P for Passion, ... and Pharaohs

My friend, Meera, is a dancer. She’s not a professional dancer, in the sense that she doesn’t make a livelihood through dance, but she is as serious about her dance as any professional dancer.

Unfortunately, I haven’t see her dancing live, but I but am constantly amazed at the depth of emotion she manages to convey through her posture and her facial expressions. She is better than many ‘professional dancers’.

Not without reason. On the right side of 35, she is an anachronism in the world of dance, which is dominated by pretty young things in their early 20s. And yet, it is her increased years that make her such a good dancer.
She’s a wife and mother, she has experienced most of the emotions conveys through her dance. It is her emotional maturity that makes her a much better dancer than she herself must have been when she was younger and fitter.

Dance is a demanding mistress, and few women are able to make time for her after marriage and kids. They stop dancing, not because they want to, but because they are just not able to do so. Balancing work and family is hard enough, how do you fit in daily practice and group rehersals?
Meera has two kids under the age of seven. She edits and writes features for a living, and has four “yet to be published” novels on her desk. And yet, she manages to give public performances, both solo, and with her troupe.How does she manage, when so many others give up? Simply because dance is her passion, and she is willing to make any sacrifices necessary to be able to keep up with her passion.

Passion is something very close to my heart. I have often blogged about how it is almost pointless to do something unless you are passionate about it. And when you are truly passionate about something, with a little bit of determination, you can make time for it.

Most of us already know it. My friend proves it. With Passion, anything is possible. Without passion, most things are pointless.

__________________

Kid - "Papa, do you know who was the father of all Pharaohs?"
Father - "Must be Papa Pharaoh."

Kid - "You are hopeless, you don't know anything."

Father - "Of course it was Papa Pharaoh. Who else could it be?"

Kid- "Khepri was the father of all Pharaohs. He was an Egyptian God, and had the head of a scarab beetle."

Father- "Capri? I thought you wore capris."

Kid - "Papa, you are hopeless, you don't know anything at all."

[All photographs courtesy my friend, S. Meera]

The last photograph is my favourite. She'd depicting Lord Kama (the embodiment of pleasure and sexual gratification) shooting five arrows. Each arrow is tipped with different flowers, and causes a different agony- from the heart, to the lips, to the eyes, the body and the head.