Tap Away Into The Divine

Members were in for a surprise when they attended the RCB meeting on 17th January with guest speaker Seema Mehta – an expert practitioner and performer of Kathak Yoga. The sound of ghunghroos filled the space while President Nominee Rtn. Jagdish Malkani started the meeting with announcements covering the upcoming events, birthdays of the week, thanking members for their donations and asked the president of Rotaract Club of Jai Hind College to introduce their annual event CHEEKH – a voice against women trafficking and violence against women.

The tone was set by a moving video giving an insight into the challenges and tribulations faced by the women of today, questioning the attitude towards their dreams and aspirations. Complementing the video, two students broke into a monologue voicing the strong emotions and concerns of the independent woman of today. Another format the students used to spread awareness were flashmobs to bring about the surprise element and thus, gain attention. They ended it with a call for support from members for this worthy cause, towards the future of our nation’s women.

Rtn. Malkani then requested director, Rtn. Mudit Jain to do the honours of introducing the dynamic speaker of the day. Rtn. Jain mentioned that his wife Malti had the chance to train under Seema’s guruji during one of their holidays. He went on to tell us about Seema’s background, having lived in Belgium, San Francisco and now Mumbai that she calls home, Director of Chhandam Nritya Bharati- India where she teaches over 100 students in Mumbai and Kolkata and the social work she has done with Aakanksha and SMILE Foundations in Mumbai. She now runs her own organization called HAPPY FEET through which she has worked with the children of Kolkata’s red light areas to empower them through the dance form. Rtn. Jain also took this opportunity to introduce worldrenowned tap dancer Jason Samuels from New York who had accompanied Seema for the meeting and was performing with her at the NCPA on 21st January in the form of “jugalbandi”.

The room was filled with silence and with bated breath upon hearing the sound of ghunghroos becoming louder as Seema made her entrance. She started off with a note of thanks and a special one going out to Rtn. Poornima Advani whose daughter was her student. She went on to express her appreciation towards all the members who took out time to contribute towards the community via different programs and initiatives.

When she said “I know that a lot of people look at dance as entertainment, but there is something that is a lot deeper and powerful within this dance form and I will let my art speak for itself,” we did not expect to be mesmerized by the sound of her ghungroos, feet tapping along with beats sung by her for over 5 minutes. Her dance did more than speak for itself; it left the audience wanting more and gave them a taste of the benefits of spreading this art form to bring about change. She stressed upon the importance of infusing and interweaving dance as a part of the curriculum in schools vs. an extra curricular activity after a long day with other subjects.

She stressed this point further by explaining how any art form when pursued becomes the eye that helps you look within yourself, a gateway of knowledge to know your body, mind, and who you are. Once you achieve this, you can then help spread the message and happiness onto others. The members were happy to learn a little about her practice, which started off with an invocation followed by a short “kramalaya tatkar” basic footwork of kathak where you see the mathematics of the dance. This consists of four elements that one can apply to life as well, tayaari – readiness and preparation, lehakari – understanding the rhythm, khoobsoorti – beauty within and outside and finally nazakat – the delicacy of that beauty you have discovered and how you preserve it. She explains how Kathak – Yoga was innovated by her guruji Pandit Chitresh Das, a technique which takes Kathak into the realm of spiritual practice, requiring the practitioner to bring mind, body and spirit into unified focus. Keeping it within the tradition, the dancer performs rhythmic composition through footwork, movement and expression while simultaneously reciting the underlying rhythmic structure (theka) and singing the corresponding rhythmic melody (lehara). In short, she called it MEDITATION IN MOTION.