Hallucinating Hampi- Chapter 8

#9

As she steps on to the stage, the clouds look bewildered while the gathered audience feels concerned. In a land were rains have been scarce since 3 years they neither could pray for the clouds to be clear nor they wanted to miss the resurrection of a century old custom.

Thousand Eyes rolled when the thunder struck, along with the first beat of the music played in the stereo speakers. Surprised, excited, shocked and bewildered expressions were all around.

Sahasra stood high, shrewd and pointed, on the stage erected 10 feet high from the ground. She stretched her arms to the sides, raised and folded, until her palms met in front of her bosom, while the country speakers murmured the sound "Ohm" in length. Never for a moment since the 6^th Day, was she out of her hallucination. Her performance had a story to say,                a story to narrate

Chinna Devi who was a part of Sahasra's practice was not seen on the stage for the 500 audiences, arranged and seated in the three sides of the stage. Sahasra continued to believe that Chinna Devi was standing next to her, and so the position she took at the left side of the stage surprised the crowd.

The stage was set in a centred way as they felt the performer would be in a centre. She humbly bowed with folded hands to wish the audiences and dignitaries who had assembled in front of her. She politely greeted the crowd sitting at her east and west side. She never felt excited or perplexed when she saw the line of people in the front row consisting of Raja Krishnadevaraya, Rani Tirumala Devi, the ministers and chiefs, few Portuguese traveller’s, representatives from adjacent empires and a large group of furious looking Sadhu's.

"Thim", it sounded in the speaker, with the hands resting on her waist Sahasra thumped her foot on the stage so

hard that the bells tied in her legs sounded as loud as the speaker. The customized recording version of Thandav stothram were to be played.

With the first step, Sahasra looked to her right and smiled wide. The dance was a Solo performance for the gathered audience, but for Sahasra’s audience that included the Raja, Sadhu’s and the Portuguese traveller’s sitting in the front of the crowd, it was a dancing competition with Chinna Devi. Sahasra noticed that her confident and shrewd look has left the Sadhu's perplexed.

All that people could see was Sahasra swirling on the 15*15 stage like a spinning top. All her moves were so pointed and sharp. Every time Sahasra moved to the right side of the stage she twisted her neck to the left to see Chinna Devi. Dancing bare feet, the postures of tandav she expressed standing high on her toe looked more easy and smooth than what a trained ballet dancer could express.

People could not see the spills of blood from her nails nor could she realize. No one had seen that kind of dedication anywhere before. The cloudy sky kept the place as dark as it was during 4 am, though it was 7 am already. Lights were lit all around, when focus lamps erected in four poles fifteen metres away from the stage at four sides highlighted Sahasra.

She never looked exhausted as her dance became more powerful and expressive. People figured out from her performance that she is depicting two characters on the stage and that one expression is the answer to the other.

But, what people did not understand was that she was becoming Chinna Devi and Sahasra at the same time.
The dancer who danced with her during all her training periods for eight days were no one other than her own extended projection.

The Hippie's were already in love with the personalized track. By then many kids around had vowed to their parents to learn Baratham.