Dancing against Burning Grounds: Notes on From Site: Lament, Fury, and a Plea for Peace

I had grown up with an impression of India and Indians as being on the whole committed to a policy of nonviolence, only ruptured at shocking moments with the shooting death of Gandhi by Nathuram Godse, and later, of course, of Prime Ministers Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi. Still, my growing up was nourished by stories of the noncooperation movements, of nonviolent civil disobedience, which I heard again and again, sitting in my father’s lap. I was happy to believe that, despite grossly unfair systematization of gender and class, the Indian government’s slogan of “unity in diversity”—many religions, cultures, and languages coexisting—was not so far from the truth. I was content, for that time, to dance the classical dance I was learning, pieces that articulated human longing for the divine, and reflected the harmony of artistic creations with the cosmic rhythm.