FOR ADRIAN

Adrian was 5 years old when he watched me study Bharatanatyam, the classical dance of South India. A lifetime dancer, I had invited the esteemed Indrani Rahman, recently retired from Juilliard, to teach a small group at my Tribeca studio in New York. Indrani taught us Siva’s Dance of Bliss. In it, there is a line…

Siva danced ecstatically in the Golden Temple.

“Where is this Golden Temple?” I asked. “Chidambaram!” Indrani knowingly smiled while nodding her head, recalling that this temple to Siva Nataraja Lord of the Dance holds many mysteries and much beauty. After that class, Adrian pulled on my tunic, “Mom, when you’re older, I’m going to get you a little place in India so you can dance all the time because you’re happiest when you’re dancing!” That was 1994. He repeated this promise to me many times throughout his 25 years.

I lost my beloved Adrian in May 2015. Months later, walking down a snowy East Hampton street at dusk, a warm fragrance suddenly enveloped me. I looked around. No stores were open; there was nothing but snow and barren trees. This was the first calm my heart felt in a long while. “Wherever I feel this again, that is where I need to be.” 

Two months later I accompanied Ross School seniors on an eye-opening trip to India’s Golden Triangle and then embarked on a solo sabbatical. I arrived in Chidambaram March 10, 2016. The hotel manager greeted me, “Hurry to the temple, it’s the last two days of the annual dance festival.” I ran to the temple, turned into the entrance and found it lined with tables of fresh jasmine. I stopped to breathe in the recognizable fragrance, the one that enveloped me that snowy night. Feeling the same serenity, I heard music from the festival. Incredulous, I rushed to the stage. The dancers were performing the very dance Indrani had taught us 22 years earlier. “Yes, this is where I need to be.”

My visit to Chidambaram lasted longer than planned. I met a Deekshithar priest, Senthil Ganesh, who introduced me to the temple’s symbolism and rituals. Deekshithars, a hereditary caste of priests unique to this temple only, are descendants of the 3,000 sages who witnessed Siva Nataraja’s Dance of Bliss in Chidambaram thousands of years ago. Senthil took me to the temple of Patanjali, Nataraja’s first disciple and author of the Yoga Sutras, introduced me to a scholar of palm leaf translations, and invited me into his familial home. He walked me through my grief with daily visits to Nataraja, the goddess Parvathi, and a special puja for Adrian inside the Chit Sabha, the inner sanctum where Nataraja dwells. Considered by devotees as the center of the universal body, Chidambaram is the place of Siva’s heart. There, my heart softened.

I was surprised to discover hundreds of exquisite dance reliefs throughout the Nataraja temple complex and wondered why I was not aware of these. Sparking the dance archaeologist in me once again, I felt these treasures needed to be known and shared. I applied for and was awarded a Fulbright-Nehru Academic and Professional Excellence Award Fellowship. As a resident scholar, I was expected to rent an apartment. Luckily, the driver of the Annamalai University professor who was orienting me to the city knew of a lovely one just 10-minutes from the temple. Adrian’s wish for me to have “a little place in India” was finally realized.

I spent the next six months in daily visits to the temple documenting the thousands of dance reliefs of the devadasis (sacred dancers). Considered to be auspicious, the devadasis conducted puja in the temple. They were also the most highly educated women in southern India, owned land, chose their husbands, and passed wealth to their offspring. That is, until the arrival of the British colonizers. Although I photographed them in archival fashion, I heard the devadasis call to me, “Capture what makes me special!” My work took a more intimate turn. I zoomed into the sensuous bare breasted torsos, the half smiles, the arched eyebrows, mudras (hand gestures), bejeweled limbs and ears, and leg movements—everything that had so offended the Victorian British who passed laws preventing the devadasis from being educated at their schools, forbade them ownership of land, and ultimately outlawed dance at temples and sacred festivals.

On the last evening of my fellowship, Senthil Ganesh’s father, Papa, asked me to meet him inside the Chit Sabha, the sacred inner sanctum. Standing before Nataraja, Papa told me to close my eyes and bow my head. I felt a thick garland of intoxicating jasmine fall from my neck to my knees. I then sensed a necklace grace my neck. Finally, Papa took the garland that is secured around Nataraja’s ankle and placed it on my head, the greatest of honors, as this is the foot that set the universe in motion. In a daze, I stepped out of the Chit Sabha. Senthil’s nephew, Darshan, who had overseen my work at the temple, told me that the necklace had been given as an offering to Nataraja on May 1, 2015. I broke into tears. After gaining composure, he asked why I cried. “Because that was the last day I spoke to my son.” Darshan smiled, “Well, your son has come back to you.” Indeed, this is where I need to be.

Lovingly, Debra

Adrian

World traveler, generous of heart