Finally, it happened.....
Deeksha's performance started at 7:30 PM and went till 8 PM.
I was standing on the side-wings.... It was quite a strange feeling. So far, I used to be there on stage and if I am at the side-wings, then it would be with make-up waiting for my next scene to come.... But this time, I was there to encourage Deeksha and pat on her back. It was quite a nice feeling.
Quite a few of them turned up. Myself and Bhargavi are very thankful to them .....
Srikanth Raghavan (my boss), Ravi Ivaturi, Sunil Koshy, Nagaraj, Latha (my friends) and Tejaswini (their daughter), and it was also nice to see that my friends Raama, Raaghu, Puneetha, Lakshmi, Deepa, Vinay, turned up at the auditorium to watch Deeksha and Raama was telling me that Deeksha is very graceful... he could not believe that it was Deeksha. He was seeing her after few years !!
Ravi, who could not bring his daughter (down with fever) who herself is an upcoming dancer, made sure that he was there at the venue to watch the performance. It was quite nice to see him come all the way from HRBR Layout.
Even though I was bit tensed up, I kept encouraging her and was telling her standing on the side-wing before the performance on how to utilize the expanse of the stage during her movements and to my disbelief, she literlly did that !!! She was dancing all over the stage with every nook and corner and made sure that her presence on stage was felt everywhere by everyone.
I was told that not many kuchupudi dancers are there and that too performing Kuchupudi at the age of 12 is a hard task.
Myself and Bhargavi must thank Vyjayanthi, Deeksha's Guru. It is she who literlly took Deeksha into her folds and nurtured her and still nurturing her like the mother birds feed the food for the young ones.... It is really quite emotional to see this bondage. This is the Guru-Shishya parampara.
Two more people I must mention here are Yael Tal and Prateeksha. Yael Tal, a student from Isreal, who is here in India to learn Kuchupudi dance, helped Deeksha massively along with Vyjayanthi's training. She was a second Guru to Deeksha. Prateeksha, Vyjayanthi's daughter and student, made sure that Deeksha looked graceful in her make-up and that was one of the highlighting point for me being an artiste.
Deeksha was honored with a basket of fruits, a certificate and cash of Rs.750. by Ananya Academy's Dr. Raghavendra. It will remain a lifetime memory for Deeksha.
Raama was so happy seeing her performance, he straightaway gifted Rs.500 to Deeksha. Other 600 came from others and my cousin was so happy that he lifted her like a child and showered his affection. These gestures definitely shows how much of encouragement Deeksha is getting.
I think we should get used to these kind of post-performance reactions in the future and Deeksha has begun her crawling in the field of classical dance. We are quite optimistic that she would reach the heights which Vyjayanthi has gracefully reached and of course, that's Vyjayanthi's dream as well. Lots of effort required for almost a decade to reach that level.
