I am a rock

At the witching hour Aarti and Kailash Surendranath appeared, as if by magic, with the quot;genius of fashionquot; Rohit Bal in tow. The...

At the witching hour Aarti and Kailash Surendranath appeared, as if by magic, with the quot;genius of fashionquot; Rohit Bal in tow. They had just got back from the Miss India finals and said all the girls looked drop dead gorgeous. I thought Lara Dutt looked exceptional in the morning papers, again a world class act! Anyway by now the party was winding up. With all the splits having run out, we moved on home too. Caught Sanjay Narang at the door for a quick hello! Another dapper bachelor ready to be snapped up. Any takers, girls? To be back in Mumbai, after three days in Delhi, did seem like a homecoming.

We sat down in the auditorium and the starting sequence had a Bharata Natyam dancer open her hands in a sweeping movement of the arms, and between her extended palms you had the title of the film quot;when the soul glowsquot;! It was a short evocative film that provides an over arching perspective on Indian dance. It had sections that covered the different styles of Indian dance, like classical, contemporary,folk/tribal.

When dancers of the calibre of India8217;s finest, including Gurus Kelucharan Mahapatra, Birju Maharaj, Sadanand Balakrishan, Kalanidhi Narayanan, Singhajit Singh and Charu Mathur, Sonal Mansingh, Saswati Sen, Raja and Radha Reddy, Shovana Narayan, Malavike Sarukkai, Alarmel Valli, Madhavi Mudgal lit up the screen one felt the glow and spirituality of their dedication. Anita touchingly referred to having lived and nurtured this film through production and now sharing it with us was like finally delivering a baby. We cooed and congratulated her like one would a delightful baby, after the film. She has indeed captured, in a short span of time, the moving spirit of Indian dance. One is left with the distinct feeling that you wanted more8217; and I guess that sums it up for me.

We had tea at the lawns of 6, Maulana Azad road, where the Vice President, his wife, Mr Som, his lovely wife, the divas, Astad, Ashish Soni, Pawan Morarka, Madhavan Kutty, Arnie Walther, and a host of other dignitaries stoodchatting. Anita Pratap has found her forte in her production of short documentary telefilms. As she does all her production and post production work herself, she gets completely absorbed in her project till the day of delivery as she puts it.

Through her films, she has portrayed an India that you and I know, love and live in. But through the eyes of a connoissueur, in a way, we perhaps miss. I laud my friend her wonderful effort 8212; it left me with an inner glow and a quest to relearn dance, which I had learnt for ten years in my childhood and adolescence. If a film can do all this and more it8217;s achieved its purpose and will get a befitting reception when aired. In Anita8217;s creativity there is as much talent as there is in Rocky8217;s but what binds us all together eventually is a rock solid friendship and may that never change.