After the Eric Maskin talk I was going towards the hostel thinking about the question s people had asked Eric.
These kind of questions come from the same collective mind-set amongst our audience time and again. A generalised (and a wrong context) with a backing of self-proclaimed spiritual arrogance (from which the generalisation that all material knowledge is incomplete) and motive of not asking but trying to suggest one's profundity from an extremely twisted questions, rooted in no evidently factual basis pertaining to the speaker's subject.
With such thoughts I was walking back to my hostel.
Entered the hostel gate and went straight to the lab to check my mail ignoring the Spic Macay dance organised in our hostel, some classical music shit. Checked my mail, lot of editingwork had arrived from Oxford University Press (Delhi). Going back up to my room felt like taking a peek at the dance, first few minutes I wanted to get up and leave, but then as if one of the drummers saw me and I felt he'd be hurt if I just turn back and go. Haven taken my shoes off I st down in a dark corner away from the small bunch of audience huddled together looking at the small stage temporarily set up in our mess for the natya (performance).
Next 2 and half hours I witnessed the best dance I had ever seen in my life.
It was a solo classical dance performance, depicting only in mudras (dancer's expressions and poses, with 3 completely synchronised drummers) Lord Vishnu's mythical incarnation, some tale I wasn't aware of. I didn't know what the different poses meant ... but the stamina, the brilliance and slowly the understanding and appreciation for the performance arrived. I understood the rise and fall of emotions, the victory and defeat, the war drums, the massive armies, the bloody fights, the gory death, fear, apprehension, courage and valour all depicted in that dance performance, the stage became the stage for not one, but three worlds (mythical belief) ... I was stunned by this living tradition
Later on, the person, who was with the lady who perofrmed the dance and d three drummers (they had sweated while drumming in temperature close to 6 degrees, someone told me that during one of the performance they continued drumming even as their fingers started bleeding!) told me that the I have a keen observation, the tradition is indeed living, and then he added the dance was spontaneous when I exclaimed at the number of hours of straining performance the performers were capable of. Amzed me, the synchrony was spontaneous, and so perfect!
Amartya Sen's lecture was the next day, attended it in the convention hall with Robin, standing, the hall was packed with audience. He spoke on how important it is for the public sector to make available basic facilitated like education, for all. The topic was 'Inequality and the Public Sector'
