I fully
plan on finishing my blogs from Rajasthan, but for now I am going to go in bit
of an anachronic order.
We
finally got to start our Independent Enrichment Activities (IEA’s) this week!
In addition to group cooking lessons on the weekend, everyone got to choose one
extracurricular activity to do in India. Everyone’s activities are as follows:
Alex: Joining both the Congress and
BJP Youth Groups at Banaras Hindu University (Congress and BJP are both
political parties that could be somewhat likened to Democrats and Republicans
in the US)
Ben P: Urdu language study (kind of
a cross between Arabic and Hindi)
Ben T: Tabla (a type of Indian
drum)
Chase: Aruvedic massage (possible
yoga theory?)
Evelyn: Bollywood dance and
classical Indian Kathak dance
Jenny: Sitar
Stephen: Tailoring
One day a week I go to a local workout center and have a
Bollywood/Zumba dance/workout class with other Indian women and on Sundays I
bike to the other side of the city in the Muslim quarter for Kathak dance
lessons (even though my teacher is Hindu). The modern dance class is so much
fun and an awesome way to work out while still being culturally appropriate
(and not having to be the only girl in a gym full of 20-year-old Indian men).
Kathak is a very rhythmic dance in which you wear bells on your ankles and
stomp in time with the accompanying tabla. My guru-ji has an incredible ability
to stomp his bare feet as loudly as I can clap my hands. I honestly don’t know
how he does it, but I guess I’ll learn in due course since it’s an integral
part of the dancing. The steps are split into phrases that are 16 beats long
(four measures with four beats in each). We had my guru-ji come and give us a
concert with his family (his son dances with him, his other one plays that
tabla, his cousin plays harmonium, etc.) and I was just blown away by his
skill. What we’ve been learning in class is so simple (obviously) and less
impressive, but hopefully by the end of 3 months I will have some improvement
to show for.
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