Pallavi took me to an Odissi/Bharatanatyam show at Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan at Mylapore, last Saturday. The performance was called Krishna leela and it was a depiction of specific incidents taken from lord Krishna’s life, starting from the celebrations upon the birth of lord Krishna, the slaying of Poothana, his playful childhood, his love for stolen butter, the taming of Kaliya, lifting of Govardhana giri, his mischiefs with the Gopis and ending with the divine love of Radha-Krishna.

It was the first classical dance performance that I’ve seen live, and it was done in such a grand scale by extremely powerful dancers, that I was totally moved. All dancers were female (even Krishna was played by 3 female artists, one young, and two older) artists except one male, who played the roles of Poothana/Kaliya.

Music was played live, the song was in Hindi, but I was able to pick up random words from here and there. I was anyways aware of the stories so didn’t have much trouble following it.

What better story can you get to watch than that of Krishna? These are stories that we’ve heard/read hundreds of times and they still bring infinite joy when we see it retold. The show inspired me to buy a copy of Srimad Bhagavatam today. Would start reading after finishing around 5 other books that are already in the queue. Had a great weekend all together.