Saturday, September 30, 2006
The Dancers
When standing to the side of the procession it seemed like the procession didn't move forward at all. The same people danced in front of us continually. There were many things happening in that place, on one side was a bhojan kind of stand that had already shut down as the LCR had already passed that point, right near it were the Political Party stands that faced the chowk along which the LCR was to pass. Oppossite it was Shroff building. They had,as always,created a huge platform at the third floor level where people had gathered and from where the pushpa varsha was administered. Hiding behind the party booths were some DJ's who came there simply to advertise themselves and directly in front of us was a volunteer perched on the control box of a street light strapped to the pole and to his camera. A little to our left was a huge boom truss on one end of which there was a weight and the other end of which there was a man with a movie camera. He kept moving up and down to ascertain the perfect position from which to shoot his film. There were some people standing on top of the bridge holding sacks of gulal and a truck passed behind them, probavly replenishing supplies. When another idol ambled up the road, to turn at the chowk, it took a u-turn in the oppossite direction to pause there paitiently for the LCR to pass through the chowk first. Somewhere there was a man with a microphone who kept announcing all sorts of things. Last year he had cockily announced that in his opinion the koli women were not dancing enough for all the moduks they has eaten. This year he yelled over Himesh Reshamiya to the DJs to stop the music, over and over again. Finally the music stopped but the noise didn't. The LCR didn't appear. The music started again. The man on the microphone didn't. While waiting, the procession didn't fail to keep us entertained. A young boy stepped up onto the shoulders of someone else and started dancing above the crowd. There were cheers for him across the crowd and not to be outdone, another boy of the same approximate size, wearing white covered in purple and blue colour and dark glasses, got onto the shoulders of someone else and started dancing with that much more excitement. The competition was getting intense when the first kid finally got off the others shoulders. Just when we dedicated our viewership to the second kid, an altogether different person (bigger), got up onto someones shoulders and the kid got onto his. They made their way to the party booth where someone bestowed onto them a fivehundred rupee note that he waved to crowd signalling vistory. The fight was over but the dancing continued.
# posted by ateya @ 12:41 AM 
