A star is born..

For the longest time, this niece of mine really had no competition when it came to being my favorite! 

So you can imagine my surprise, seeing her be all grown up and emote so well at her Arangetram in Chennai two months ago, not to mention do a solo on stage for two hours to a packed audience in a city that is not her own.

Had just landed in Chennai the previous day and thanks to AirAsia, my entire lens kit was a mess and I did not even want to put everything back together. Throughout her dance performance, was missing my camera. Then I managed to get it cleaned and fixed in Mumbai.

They say life is all about second chances. Second chance I did get last evening, when she did a solo performance for all her bay area friends and family, most of whom, did not make it to Chennai. This time, I had my camera.

She did an amazing performance again! More than her performance, I was so happy to see her respect her teacher the way she did. That is something you simply cannot teach a child with ease in the US of A. It comes naturally to kids in India from a culture standpoint. It does not come naturally to kids here. Even Indian parents here suddenly start seeing teachers as service providers. Guess that whole "maata, pita, guru, deivam" (mom, dad, teacher then god) thing disappears in a uber capitalist system! 

The way she talked about her teacher was what impressed me the most. She did a great job dancing, and I did take lots of pictures. I will post only three here.. 

1. with the star of the show!

2. to put it in current teen speak, "she simply slayed it"

3. If she can hold poses like this, chances are she is already a Yogi! 

Looking forward to many more performances. It is not easy to do this without a significant time commitment from the kid, teacher and parents.

Given the number of friends who are having their kids do Arangetrams (getting on stage to do a solo), the Indian dance art forms are definitely thriving in the US! 

Had happy tears watching this kid make us all proud, for the second time!

Jr.'s dancing takes another step forward

Today Jr. performed at the Pushpanali Dance Academy's annual day. She has been learning for at least 8 years now and has been practicing when she gets a chance. She loves to dance and she has come to a realization that her performing is directly proportional to the practice!

She did pose for photos before the performance (now that I have studio lights set up!) and there were some good shots during her performance..

Kept thinking about my sister today because Jr. is a splitting image of my baby sister! 

Here is a video with a few snippets of the 10 minute Thillana performance..

and a few photos that were taken in between shooting video snippets!

My baby is a big girl now! As a dad it is not an easy thing to accept.. but I will go through the learning curve and hopefully get on the other side of that curve soon!

As long as this makes her happy, it is all good!

Bhanja Bhangra

It has been a very busy two weeks with some flying, long distance driving and lots happening at home and work. Finally got to editing the pictures from our LA trip to cheer my nephew on his Bhangra dance competition. 

Also got to get the video sorted out.  The family has matching T-shirts now, thanks to my sister-in-law. There was a special one for the start which said "RAM"

and the rest of us have Family on the back.. 

First Class Bhangra is the name of the group he was with and they did an outstanding job. Almost two dozen dancers on stage doing formations. 

The background sceen never touched the floor and the kids kept leaving their props on the corner. Did not make for good pictures. If you see the photo below, it was a lot of work to clear up those props on photoshop. Wish I could write a macro for that! 

The costumes, the energy of the crowd, the quality of the effort these kids put in to the 5-6 minute numbers was amazing! 

We were not happy with the Orpheum theater though. The event started an hour late and we had small kids in the group. They refused to let us bring food into the theater, didn't have anything other than chips and beer at their store and did not allow re-entry into the theater if we were to go out eat something outside and come back. So we had to leave halfway into the program.

We took this selfie after reaching the hotel room.. 

For those of you who were wishing there was a video.. well, here it is. Took 10 second clips of other teams, but the highlight for us was First Class Bhangra.

There were teams from bay area as well in the competition. Hoping that they have the competition here next time. 

Now that we have a good idea what to expect, will be better prepared as a parent and as a photographer the next time we go to a Bhangra competition. 

All said and done, it was a great evening. The music kept going in my ears till we were back home and every now and then wanted to jump up in the air and go Balle Balle!