Chhandam

O please dance in jeweled shoes in my heart,

And hurt not your feet on the rocky slopes of the Himalayas.

-       Adi Shankaracharya

Dance was the language of Shiva’s heart, the accompanying `damru’ was his very heartbeat as legends tell. His dance is significant because it symbolizes the joyous dance of the soul within oneself. In Northern India, Shiva dancing with rhythm and grace with the Veena is known as Veenadhara, As Nataraja and Dakshinamurti, he is the Lord of Dance and Knowledge respectively.

Shiva, is day, Parvati is night. Shiva is time in eternity and Shakti is energy in cosmic space. Shiva is Purush, Parvati his Prakriti. He, is Tandava, she is Lasya. The two are actually one – different aspects of one reality. Shiva and Shakti represent the polar aspects of the one essence of life – The Ardhanarishwara. The great Sanskrit poet and playwright, Kalidas described them as an inseparable union of Vak and arth, word and meaning. Chhandam is my blog to the beating heart that resides within the Eternal Man and Woman.

Chhandam, itself is a journey to discover the inherent rhythm that controls all creation and subsequently all performing arts.

There is rhythm in our breath, in our heartbeats,  rhythm in the way we move, rhythm in the swaying of the palm fronds and in the ebb and fall of waves, rhythm in sunrise and sunset, rhythm in life and death, rhythm in take-off and landing – that’s Chhandam!