced for it all.

Then the cosmic dancer himself. Dancing to the Mridangam and the Kanjira. The Lasya and the Thandavam. The she and the he. Alongside, together, as one. His feet. The Kanjira’s clinks were his ankle bells. That Might. That encompassing glory.
Not once, not at one moment, did it seem unnatural, unreal. No sense of awe that would hinder my feet, my dance.

Became the Rama for Rajeeva Lochanam,
The Rain for Anandana thananom,
The Gopika for Gopika Manohara Muralidhara,
and the glowing glimmering golden light at the center of the world for the Thillana.

In persona, in glory, in person.