I Will Teach You to Be Rich

The catch is: you have to come to my dance show this weekend to learn how. See, my group will be performing a piece to the Ganesha Pancharatnam Sloka (translation: Ganesha's Five Gems Hymn). In this Sloka, we cover all the necessary actions you need to take to get rich in all aspects of your life. Hint: they center around buttering up Ganesha.

Ganesha: Remover of Obstacles, Bestower of Shiny Things

For those of you unfamiliar with Ganesha: Ganesha (aka Ganesh, Ganapati, Vinayaka) is best recognized as the elephant-headed God of the Hindu pantheon. There's some debate over his relationships to other Gods, but the popular consensus is that he's the son of Shiva and Parvati and the brother of Muruga. And why the elephant head? The preferred story is that Shiva grew jealous of Ganesha when he came between Shiva and Parvati, driving him to behead Ganesha. Parvati was not impressed, so Shiva made it up to her by replacing Ganesha's head with that of an elephant. And all was forgiven!

In the piece I'm in this Saturday, we'll explain the precise complements you should pay Ganesha - every morning - to ensure success in life. Success in our piece includes (but is not limited to): no diseases, no sins, improved literary skills, babies, and eight (eight!) riches. Wow! How can you pass this up?

Here's the location information for the show this weekend:

Abhinaya Spring Concert & Student Recital

Date: Saturday 2 April 2011

Time: 4pm

Location: Louis B Mayer Theater (Santa Clara, CA)

Tickets: Purchased at the door or in advance from Sulekha (apologies in advance)

Food food everywhere and not a meal to eat

A persistent problem I've had since starting dance three years ago is maintaining a sane diet in the lead up to a show. My first year, I got very pale, weak, and tired about two weeks before showtime. I was convinced I was either diabetic or dying of cancer. After a trip to the doctor and many tests, my mom asked if I was eating enough. After a week of adding 50% more food to my plate, I felt fine again. Smart person this mom character.

The next couple of shows I had the inverse problem. I was so preoccupied with getting enough food that I didn't really care what I ate, eating take out every night because I was too busy to cook. Consequently, I got a little chunkified and I'm only getting rid of the weight now. It killed my stamina once I stopped practicing so much.

This round, I think I've been doing a pretty good job of feeding myself. Before the real craziness started I had a solid two (two!) meals under my belt, both basically involving decorating frozen foods and adding a side of roasted vegetables, but hey, they taste great and are considerably healthier than take out food. So there, Hannah.

This weekend everything went to hell. I tried really hard, I swear. If it weren't for my super boyfriend, I probably would have skipped dinner on both Saturday and Sunday out of laziness and exhaustion. I had late dance practice on Friday, then afternoon practice on Saturday plus a concert to go to shortly after, followed by pilates Sunday morning immediately before driving down to the south bay for more dance class. From lunch on Saturday to dinner on Sunday, all I ate were almond butter and raspberry jam sandwiches, which keep me sustained but are the disappointing taking-your-cousin-to-the-prom version of a meal.

Sandwiches: Bun or Burger girl?

One pleasant interruption to the sandwichfest was the meal foisted upon me by the mother of one of classmates before dance on Sunday. I think she had the standard "Poor orphan child!" urge to feed the single working professional woman and I was happy to indulge that urge. I had delicious sambar, rice, plantain, and the awesomest rasam I've had outside of the Narayan household. To top it off, she gave me South Indian sweets to take home. Unfortunately, I could only eat a little since it was almost time to dance. I'm also kicking myself for not taking a picture. Still getting the hang of this blog thing.

Finally, after coming home an exhausted wreck after dance class Sunday, boyfriend cooked me possibly the most delicious stir fry I've ever had. Considering it was his first attempt, I was extremely impressed (although, again, failed to photograph). I think my new food strategy will be loafing off of boyfriend and Indian moms.

Unrelated: Shout out to Lakshmi for loaning me a dupatta on Sunday!

Attempt to dye braid: Failures 1 and 2

One of the consequences of being a white person in a brown woman's world is the clash of hair. I have light to medium brown hair, which contrasts with the vast majority of the women I dance with who have jet black hair. As part of our performances, we either wear long extended braids or buns, both of which require hair prosthesis. Naturally, the fake hair that's made for dance is all black. Last year, I attempted to ignore the problem and would up with an innovative yet hideous two tone franken braid.

This year I really wanted to get the colour right. Since I couldn't buy a brown braid extension anywhere I looked in Chennai, I'm attempting to dye one of the ones I have. Rumour has it that lime juice could work, so I got some limes and did a sample. I've also heard that peroxide is a good way to lighten hair, so I figured I'd try that separately as well.

