International Dance Day 2007

On March 25, 2 days before our return home to Sydney, we hosted the International Dance Day Celebration 2007 in Nizamabad, at the Rajiv Gandhi Auditorium.

How everything came together for this wonderful and most memorable event still remains a miracle to me, as the planning process only began about 10 days prior to the 25th! The truth is, that without Sandeep working 24 hours a day while Freya and I were ‘swanning’ it in the 40+ temperatures in Pune, it would never have happened! Sandeep was typically seen in the middle of the night climbing high posts and verandahs all over Nizamabad in order to secure the numerous banners he had got printed to announce the free programme all over town. At one point a bystander came up to him and said Are you not the person on this poster?…Then why are YOU climbing the posts?!

On our pre-program trip to Nizamabad, where I must mention that I drove our beloved Hyundai a small section of the way on the highway(!!!!), we had to meet with numerous local dignitaries, and wait in the heat of the day for them to let us into their air-conditioned inner sanctum, where we officially invited them to be honoured guests at the dance concert. Most of the important local figures we met were extremely encouraging to us, which springs out of their high esteem for Sandeep. He managed to negotiate a large discount to the cost of the auditorium hire, which required many meetings with many people. So we took this to mean that the programme should indeed go ahead.

Back in Hyderabad we had to arrange a fast photo session with Freya and Sandeep, in order to have some fresh pictures of them to put on the posters. Sandeep’s lovely friend Pavan came to the aid with the most incredible face make-up for Freya, which made her look around 25 years old – NO kidding!!! The poor man had to wait until midnight to finally be given a meal which he and Sandeep went out to get- his words to Sandeep were Don’t you ever eat here? And I guess we really did not have much time to think of such mundane issues at the time!

Sandeep took a lot of care to write a beautifully worded invitation, with the long-distance assistance of Kamal in the UK. The day Freya and I left for our 4 day trip to Pune, Sandeep spent until midnight in the print shop looking at the final proofs and making small corrections. In the days while we were away he and his family personally delivered around 300 invitations to important persons in Nizamabad and surrounds. Sandeep’s father had the idea to ring Dasmohapatra, the organizer of the International Children’s Dance Festival in Cuttack Orissa, and invite him for the evening. Incredibly he immediately said yes, my wife and I will be there, and so we were very honoured that they would take the 24 hour train trip to join the other special guests on the night.

After our return from Pune on the 23rd evening, we had one day to recover before again packing up and heading north out of Hyderabad to Nizamabad on Saturday the 24th, in time for the press conference that afternoon. Sandeep was very calm and made Freya feel very relaxed about the press, telling her to just be natural. There was quite a turnout, and we gifted to the press people lovely handcrafted bags which contained a CD of information and pictures to be used in their publications. This came at a bit of a price to us, as my computer hard-drive had a complete meltdown after burning too many CD’s in a hurry- which I did while we travelled in the car. Freya danced a section of her programme, which was filmed, and which we later saw on several TV stations the same evening. So the programme ended up being extremely well advertised. The next morning Sandeep woke me up with a stack of newspapers with many prominently placed articles on the evening programme. It was indeed exiting. I was getting somewhat nervous about all this expectation, but soon the heat was so biting, that my only worry was how to stay sane and on track for the big evening.

Late morning we went to the hall, where Freya and Soumya (sandeep’s sister, who was also performing 2 items) had a tryout of the stage. We decided on the final requirements for flower decorations etc, and with the help of many of Sandeeps Family members it all came together in time. Sandeep’s mother was cooking the most delicious food for us, and this really helped keep Freya’s energy up and keep her fuelled for the evenings performance. Srikanth and Santosh, Sandeeps senior students, were travelling in a hired jeep with the invited guests from Hyderabad and beyond, making sure they had a pleasant journey to the programme.

A very sweet and gentle make-up artist came from Hyderabad to do Freyas makeup, while I milled around trying to remember my starting note for the small Carnatic musical item I was going to start the programme off with. My music teacher, Gopinath Sir, arrived with the Jeep, and very sweetly came and assured me and gave me a few last minute tips. When the specially invited guests finally all arrived, and this was only 1 tasteful hour later than planned, the hall was full to the brim and people were spilling out into the doorways. The specially invited guests lit the lamp as per tradition, after which I managed to pull off my act of singing the small Ganesha item without a hitch (Apparently the reaction from the audience was that they felt very ‘ashamed’ – ashamed that here was a foreigner in their country singing a very traditional song, which they did not even know how to sing). Freya danced her first item Bhajamanasa and it was a good item to warm up with. By the second item she was well warmed up, and in her third item was exploding with energy, as she just flew across the floorboards and bowled everyone over with Neela Megha, a beautiful tarangam (plate dance) piece on Shri Krishna. I had wished that she would dance as well on this night as she had done in Pune just days earlier, because it was like a new dimension to her performance had been switched on, with her expressions becoming so much more vivid and alive. To our disappointment Sandeep had not seen her Pune performance, but I knew that if she danced with the same energy as she had in Pune, that he would be well pleased. And indeed he was.

While the honoured guests gave their speeches, Freya was interviewed for Z-channel, a Telegu news channel which is broadcast internationally. (It was a bit puzzling that the cameraman could not speak any English at all).
In the second half Freya danced her favourite pieces Bahamkalapam and Mahalaxmi Asktakam, and they were very much enjoyed by all. I summed up my courage to give my speech of thanks, in which I thanked Soumya, who has been like a real sister and great support to Freya, and also the many people we love so dearly, and who have been such a great support to Freya in this dance adventure. Sandeep also spoke beautifully about the thrill of giving back something to his home town, which has been such a great support for him in his career. It was with great joy and relief that this wonderful evening ended on a very high note. It was still a few hours before we had packed up everything in the hall, departed, and as we hit our beds quite hard Sandeep was still busy making sure our guests from Oriassa were being fed and looked after.

The next morning there was a wonderful article in The Hindu, one of India’s English language newspapers.

The next morning we leisurely and sadly departed for Hyderabad, where we delivered our dear guests Mr and Mrs Dasmohapatra at Secunderabad railway station in good time for their 5 pm train back to Cuttack. From there we drove with Srikanth and Santoah following us, to the movies, where we enjoyed a nice long Namaste London movie in the blessed coolness of the magical air-conditioning. It was a good chance to ‘chill’ literally and rest on our very tired laurels for a few hours, before the pack-up for our journey home would soon start…