07/08/2011
LOST OUR SIGHT, NOT OUR ASPIRATIONS.
KANYA-01
I was born into a religious community where dance was not favored. A society where women were forbidden to pursue art that was damned as satanic. Added to this, I am blind. The music that sailed across space, the rhythm that made my heart respond, drew me to the beautiful art of classical dance. I chose out of no other alternate, Bharathnatyam, and have today no regrets. It’s not the exhaustion of the muscles, it’s not the twist of ankles during learning and it’s not the fall when we practice, it’s not the difficulty in comprehending the meaning and its association to life and objects that made me sad. It’s the act of my family and society discriminating me for my little inadequacy. Nature has made me stronger making my other sense perception sharper which I channelize to learn the complexity of the Indian dance. Today I dance to my heart’s content.
KANYA-02
I was born with visual impairment. Though not totally blind, I was put into a special school for the visually challenged. Development in medicine and technology opened for the blind to do some correction and gain at least partial vision that would make life a little more bearable. But the paradox was, I could not go and seek this help for the school for special need did not allow me. Why? Just because , my improvement would take me away from that school who gets financial aid from the government, one less will make them not eligible for grants. I was bound to the school for just to keep the number of inmates high. The grants took priority over my sight restoration. Yet I made it with determination to do something in spite of my blindness. Dance was the result.
KANYA-03
When I slept in my thatched hut the holes amidst the palm leaf roof shined like little stars in the night. But when the monsoon came, the same holes were the gate way for nature’s fury. It drizzled and drenched the living little space, leaving not an inch dry for my little feet to rest and to squat upon. My parents were reluctant, when opportunity knocked at my doorless door, to send me away to a school for the blind. It’s not the loss of a daughter that mattered, but the financial assistance my parents may not get for my maintenance from the social department mattered more. Fate had other designs for me. My ability to dance came to fore. Today I dance in joy.
We three and many more of us bring tears of joy in the eyes of the audience. We motivate them to be happy with all the advantage they have over us. We don’t need any sympathy, we need your appreciation of our ABILITY.
We three are under the loving care of the Deepa Acadamy for the differently abled. We have been nurtured in dance by Guru Dr Suparna Venkatesh. We have nine more sisters who pursue dance with us. Hope my other blind sisters will tread a path that leads to their destinations which they dreamt in their sightless dream.
Our names are hidden behind the name KANYA so society will look at us as artists and not as casualties.
