::more than somewhat::

I finished reading Bombay Rains Bombay Girls with a huge sense of achievement. I used to be a-book-a-night person, but my unenviable, largely non-correctable eyesight soon put a stop to that. But I so miss reading that I picked up the first book that seemed to have comfortable-looking print at Gangaram’s, Bangalore and made off with it. Ignoring the fact that the world began to look considerably more blurred than usual as I read on, I polished it off in about three days.

Now that I’m done with the book, I’m not sure how much of the enjoyment is from the fact that I’m reading after such a long time and how much is from the book being good. I suspect it’s a happy mix of both because I’ve currently moved on to another book which is not holding my attention as easily. I’m even left with that lingering post-book feeling one has when one’s thoughts turn to the characters wondering what was happening with them now. I suppose that’s testimony enough.

II hadn’t heard of Anirban Bose before — but that isn’t surprising considering this is his first book. In his other life, he’s a doctor and assistant professor of medicine at the University of Rochester. I read somewhere that he’s now moved back to India. Calcutta, maybe. But just like the main character in the book, he’s from “small town” Ranchi and went to study medicine in Bombay. So yep, the book draws from his own life and experiences.

If Adityaman, the main character, had a small-town complex, he sure got over it pretty quick. He was confused, sure, but show me someone who isn’t. In record time he adapted to medical college, did well enough to get brilliant grades, became immensely popular, gave everyone great advice, and got the girl. Sure he got into trouble every now and then – but everything magically worked out. There was always a convenient coincidence waiting around the corner to save the day.I thought things resolved themselves way too easily when the author tells me, “The story is fiction. But the coincidences are one thing I didn’t make up. They really did happen. The exam scene, the young girl falling ill, Jagdeep turning up in the bus… I didn’t have to think about them at all.”

In the two years covered in this book, our Adityaman seems to have sorted out all of life, up and down, inside out. He got his thoughts clear on love, work, parenthood, morality, honor, religion, politics, friendship, politics, medicine. Did I leave out anything? Lucky guy. I want my money back — both from the coincidences and the life deparment.

Actually, the issues and events the author takes up are real enough. Very real. I’ve worked at a hospital for six years and can relate to much of what happens. The descriptions and expressions here are all pretty true to life. The detailing, the way people react, the attitudes are all part of everyday life in big city India. The story doesn’t just plod along – thankfully – but bubbles with mini-stories. But each story gets all its loose ends neatly tied up before moving on to the next. You’re left with no excess baggage. That may be good in some ways but it also means there’s nothing further to think about. It’s happily ever after.

While I found myself engaged by all the characters, everyone was colored with a certain amount of naiveté, even juvenility. Things work out too easily, too simply, too predictably. I think the story-telling needs to be a little more skillful for the next book. And I hope there’ll be a next book. This is an author I’d like to see ripening. I certainly hope he doesn’t along the way, go off and learn the nauseating art of intellectualizing and trying oh-so-hard to be Indian or Kafkaesque or some such.

I’ve no doubt that this first novel has a heart. Oh, and a soul too. It has feeling. It takes up things that matter. Maybe it just takes up too much though. Catharsis is sputtering all over the place and you can almost feel the author’s immense relief at the end of it all. Like he just had to get it all out.  I hope he moves on next to something interesting. And stimulating.

I asked Anirban Bose just how autobiographical his book was. Here’s what he said:

“Clearly I’ve borrowed from my life. Adi, the protagonist, has a lot of the characteristics I did and many of the other characters are also people I encountered, maybe just not in medical college, but also in the US (Harsha for example). Still other characters are purely a product of my imagination. In my defense (and I’m not sure I have to defend myself but I’m doing it because I’ll be accused of simply reproducing incidents in my life) most authors borrow from life or find inspiration in articles, news items and experiences to draw and paint a picture with words. I suppose I am not an exception to this rule!”

I also asked him whether he thought Adityaman didn’t just have it too easy.

“I wouldn’t exactly characterize Adi’s life it as being easy. The fall from grace, from popularity, especially at an age when we are very subject to the tribulations of peer pressure are enormous. How he learns to live with that is what makes it seem easy. I suppose that is the hardest part… learning to live with it. We all want something, and sometimes, in the race to get it, stepping back to see if it is worth it is not exactly a thought that crosses one’s mind. But then one person, or one incident can make all the difference…”

And what of all the coincidences that pepper Adityaman’s life?

“The funny part is that the coincidences that you talk about that may seem like deus ex machina, are real incidents!!! What can I say other than fact is stranger than fiction!”

Anirban plans to write a set of short stories next and these are to be in a different direction to Bombay Rains Bombay Girls.

Bombay Rains Bombay Girls has a website of its own. You can read an excerpt of the book there too. And elsewhere, you can have a look at Grant Medical College, Bombay, where the story is set.

Tags: General by Mala
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In most households, a pen is just that — a pen. In mine, a pen was something to be treasured and treated with careful reverence. That’s because, the rest of us have always wanted to be as brilliant at calligraphy as my father is.

