A sitar concert - or not? - On Thursday night we thought we'd find out how the local Indian Habitat Center (IHC) concerts proceed.  The newspaper advertised a two man sitar concert.  My schoolfriend, Elaine, who works for Faber and Faber, London, in music publishing, was with us and we all thought the musical experience would be refreshing and highly appropriate for our context.  The newspaper had a start time, but no contact number or ticket information.  I asked the hotel staff for illumination in the ticket procedure.  No illumination, but great willingness to procure information by sending up a driver to ask around!  As our road, Lodhi Road, is one of those that has been reduced from three lanes to two lanes (several main arteries have been narrowed in this way to provide special lanes for Commonwealth Games athletes and officials to get quickly from place to place) the jams have been awful and I knew I could walk up to the Habitat Center faster than a driver could get there, so I declined the kind offer.  Instead we thought we'd just take our chances and walk up ourselves around six o'clock.  If we didn't get into the concert then we could always look at some of the art exhibits which would be open until 10 p.m.

When we got to the IHC we found a whole sheet of offerings for the evening  posted.  Our concert was unticketed and free in one of the theatres.  We asked for directions to the theatre and then had to wait for the doors to open.  We continued our fact finding mission by trying refreshments at the "Diner."  Great refreshments in very authentic 1960s Elvis memorabilia.  Service was a little slow so we actually rolled through the theatre doors minutes before the concert was due to start.  We saw no signs and so quickly checked at the inner doors "Is this the sitar recital?"  "No, no, this is the dance recital!"  Bert, Elaine and I glanced at one another.  Silent affirmative shrugs. :) "May we see it?"  "Yes, yes, please."

We found ourselves in a small theatre with slightly reclining seats and a steadily growing audience.  Five musicians sat cross legged on the left of the stage: a violinist holding his violin almost like an inverted cello, a bamboo flute player, the primary vocalist, a percussionist/vocalist, a drummer.  The young dancer, Pallavi Saran Mathur, was an extraordinarily lithe, disciplined and articulate performer.  She came on stage before each dance to explain the story line or history of each piece and then danced with only very short pauses between each.  Her stamina, control, and flexibility were awe-inspiring.  Her costume and make up were worthy of a study in themselves:  Her traditional trousers had a stunning pleated front that opened like a peacock's tail when she plieed and her hands and feet were painted red to draw our attention to specific gestures.  Her eyes had heavy, Egyptian like liner to accent facial expression and her long black hair was plaited and firmly tied to her waist with a dramtic pompon to form a striking black line down her red and gold costume.  The visual aspects of the costume very deliberately developed to emphasize the dance movements. Either there is a very set pattern to these dances, or the musicians and dancer knew one another well, because the interpretation and the music were exquisitely synchronized and the musical movements beautifully tied to the dance moves to make one very integrated performance.

Others in the audience clearly were familiary with IHC arrangements and the audience grew steadily and then gently decreased through the performance as people came to enjoy a change of pace or had to take their children to bed after a couple of dances.  It was entertaining to count the number of blackberries or mobile phones that lit up between dances in the short intervals and somewhat horrifying that some chap actually took a phone call during one of the dances!

Elaine and I have a childhood memory of sitting in art in Miss Langsdale's class in the second form and laughing and laughing about something.  Miss Langsdale was not happy.  In the second dance of the evening I found myself needing to turn away from Elaine in case I should catch her eye and start to laugh uncontrollably: a rodent had decided to take the limelight behind our skillful dancer and ran  from stage left all the way across to exit stage right.  Five minutes later Elaine and I were both shaking with supressed giggles as TWO rodents decided to join Miss Mathur on stage again: enter stage right and exit stage left, this time.  We were left a little nervous that we'd see a reappearance later in the show, but thankfully that was it for this evening's performance.

We still don't know whether there was a change in the programme, or whether we were directed to the wrong theatre, but we'll be back for more.  It was a sensational performance.