The first item after intermission was definitely my favorite item prior to knowing that this rangapravesam was even going to happen. The item, another original choreography of Padmabhushan Guru Dr. Vempati Chinna Satyam Garu, tells the iconic story of how Lord Vishnu saves the elephant from the crocodile, Gajendra Mokshamu. What is unique to the item is that the first half describes the forest in which the pong is, and how the frogs that lived in the pond are scared after their waters are disturbed by the saga taking place. Mandooka Shabdam was an item we learned in a dance camp back in November of 2012, and ever since then I was obsessed with it. While most people forget items we learn in camps days after we learned them, I practiced it everyday and every chance I had so when Aunty gave us the choice of doing it for our Rangapravesam, I couldn’t turn down the offer.  The item gave us the opportunity to interact with each other on different levels because of the characters we were given. Sriya was the distressed elephant Gajendra, while Srivi was the evil crocodile. Coincedence? I think not. No but in all seriousness I love everything about this item; the fact that it was in misra chapu taalam, the beautiful melodies of the raagamalika, the descriptive choreography and lyrics, and the complex structure of the jathis all made me so happy.

Following Mandooka Shabdam was an item Aunty picked because she knew how much Amma had loved the song and the item. The summer before we had done a huge program at the Bharatiya Temple for the Srinivasa Kalyanam event they were holding. In that, some students performed the Annamacharya Krithi Singara Murthivi in raagam Kamas. It is such a unique composition, describing Lord Venkateswara Swami with his two wifes Padmavathi and Alamelumanga going on boats (I think I’ll double check that one), not to mention it is in the unconventional taalam of khanda chapu (5 beats). Ever since then, Amma has been obsessed with it and has told Aunty this on more than one occassion. This item proved to be hardest for me in particular because I function only if I have a beat that I can grasp and I could not grasp this beat for the life of me. At one point Sandhya Aunty got really upset with me because she said, “You know the item, but knowing it is not enough. I can see more the tension on your face that the footwork is getting off or that the beats aren’t lining up more so than you showing the God in His glory. That’s what separates good dancing from great dancing.” This came especially true in the week before our program. I guess Sandhya Aunty had seen Jayasingham Uncle (the mridangam artist) at another function and he asked Sandhya Aunty if her students that were about to do their program were good with beats because I guess he had accompanied another girl in her program and she was very off in her laya (rhythm). Sandhya Aunty said that when he asked her that, all she could think of was “You’ll have the opposite problem with these three, they’re more focused on laya than anything else.” It was then that she decided we should have a rehearsal with just the three of us, Sandhya Aunty, Swapanti, and Jayasingham Uncle to tweak out any taalam issues with jathis or anywhere else in the program. I can’t express how thankful I am we did that because the 2-3 hours we spent that day really made me realize that I can’t be so uptight about every little detail. Yes, being on beat is extremely important but besides crazy fools like me who are obbsessed with everything being perfectly on beat, nobody is going to know if I’m on beat or not, as long as I’m on some beat and all three of us are synchronized. I got all my doubts cleared but I felt bad for Swapanti she was really struggling with the khanda chaapu. But we all worked on it together and I think it turned out quite nicely.