Looking back at September

At the outset, let me start by wishing all of you Shubo Bijoya. I hope your Pujas were exactly what you wanted them to be (peaceful/noisy/non-existent...). I had all good intentions of posting this earlier, but then I was hit by the viral, after recovering from which work was quite hectic and then came the Pujas. So after a very long period of virtual absence I'm sitting down to write that post about our visit to Murshidabad and then, a short performance we staged a fortnight ago.

Kolkata Sanved has been trying to involve itself with governmental ventures in the area of social development and one of these partnerships is with a government shelter home in Behrampore. We will be conducting dance movement therapy sessions with the girls and women in this home, once a month. I went with two other members of Sanved for the first session and it was, as I'd expected, enlightening.

Having visited a couple of governmental care giving institutions in the past, I wasn't surprised to see that in terms of infrastructure, the shelter home at Behrampore was not lacking in any area. The home was accompanied by very large grounds and the building itself was well planned -- large rooms with high ceilings that attracted air and were sunny. However, as my experiences in the past had indicated, the maintenance of the facilities left a lot to be desired. The ceilings were overhung with cobwebs and the floors were carpeted with dust. The grounds had become the home for various kinds of weeds and wild grass: unfortunate, because with a little care they could have been made to look quite attractive. Moreover, the girls themselves could have helped with the gardening. Which brings me to the girls. My co-trainer conducted 3 two-hour sessions for 3 groups of women/girls and each of the groups took to the sessions she had conceptualized with marked enthusiasm. They seemed so happy to be given the opportunity to do something creative and different, for want of a better word. They lapped up the exercises that were done and displayed much eagerness in picking up what was being shown to them. It was as if they were starved for creative endeavours. In that sense, it's great that we have been given the chance to provide them with this space where they can explore their creative impulses. While I didn't conduct any session with them this time round, I certainly hope to in the course of our subsequent visits.

The other development that I wanted to write about concerned a short performance Sanved was asked to put up for a programme that Anjali was organizing. In case you're not familiar with Anjali, it's a human rights agency that works to rehabilitate mentally challenged persons. This programme took place on the 1st of October, when nearly all our staff members had gone to Nepal for a regional workshop. So the responsibility of devising a performance lay with the few of us who had not gone. Six of us were involved in the performance and all of us helped with the concept building, script-writing and direction (our piece dealt with issues pertaining to mental health care). I really enjoyed this process and it did make me realize how much I miss directing. I do hope I get the chance to work on developing more performances with Sanved in the coming months.