Thursday, August 25, 2011

The Celebrated Dancer

She sat through the program with great difficulty. The dancer had been written about in that morning's paper, which had worked its charm and attracted a lot of audience. The lady in question had talked at length about her artistic blood, the creativity that flowed through her when music came on. Nothing of it was evident in the performance. The crowd this article had managed to pull was more than some of the senior and better dancers got in this city of art and culture.

The music was out of the world, but her critical eye assessed the mudras, the posture, the arai mandi, and found everything lacking. That would have been okay if the artist had been engaging. There was a total disconnect. She looked around to see if only she was being so sore. No, the audience was busy trying to look interested, quoting from the article that morning, trying to justify their presence here.

As the dancer ended the main piece of the evening, the sabha staff placed chairs. "Oh god!" she groaned inwardly. "Why do they torture us with speeches!" she thought miserably.

When the chief guest, also a renowned dancer - spoke highly of the dancer, she got up and came out, nauseated at the undeserved eulogy.

She smiled at the familiar office staff who was standing near the entrance.

"How did you like the program?" the lady asked.

She smiled noncommittally. "Very well known abroad, is she?"

Now it was the turn of the other lady to smile noncommittally. "She has given a large donation," the lady added proudly. "They are very well to do there."

That explained it, she thought as she waved a bye and vanished into the night, trying not to let her dark thoughts affect her. If only she had that kind of money, she thought as she boarded the bus. Who cares how she performed, it was money and influence at the end of the day.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...