Sharing herewith a beautiful Kathak poise of Jayanta and myself from the year 2004. This poise was my concept and this happened to be our first professional dance photoshoot after our marriage. The picture was clicked at the Bindal's Photo Lab in Hisar (Haryana) by one of their photographers. We both were so excited to undergo this and there were couple other dance photos that we clicked. Prior to 2 days of this, I gathered my dance costumes, makeup, Ghungroo and other essentials. Today I feel that maybe I could have done a bit more. Like getting a professional makeup artiste or puffing my hair or putting eyelashes with coloured eye lens or adoring with a lots of jewellery to make me look like a princess 😊. Seriously, till today I never engaged myself with all of these fantasies for my dance performances. I still do my own makeup but just try to puff my hair a bit and very rarely put false eyelashes whenever in mood or have time. The photo reflects that time of ours when we both had so many dreams together being a dance couple and ready to curve our niche around the globe. We choreographed innumerable dance choreographies and dance ballads concentrating our northeast India like 'Bihu Bareboroniya', 'Brahmaputra', 'Kaziranga', 'Majuli', 'Maa Shakti' and many more during that time of which many of our artistes in Assam were not aware of as because most importantly of the non-existence of the social media. Our news was printed from time to time when we perform aboard or we share our future plans wherever we visit Assam through newspapers and TV channels.
As we get along with each other especially as artistes, we both have learned quite a bit of lesson from each other's behaviour, attitude and life expectations. Jayanta has always been a carefree performer. He has a firm grip upon the knowledge of Taal (rhythm system) and I know that he can easily stand above in comparison to many who are gaining recognition in their dance field. The footwork improvisations that he does on the stage are all composed on spot without any prior practice. His attitude of presenting Kathak recitals with unique and acceptably different styles, far away from those with conventional outlook was adamantly reflecting. He was neither scared nor thoughtful for once upon what would his contemporary discuss or think of. And all of these were too much for me or in a way came to me in lots one after another which I staggered bit by bit to accept and learn. I always ask, "What will people say?" and he simply answers, "You have to be different to mark your own identity. When there are plenty of already existing traditional dancers, who will come to watch you?".
With my growing age, I have learned to grow in dance with him. And simultaneously, with the passage of time, Jayanta also learned to be self-adequate and not to remain submerged under influence of senior mentors in several ways like that of investing more personal growth time or self-respect and this bad habit of being 'bossy' he learned it from me. Belonging from a business family, from childhood I have seen my parents controlling people and handling works like a boss whilst encompassing vast areas of works and commitments. And somehow I also got infatuated with this attitude. Gradually, Jayanta been inspired by this started giving more and more time to our self-growth, started planning for our existence as dance duo, purchased a Lenovo desktop computer with internet with which we sat together and explored the world, various organizations, dance festivals, designed our e-brochures and bio-profile, writing mails and establishing ourselves on the threshold of the global dance platform. We both then founded our first non-profit organization dedicated to Indian classical dancing, 'BHANGIMAA – The Classical Dance Foundation', of which the name was given by Jayanta and the tagline by me.
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