Very recently, my father, after nearly 55 years, managed to get in touch with an ex-RAF officer Henry Chambers who was once with him on a Pilot Attack Instructor Course in Leconfield, Yorkshire, UK in 1953. Two years ago, he saw a letter of my father’s in the Daily Telegraph in UK and sent him a letter just addressed to Gp Capt Kapil Bhargava (Retd), Bangalore India. The letter reached him with only a slight local delay.

Henry Chambers and my dad had many good times together during the course, where they claim they were the only ones not “chasing skirt”, preferring instead to spend hours talking about classical music and calligraphy.  calligraphy. My dad had given Henry a sample of his calligraphy on a sheet from a notebook. Henry suddenly found this calligraphed piece and sent my father a scan of it. The paper was yellowed and frayed at the edges and had some smudges in places. But it still looks great.

Although he hasn’t done it in a while, my dad also used to do the most amazing nail etchings.

But I must say, this isn’t the best example of his calligraphy I’ve seen. He’s written out Shakespeare’s sonnets on handmade paper, using red ink to embellish capital letters at the start of a sentence. All the lines always looked 3-dimensional, or “thick and thin” as we used to call them.

I tried and tried but  I never got anywhere near as good. I had a nice Victorian good-girl writing when I tried hard, but it would lapse into an all-over-the-place scrawl if left to its own devices. I even tried writing decoratively in Hindi in my music book. The results were at best, amusing, as you can see in this photograph. .

I will still only write in black ink and I still lovely delicious, juicy blank paper, but my little bit of a copybook-neat handwriting has been stomped out by my keyboard.

Tags: General by Mala
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When I lived in Maadi, Cairo very long ago, I treated the Maadi Club as a second home. There was always something to do there; if nothing else, just walk around absorbing the surroundings and what people were doing. It was in Maadi Club that I met Omar Sharif – for real!

But one afternoon, as I was aimlessly walking around the quieter parts of the club, I saw in the distance, (no no, not a shimmering light) a little stone hut. From inside of this small hut, came the deepest, most sinister sound I had ever heard. A profound and foreboding drum sounded a regular, sepulchral doom-da-doom-da-doom doom-doom-tekk! I froze. What mysterious march was this and who was about to be devoured by what creature? I didn’t really want to wait to find out. I fled.

I never did get to know who was playing that drum, but I do know now that close encounter was my first with the beautiful, sensual chiftetelli rhythm. The basic rhythm doesn’t have quite as many dooms as I heard then. Dum te-tek te-tek dum dum tek is thought to be a Turkish and Greek rhythm and it’s used for slow belly dance and floor work.

I wouldn’t have known back then that I’d love dancing to Chiftetelli and the soulful music that is often set to it. The basic beats are often filled in and improvised with and sound passionate and emotional. In my iTunes, I’ve playlisted every chiftetelli I can find. To my amazement there are now 90 of them. What a choice of rich, beautiful music!

A few days ago, thanks to a friend, I discovered a beautiful Chifti piece called Desert Rain. It’s by Desert Wind and I got it from a 2CD set called World Dance. Not to be confused with a zillion other songs and groups called Desert Rain. You can hear a sample and buy it from PayPlay.

Chiftetelli can also be a fast rhythm and it’s also lovely in that form. I like it best when it’s slow and very filled and decorated with improvised beats that leave the dancer with lots to accent and play with.

This picture if of Sarah Skinner doing a lyrical chiftetelli performance on her I Love Turkish bellydance DVD.

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The Indian national anthem sung to perfection by this perfect doll, Sia Iyer. Sia also manages to sing another tongue-twisting national song, Vande Mataram.

And another incredibly sweet, charming little girl does the same, with a little bit of help.

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There are so few tribal fusion choreographies taught on DVD! There’s the fantastic Arabian Spices from Sahira, of course. Also her Ali, which I’m personally not fond of because of the forced Indian moves. And then there’s the Fantasy Bellydance series which has at least one tribal choreography on each of the 3 videos. Some are short and some are partially taught – but they’re there. And I don’t know of any others.

So… no one was surprised when I bought Aubre’s Tribal Essence choreography as soon as I heard of it. If you’re like me and your eyes are bigger than your wallet – just put yourself out of your agony and go buy it. But if you’re watching your budget, here’s what to consider.

Difficulty level
I’d say this is perhaps a medium difficulty level choreography. A few quick comparisons:

Arabian Spices – TE is more difficult
Ali – TE is more difficultCombos on tribal fusion DVDs – TE is more difficult
Fantasy bellydance – TE is tougher than Ariellah’s and Darshan’s but not as tough as Sera’s.

What makes TE difficult is the focus on the stomach work. While other choreographies also have quick stomach rolls and pos but they mix it with a greater amount of other bigger moves. In this choreography, the torso and stomach is in an almost continuous flow of movement. So—you must have your stomach rolls in at least passable shape. There is one backbend and a drop but they can be done to whatever extent you want. The stomach work, you have to do to the same extent as the instruction.

