Onam ashamsakal (onam greetings to you)
Onam is such a special festival for me, every year I thoroughly enjoy taking part in activities, whatever I can, that make this beautiful festival so unique. I love making the athapoo/pookalam (flower carpet), I absolutely love making the sadya (which I plan to on the weekend). I love the whole story of mahabali coming to visit his land, his people from exile. It even amazes me on the way I have fallen head over heels in love with the kerala culture. Some malayalees may even doubt me. But I know I do it for myself, not for anybody else.
For the past couple of years I was lucky to learn and be part of the thiruvadira kali dance that is performed at this festival time every year. It is usually organized by the kerala samajam of Botswana. Oooh this dance is not easy at all, your knees need to bend and you end up getting a good work-out.
This bending knee business is a big joke with my mallu girlfriends, because our dance teacher would shake her head and tell me…
“..BEND Rajne (Rachna), bend!!!”, and I would bend my back and lean forwards….and she would say
“NO NO …… bend rajne….bend”
…. hearing that phrase from our teacher at every dance practice after a month or so I realized I had to bend my knees (not my back) and squat… and she began to say…
“ade…ade (yes yes) rajne…”
And after practice all my girlfriends would be on the floor in splits…
Seriously this is beautiful dance. You need to be in a semi-squat position, sway your hips and hands, to the left and right. All the dancers need to move in a circle in a rythmic motion. See the dance here.
I am showing you dance pictures from 2004 and 2005, the one we did in 2005 was also aired on the Malayalam television channel Asianet (which automatically makes me a TV star anyway). See if you can pick me, especially from the last picture. I may not blog hop for some time as I am on tiny holiday visit to South Africa to tie rakhi to my dear brother for rakshabandhan on 28th and celebrate my bday on the 29th with him… later later then, c ya
Here at the end of the dance we are trying to make a traditional villaka (traditional kerala lamp) by joining the small lamps in our hands, can u see it?Dance from 2005
ok pick me from this pic
