The Little Guru

We went shopping for our outfits for our Bollywood performance for the Farewell Dinner today.  It was really great to hang out with Anju and our instructor Rajashree—who we all refer to as “little guru”.  She is a very accomplished Bharat Natyam dancer, and that is mainly were her expertise is, but she took us on as a Bollywood class whole-heartedly.  Rajashree is just the funniest little lady.  She stands nearly a head shorter than me, and I am only 5’2”, so that is saying something.  She also has a totally hidden personality and sense of humor that we did not know about until well into our time with her.  At first I really had no idea how to take her.  She would say things like “oh, that was horrible” after we tried her choreography.  One day she even ranked our dancing abilities during class.  Looking back, it was all in good fun, but at the time it was a little disconcerting. 

 

Addy and Sarah have really brought out Rajashree’s wild side.  She calls Addy a “shameless creature” on a regular basis, and Addy and Sarah taught her to say “shake it baby” when she wants us to do the dance with energy.  Yesterday we were lying on the floor and Haley came to lie with us.  Rajashree said “wow Haley, you are really efficient.  Raping three girls at once.” Then she laughed a lot, and we realized that it was a joke.  She has also taken to the Bollywood moves that we know, incorporating crazy lascivious moves into our dances.  The next day she always takes them out though.

 

The most important thing to her are our expressions.  She is always making sure that me are making shy eyes, or coy faces, or being a little bit sexy but not too much.  It is all very calculated.  Recently I have come to the forefront as the expressive one, which is no doubt due to theatre training.  She calls Haley the soft one, Addy the shameless one, and I can’t remember her name for Sarah.  But she has really taken to us.  Every time I make a face while dancing, or mess up a step, she gains the most appalled expression, and a little part of me wants to curl up in the corner of her living room where we have our classes. 

 

Sarah was saying the other day that no matter how confounded she gets with our steps, or our lack of grace, or more than that our lack of coyness, she loves us because we giver her a chance to express something that she cannot let out anywhere else in her life.  We joke about girl things, and American girl things at that.  Never would I ever broach the subject of sex with any other woman I have met in India, except the ACM staff.  Rajashree is one of those secretly wild people who you would never know that about were you not in a semi-private setting with her.  She teases Addy about her Indian boyfriend, and makes fun of us because she says we are collecting boys from every region.  Addy has her Punjabi boy, Sarah found a Bombayite, and she claims that Haley and I will end up with a Bengali and a Kashmiri.  Good luck with that Rajashree!  

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