Attempts at dying braid numbers 1 and 2

I set up two hair samples on my kitchen counter and put them by the window for the added benefit of sun exposure.

tehmle's Cosmetics Laborary, complete with toaster oven

Results: complete failure. Both samples, after 2 hours in the sun and a thorough rinse, show no signs of colour change.

Note: Appearance of colour change is an effect of the Android camea

So back to the drawing board. The only thing I can think of is actual hair dye, but if peroxide doesn't work I'm skeptical dye will. Any suggestions?

Juggling Act

This week and next week are going to be crazy lead up to show weeks. That means I have practice every other day on top of finding time to practice on my own and keep up my arangetram pieces and especially my stamina training. To make things extra exciting, there are a few birthdays and a visitor to throw into the mix.

On top of that, all my relationships are getting strained at this point. The two reactions I'm observing now are 1) I'm gradually worked out of event planning since I can never make it to anything and 2) feeling neglected. I think those are two very reasonable reactions, although in the short term I think I prefer the first because the second makes me stress out even more. Sigh.

Yesterday I got stuck at work waiting until 7pm to use the gym. They've decided to shut down the (much less busy) gym I've been using the in the afternoons for this week and the perpetual capoeira classes in my primary gym made it impossible to practice any earlier. Today, I'm stuck at work until 7pm waiting to go to late dance practice. I decided I would take it easy this morning and catch the late shuttle in so I could fit in some relaxing time. I went to Boogaloos, the best brunch place in town. In spite of a mild wait (at 9am on a weekday?? yes.), I had my usual fabulous tofu breakfast burrito with black beans and a fresh squeezed orange juice with a side of nook for reading. Yum!

nom nom nom nom!

Now it's off to work, then dance practice, then home, then dance practice, then home, then pilates, then dance practice, then enjoy the 20% of my weekend leftover. Oof.

Varnam, and why mine is awesome

I haven't yet explained much about what's involved in my arangetram itself. At its most basic, it's a bunch of dance pieces together with an intermission. A definition for 'varnam' is:

'In technical parlance, this dance composition commences with usually four and rarely six feet of sahitya, each corresponding to one avarta, or cycle of the tala. The song dwells upon the longing of the nayika, to meet the nayaka, the nayaka may be a god or a king or a patron. A series of pure dance sequences alternate with abhinaya for almost every line of the song and reach a climax in which raga, bhava, and tala, find synchronization, with the feet showing jathis in varied and roundabout gaits, the hastas depicting the meaning of the song, and the mukhajabhinaya, the facial expressions bringing out the various hues of emotions...'[1]

Now that we're clear on that, we can move on... HAHA, just kidding! To be honest, I don't understand half of what that means, but the major take away is that the varnam is the core piece of a performance. It's one of the few pieces that combines all aspects of Bharatanatyam, including intricate steps (jathis), miming/signing gestures (hastas), and facial expressions of emotions (mukhajabhinaya). Generally, varnams are about maidens (nayika) longing after someone (nayaka) who tends to be Krishna.

My varnam is a little different. It subverts tradition by focusing not on divine imaginary love for a philandering diety but instead on the challenges of being just another woman in one of these Gods' harems. In my case, the woman is Deivayanai, daughter of supreme God Indra, and wife of Muruga - son of Shiva, God of Tamils, and triflin' bastard. She is dishing to her girl about the dalliances of her husband with his new flame Valli, a mountain tribal girl.

'Hey ladies, wanna ride on my peacock?'

This varnam is very contemporary in that it's only about 100 years old. It was composed by P B Subramaniam (note: Subramaniam is the Telugu name for Muruga) who, according to my Honourable Dance Teacher, was sick of seeing endless varnams about women pining after good for nothing men. How revolutionary! It took the west another 90 years to come up with Sex and the City. This is one of the things that draws me to dance - it is one of the strongest vehicles for tradition, yet there's so much debate and discussion and protest that it's one of the finest sources of progressive thought in India and the world in general.

My Indian Mothers

Today in my dance class, two of my classmates announced their insistance that they meet my boyfriend so that they can vet him as Indian parents would. These girls are like 17 years old. I heart them!

Pilates: The Yuppidom Progresses...

This morning I met up with Radha and Erin for pilates. This was my first time trying pilates - I went since I haven't seen Erin since she had her baby and it was one of the few times she had time to socialize. It's also supposed to be really good for your core, and I figure I could use some more of that for dance.