Are you ready?
Beginners… go do something else first! This is definitely not a beginner video. In fact, if you haven’t done enough tribal style isolation work in particular, and haven’t worked with any of the tribal combinations, this video is going to be too much at once. But if your omis look 3D enough and if your stomach rolls don’t look like you swallowed a porcupine – go for it.

Instruction style
The teaching moves fast. Clear and adequately detailed, but fast. Aubre is matter of fact, but not cold or clinical like some instructors. Sahira, for instance, is hugely warmer. But Rachel Brice is considerably colder on her DVDs.

Format
Now here’s an odd thing. You’d think there are only 5 combinations and this is a smallish choreography. Not so. It’s a long one because each of the 5 combos is so detailed it needs to be broken into two halves. I’m wondering why they didn’t just break the whole thing down into smaller combos! So you have a section that says “First six eight-counts” and then “Second four eight counts” etc to make up one complete combination. I’m guessing this format is because the moves flow into one another more than usual and a further breakdown may be too fragmented. Also, dancers of the level the instruction is targeted at can handle this sort of breakup easily enough. There are also repeats that include one combo building on the one before it. That’s a good thing because it’s really needed here.

The issue of how to learn fundamental moves has been handled here by putting in a separate little section, “Video Glossary”. Here, Aubre takes up some of the fundamental moves and explains what she means by them. You don’t get into absolute basics ad nauseum,  and yet you see some basics her way.

The choreography
Whether one likes a choreography or not is fairly subjective. Speaking for myself I’d say I like parts of it. Some segments are very pretty but I’d have preferred some larger and more dramatic moves waking it up a bit. In the beginning, it’s spellbinding, specially when done by a group of three dancers. After a while, I feel it could do with some moves that have a stronger presence. But well, someone else may feel differently and I’m no expert on choreography. The music is a lovely piece called Teasing Ways from DJ Mosavo’s Serpent’s Garden. You can see the choreography here though it’s filmed separately for the video.

Performances
The video has a solo performance followed by a group done by dancers from Aubre’s Lumina Dance Company.

Extras
Ain’t none.

(The photo here is an awful picture taken of my screen A workaround until my laptop can remember how to take screenshots again. The screen itself has some problems. So, keep in mind that Aubre and her dancing look a lot nicer!)

[Read more →]

Tags: Belly dance videos, Dance Diary by Mala
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Never underestimate Expert Village. You just never know what you’ll find there!

I was looking for something on the hagalla walk (though I do have Zahra Zuhair’s excellent basics video) and chanced upon a lovely treasure trove of instructional video clips on Expert Village.

The instructor is a Johanna Xenobia Kryntzky and she seems to very much know her stuff. She’s from Florida and is director of Hip Expressions Dance Studio. She may be fairly well-known but my belly dance world is really limited to instructional videos so I don’t know of her.  Johanna has a live drummer accompanying her as she teaches. At least I think she’s alive, though I can’t be too sure. There are actually two drummers, different ones for different series.

Johanna has quite a collection of videos up on this site. And good ones too! They’re rather nice for someone who knows their belly dancing but is looking for nuancing to spice it up a bit. What may interest a lot of people is that she has many folkloric and beledi steps here. Egyptian walks, straight twists, hagalla, folkloric travel steps with hop, beledi hip push, belly pop with travel steps including triple step, shoulder drop, jewel step…. it’s quite a list, really!

The video clips are complete, but short. In the absence of much else on folkloric steps taught quickly, they’ll more than do. For me, the videos are jerky so I let them load without watching the first time around and then I replay to watch properly. This is happening on a high speed connection as well.There’s an annoying ad overlaying on each clip but you can get rid of that by clicking it shut each time. Then go to fullscreen for a better experience. If you want to download them and watch them more smoothly, use Real Player. File, Open, paste the URL, click on the prompt to download. The files are only about 6MB each.

Also explore other series from a drop-down menu on the side when you go to the main page for a series like this one. You’ll find Johanna has a lot of other series that are all worth checking out. What’s niceabout these is that there are stylizations of steps. For instance, there’s a whole series on undulation moves such as rocking undulations with turns and sunrise arms, advanced rocking undulations with switching sides, grapevine rocking undulations left-foot rocking undulations.. oh hey! There are too many to list. There are several series on folkloric and beledi steps, walks and shimmies. There’s a great series on Twists, which I have a particular problem with. This one gets into various basic twists over many video clips and then explores traveling twists, advanced traveling transitions, triangle twists, circling twists, hip drop twists, releve twists and more – over 17 video clips for this series.

There’s also a series on sensual dancing tips. In this set, Johanna does some regular moves like hip drops front-side-back but softens out the move.  There’s a forward moving vertical hip circle which is quite nice. It may even be a relative of the hagalla, in fact. She squeezes in a lot of information in each of these little clips. I happen to think these are cool.

I recommend giving these a good whirl!

(Photos here are screenshots)

Tags: Dance Diary by Mala
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