The first Junoon intensive on our very first Rural Outreach had only just ended. And I was playing my final round of four corners and kho-kho (a traditional and popular game of tag in the Indian subcontinent) with all my Girls. At sun-down, when it was time to say our momentary/monthly goodbyes, I made it a rule that nobody would! “We are all going to see each other soon! So, no goodbyes! Give me a hug and a high five all of you and keep practicing before I’m here again in a bit.”
I was smothered in hugs. This is by far my favourite reward to date. (Hugs never go out of fashion so I’m not sure I’ll ever put anything above these. Giving and receiving hugs have become a ritual between us Girls. I yell at and smack them on the rear in class when they are nuts and nearly irredeemable but the hugs at the end of intense training spells are mandatory and part of the Junoon SOPs). So, whether we are broken and hurting in every part, or smiling and laughing hysterically that we survived, the hugs happen and we won’t do without these…
It was also hard bringing an end to the high-five ritual. There was an argument about who would be the last one among them to give me one. I didn’t realize how controversial I had made this ‘sign-off-but-no-goodbyes’ situation.
Anyway, a girl named Pari, who has the brightest eyes I’ve ever seen, slapped my palm with hers first and then, proceeding to wrap her arms around my waist (because that’s how little she was back then), said to me, “Don’t forget us when you are back in the city, didi…”
I hadn’t cried a drop. Until then. And then, sniffling just like the little one with her arms around my waist, her face now in my palms, rubbing the tears off her rosy cheeks, I said, “You are all a part of me, I could never forget you!” And hugged her back tight again.
I wiped my very moist face as they finally disappeared into the sunset and the narrow lanes that are lined by their homes, cowsheds and pocket gardens. As I lingered, staring into the twilight, I thought I could use a run before the sky turned completely dark.
My meditations on the run brought me a clarity that has proven itself right year after year, as the Junoon in Dhasa gets stronger and steadier.
“If it took this long to send them off after my very first spell with them, I know I’m trapped”, I thought. “These girls, these little fairies (‘Pari’ incidentally translates directly as ‘fairy’ from a lot of regional Indian languages to English), fiery as I have already come to see they are, have me in a spell with their warmth, affection and ability for action.” They were going to script the story of Junoon, in a way that I didn’t see coming, in a way that saw me constantly come back to them, in a way that I have been ever so glad and grateful for.
4 years on, petite little Pari isn’t quite so little anymore. And she’s a fire brand. A crucial member of the first ever Junoon leader squad, she’s being the boss that we need and want her to be, the boss she was always meant to be, with all the emotional disarmament she’s always been able to pull off (long before that first hug and request to me) albeit with all the right intents and purposes.
She gets the job done. Teaching students with the forcefulness that must also come across as sweet and sensitive to those younger than or at levels below her. She knows that in a game as intricate as Classical Dancing, she must keep the same seriousness and specificity of practice with which she has been taught and yet retain the joy of movement that Junoon was built to spread.
She takes me back to a lesson I’d learnt from my Guru of Indian Classical Dance, when I had begun to assist her with teaching Dancers maturing into their practice, technique and artistry. I would Dance with them to help them train better, correct them as we went along different pieces in our repertoire and share lessons that had helped me build up my practice, technique, artistry and simultaneously – stamina.
Once, I missed correcting one Dancer in session because I simply wanted the piece being danced done. “Everyone could work on the smaller things by themselves or with me later…once the choreography, by and large, was understood”, I thought to myself. My Guru, who was observing my demonstration and simultaneous instruction, called out to me, “That girl in line two, correct the line of her arms first, before you move any further along the piece. It is your ‘Dharma’, your duty as a Dance Teacher to correct what you can see for sure is detrimental to their overall execution of a piece, their overall form, right then and there, before their bodies start to adopt the wrong technique and then struggle to unlearn it.”
I immediately did as she said. When the session was over and everyone had left, she held me close, sideways as we strolled out of our studio and explained to me, “As a teacher, when you address an error immediately, especially to do with form, you’re not only setting that student up for their execution of complex movement for life, but you’re saving yourself the trouble of correcting poor form long after your students are into their dancing journeys when it gets harder and harder for the human body to reprogram itself, its muscles and memory. They will come to enjoy it eventually, because it feels good to Dance right. It’s difficult getting there. But that’s why it’s Classical, that’s why it takes more than any other style. You can’t brush aside the details, you can’t park it all for later. The timing of correction and attention is so important for each student before you.”
Junoon has adopted this lesson in teaching as a dictum. From the day it was pointed out to me by my Guru, I have never let a single child (or adult) get away with poor form, whatever level of training they may be at.
Pari is a product of the same legacy of teaching. She won’t teach the next step until the one being done is done with every moving and supporting part doing its proper bit. In a way, my going back to her and the rest of our bright lot, which she ensured so early on with tears and hugs and a forever invitation into bettering their lives with Art and everything around it, is also me going back to everything my Guru did for me, shaping me as a more correct, keen and smarter Dancer, trainer and artiste.
When I see Pari being the boss with all the other bossgirls we’ve been able to shape and empower, I am reminded of my duty, my ‘Dharma’ and the Dancer every Guru, every teacher, has the opportunity to make self-reliant, responsible, sound and ultimately, a leader, saviour and diffuser of Classical Art that must and can only be done right, from the very start.
Some traditions, like hugs, should never go away. They stay with us forever.
This is Junoon.
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