I got to the class feeling pretty smug - I bet none of these other people dance 5 times a week! How long can they sit in aramandi for?? However, I was working in the class. Even on the leg exercises, which I thought would be a breeze, I was feeling the burn. There were plenty of women my mom's age there who were putting me to shame.

I'm glad I was wrong. It seems like pilates might be a good addition to my exercise schedule. For one, it's way better than the core work I've been doing once a week by myself, so I can replace that with pilates on the weekend and free up some more time during the week. Also, for the next few weekends, I won't be going to Sunday dance class because of Saturday rehearsals, so I'll actually be around Sunday mornings.

This is an exciting development.

Friday night at home

Following my rescheduled private class Friday night and a long week of work, I decided that I was going to coop myself up in my apartment and prepare my own food for the night. I didn't have a lot at my place to work with and I was too lazy to go to the grocery store. So I prepared one of my signature dishes: frozen dumplings in instant broth.

The dish requires boiling 4 frozen dumplings for 8 minutes:

For the broth, I mix a small amount of each of green onions, red pepper, Sreeracha sauce, and lime juice.

Then add 2 tbsp-ish of vegetable soup broth and hot water. Then add the dumplings in and serve. As I'm new to publishing my "recipes", I of course forgot to take a picture of the finished product. Believe me, it looked very delicious. I also threw out all the packaging before I could note the nutritional information, but it was somewhere upwards of 10g of protein for a reasonable amount of calories. Yum!

Executive Decision

Today I skipped class for the first time in... possibly ever. At least since September. Normally I never miss class unless I'm sick or traveling. And even then, I usually try to plan my travel such that I make it back in time for dance class. That's harder to do now that I have class 3 or 4 times a week in a normal week, 5+ in a busy week. This year, I've avoided all business travel in spite of enjoying excuses to visit other Google offices. I've also turned down a bunch of fun trip opportunities like skiing in Tahoe and Colorado and a girls' trip to LA. So there are some sacrifies.

Today, though, I decided skipping was in order. I've practiced every day this week and I'm still behind on the piece I'm in for the April 2nd show. Getting in enough non-stop stamina practice of my arangetram pieces turns out to take a lot of time. As well, I have a job that takes up a lot of time. Thursday class is also a Junior class - they're 10 years old, so they learn pieces really slowly, and it's even slower given that they're performing the Thursday piece in the show on April 2nd. Given the chance to practice on my own piece for the show or learn a small amount of a piece I might use for my arangetram, I decided on the former. I'm not sure my dance teacher will agree, but I'll find out on Saturday.

I realize I'm spending a lot of time defending my decision. I would never be so wrought about working from home or taking a day off if I was too busy. But I'm not really sure what kind of leeway I have with my dance teacher. The cultural norms are extremely strict compared to the come to work at noon and have a beer culture of the office. But even by dance standards I think I'm obsessing a bit much. Time for bed.

An arangetram is like a marathon...

Well not quite. An arangetram is only about 2 hours long. It also has strong emphasis on musicality and expression. So more accurately, it is like a half marathon with miming and a few drum solos. How does one train for such an event??

That brings me back to the marathon analogy. Of all the crazy things my friends do, the physical endurance feats basically fall into marathon, bike marathon, or triathalon. Though I dance with plenty of people who have done arangetrams, they were all in their early teens at the time, safely shuffled about and stuffed with food by loving Indian moms and dads. So my preparation regimen needs to fit somewhere in between those two. I went with marathon training as a framework because it's pretty simple and I can learn about it online. I found a quality online training plan, chose a level (intermediate II), and created a forumla for mapping each marathon training week schedule to a Bharatanatyam training week schedule.

A marathon is 26.whatever miles. I usually run 10 minute miles (yes, I'm abysmally slow). Note, I do this in miles because the training schedule I was basing this on was in miles, and the units won't matter in a minute. So for me, it would take 260 minutes to run a marathon. My arangetram will take about 2 hours, or 120 minutes. I'm a slacker, so I rounded 260 down to 240 to make the math easier. That gave me 2 minutes for every mile run in the long runs. That was way too easy, so I threw in an extra multiple of 2 for kicks:

bharatnatyam training time (minutes) = running (miles) * 2 (minutes/miles) * 2 (coefficient of tehmle)

Since I started this program with roughly the 18 weeks needed left, I've been using that multiplier to determine how much stamina dance (meaning non-stop, continuous dancing) to do in a session, especially in my weekly 'long dances'.  This is week 2 and today I just finished my 44 minute long dance. It was hard, and was exacerbated by the squats I did yesterday. Lesson for this week: give more than a day between squats and long dances.