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Published: December 22nd 2008
By far, the highlight of Saturday's performance was when all the students gathered onstage to sing the children's song "Kakke Kakke". The whole song is about a crow who steals a little boy's cake and is one that every Malayali knows by the age of 5. As soon as we started singing everyone (including us) erupted into laughter and the crowd enthusiastically clapped along to the beat. We followed this with a beautiful Kerala lullaby and I was moved as I thought about the work we had all put into this summer, the friendships we've made and the dedicated teachers who were proudly watching us from the audience.
The process to get into my costume for mohiniattom took almost two hours, this can be attributed to the layers and layers of clothing, the layers and layers of makeup, and of course, the long black hair extensions. The beautiful costumes made me and my mohiniattom companions look 10 times more authentic and much better than we actually were. There were definitely a few misteps during the performance, but we all smiled through it and much of the crowd was shocked that we had been studying an art that takes years and years to master for only two months. I was SO impressed with the other performances! For the last two months we have all pretty much been practicing under-cover, so I had no idea what everyone's performances would look like. The other dance and the Kalari (martial arts) and the drumming blew me away. Our singing performance went really well too. I think we all sang our solo songs better than we ever have.
Today, Alia, Dan and I are taking a plane to Bangalore! I am pumped to tour this "progressive" city. We plan to visit the botanical gardens there tomorrow which happens to be experiencing an anual blooming all this week (very fortunate timing). We are also definitely going to check out Bangalore's 'lounges' and hit the club scene. We are all hoping to stumble onto one of the last surviving laser discos of Bangalore. We will be staying in Bangalore until Thursday night and plan to spend our last day (Friday) at Kovalam before heading back to the U.S. on Saturday.
Thanks so much for keeping up with this blog. I can't tell you how happy the comments have made me. Enjoy the rest of summer. So long from India. xo
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George
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Another program participant?
That is what I thought when I saw "performinginkerala" and a girl in costume that reminded me quite of you! Your photo was on the travelblog main page as a link, I clicked it and, lo and behold! It's you! Nice to read about these adventures...there is so much that I have forgotten or just did not remember. But what is most awesome is to feel how you have changed so much since you wrote these pieces, and it is also great to sense how our own friendship has developed! Peace and blessings to you!