More than any other day, today was a pretty relaxing day compared to others that I have had in the past. I visited my Aunt's house and she taught me some math lessons in pre-calculus. I'm first and foremost very glad to have her as an Aunt, and secondly very appreciative to her teaching skills. I was able to grasp the concepts quite quickly and it helped to boost my self-confidence about myself in math in general, as I used to struggle in middle school. As today was pretty calm and peaceful, I did not have much change in emotion except for happiness and joy and enjoyment in the day, however; I decided that for this blog, it would be better to talk about my Sunday, on the 20th of April, as that day was a key milestone for me.
On Sunday, my dance company, KalaVandana Dance Center, was asked to perform in the Concord Shiva-Murugan Temple to celebrate Tamizhl New Year. Every year, our company is given this prestigious opportunity to dance in front of God and get the Temple's blessings. My day started off great with my friend's mom getting me and my friend ready, as my mother was in Cleveland, Ohio, with my brother. The whole dance makeup and dresssing up takes about 2 hours and with the additional person (me), we had to start even earlier. The whole painstaking process gets easier with more and more practice, as does any task, so I helped my friend's mom out by getting ready as much as I could without her help. The jewelry and hair are pretty heavy and that is where the change of emotion kicks in from eagerness and excitement to suddenly feeling angry and the brink of pain. But, in order for the process of getting ready to be competed faster, I decided to hold back and be as patient as I could, and it truly helped us get ready faster. After we were ready, we all left to the temple in Concord. The drive was far so we took a power nap. Once we reached the temple, this is where the rollercoaster ride began.
First and most importantly, we greeted our teacher and discussed with the younger kids the Mangalam, or the ending, where we all come back onstage and bow to the audience. As I was the leader, I had to teach them how to walk and arrange them in order of height. I felt a great sense of strength being a leader and it gave me some credibility that I knew I needed. Afterwards, we all circled around my dance teacher and we performed prayer with our bells to wear around our feet. The prayer is a way of thanking God and have his blessings with us during our dance. Once completed, we tied our bells around our feet and went upstairs to the temple from the hall and got ready to perform. The first batch of girls were from my class, though they were one level above us. They performed first as an offering to God, as their dance was the first. Their dance was beautiful and all coordinating and in sync. Following them was the juniors group. Their dance was all memorized properly, but as it was their first time dancing at the temple, the were all quite nervous. Overall, the children danced well. Once they finished, the butterflies in my stomach started flying in all sorts of directions. My dance teacher had put a ton of pressure on us to perform well as this was one of the most important and key moments in our dance career. The pressure caused some stress and increase in anxiety levels for me, but I decided to calm down in order to perform better. As a result, our group was amazing. Our hard work from constant 3 hour practices had paid off. I felt very accomplished inside and that feeling was pure joy. After the last group danced, we all came back to perform the Mangalam and receive our prasadam, or offering from God. This whole experience at the temple is completely different than performing on stage during our Annual Recital. As we are in a temple, we need to do justice to this art form. Bharatnatyam is a South-Indian Classical Dance art form used as a form of worship in the temple and that is exactly how we managed to dance. I am very thankful for my teacher giving us the opportunity to perform and appreciative of the Temple Committee for additionally organizing the Tamizhl New Year celebrations. My day was definitely a rollercoaster with its ups and downs, but in the end, then experience that I gain conquered all and is for sure the most important lesson of the day.
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