The Undoing Dance: You will be seduced completely by Srividya Natarajan

The Undoing Dance: You Will Be Seduced Completely by Srividya Natarajan
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A wonderful book on the sufferings of the “dasis” of the temples in South India when the law was passed banning their participation in the temple dance festivals. While the law had good intentions and it was necessary for such a law it did not take into account the ground realities in the implementation.

As it is the “dasis” were a relatively oppressed lot. When it was made illegal to dance in the temples the powerful and legal enforcers (read police) took full advantage of the hapless situation of these women. All the patrons of the “dasis” got away unscathed. This seems to be the nature of implementation of any law. The same is the case of the prostitutes. When a raid is conducted the customers of the prostitutes get away and it is the prostitutes who get arrested and are subject to further humiliation. The humans lack empathy.

The story traces the roots of the “dasis” in South Indian temples and goes through about 4 to 5 the generations, with more concentration on the latest three generations of which the protagonist belongs to the latest generation. The book goes back and forth in time, but one does’t lose track of the happening. It is a smooth transition from the present to the past to the present.

Kalyani named after the local river belongs to a village called Kalyanikarai (meaning banks of river Kalyani). She comes from a family of “Dasis”. Her mother valiantly tries to keep her from entering the same profession, but circumstances force her to take up dancing and she becomes a good dancer. But the days when people visited dances by “dasis” have stopped and people now treat them worse than they were treated before.

Kalyani marries a person who falls in love with her but she is not accepted in the household as she is not a Brahmin by birth. She manages to find time to dig up her history and one can consider the book to be a outcome of her studies.

A very nice book worth every word.

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