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Sample chapter for Puck... A Magical History of Goa

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Ana Machado
Ana Machado

This is a sample chapter for the book Puck and Thousand and One Midsummer Dreams: A Magical History of Goa

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NATARAJA Of Dance When Gitana went out into the garden, wrapped in a huge towel that Isa, who had just gone back to Sweden, had given her, with tears in her eyes, as a farewell present, Jay¡¯s new lunghi shone beneath the special ¡°black light¡± in the patio, ready to be transported to the scene of the rave. Those who lived in the house of Maria Vall¨¨s donated their belongings with a proverbial generosity, but the art products they produced could only be bought, with a tacit agreement, or exchanged for valuable goods. Jay¡¯s lunghis, cloths painted with mandalas, Hindu or alien mo- tifs in ?uorescent colours that shone under the black lights, were 180
NATARAJA Of Dance 181 immensely successful, especially among the Israelis. They had reached an agreement with the proprietor of the Primrose, the bar where people got together to ?nd out where the raves would be each night, by which they could display their materials there in exchange for giving him a percentage of what they sold. This new lunghi of Jay¡¯s showed. . . me! Nataraja, the cosmic dancer, is a representation of the universal deity of which we are all a part, a characteristic of Tamil Nadu, the Indian state where the town of Madras is located, today known as Chennai. Nataraja is a rare mixture of art, poetry and science, forming a unitary synthesis. It symbolises the ?ve sacred acts: creation, protection, dissolution, illusion and benediction. Nothing has been created that cannot dance. Each one of us has his own dance, his own existential steps that no-one can copy. The whole cosmos is God dancing, and everything that takes place is part of that dance, even the most terrible things, because in everything, in a massacre as in harvesting, in all energy, how- ever sinister, teasing, destructive, cynical, blasphemous, the di- vine semblance of universal movement is present. Jay had granted me a face that represented to perfection this duality: curved eyebrows that appeared to be laughing and a closed mouth that appeared to hide a thousand secrets, while the eyes, orange in colour, faded in the distance. My dark skin shone with a yellow tinge that evoked the ?re that burned on palm of one of my left hands, and above my head religious sym- bols danced in harmony, a star of David, a yin-yang, a cross, a
NATARAJA Of Dance 182 half moon with a star and an ohm, the faces of deity as parts of a prism that shone in all the colours of the rainbow. ¡°Our metaphors have divided us, and sharing them means danc- ing together to create a new reality where we all ?t¡±, re?ected Gitana standing still in front of the lunghi. Once in her room, all clean and fresh and full of joy thinking of the rave which was to take place, Gitana started to get ready. She chose a mauve swimsuit, hand-made by one of her friends from the Anjuna market, with strips of colours forming the triangles of the bikini, to wear under her dress, because in the morning when the sun came out it was sti?ing hot and a swim was the perfect solution. Then she put on a dress with straps with a ?uorescent coil at the back; she had made it herself by knotting the material and then dyeing it. What was vital for the raves was the hip bag where you could put the sunglasses, even more important than the swimsuit once the strong sun was out in the morning, and the torch required at night, apart from candles and matchsticks. After the practical things were covered, her own decoration of herself had to be selected. This was one of the most tribal as- pects of the cyber-hippie culture, where classical Hindu in?u- ences combined with the most modern elements of the urban techno tendency.
NATARAJA Of Dance 183 Gitana chose a bindi in the form of a serpent that sparkled in the dark. The bindi, which one stuck in the centre of the fore- head, proceeded from the religious Hindu tradition of painting a black or red spot on the forehead on leaving the temple as a sign of devotion. Once bindis had started being made of ?uorescent colours, with celtic, geometric or Maya motifs, it had transcended its culture of origin and become a multicultural link. Tell me, Mother, when a symbol experiences a universal meta- morphosis, does it lose its magical power? I don¡¯t think so, I think that a ?uorescent bindi on the Gitana¡¯s beautiful forehead carries both the depth of the ancient Indian culture and the lumi- nous impulse of modern technology. I don¡¯t believe in looking back and thinking that the past was better ¨C the mixture of cul- tures is a dynamic and beautiful part of the universal dance. Opening a packet different from that which contained the ser- pent bindi, Gitana took out a pair of pearls, ?uorescent as well, and stuck them on her temples, near the corners of her eyes. This new use of bindis in the corner of her eyes was an invention of the cyber-hippie culture, ever innovative. She did not, however, wear any kind of make-up; the stick-on bindis were a much more practical decoration for a party on the beach where there were no toilets with mirrors to touch up make-up and lipstick. Finally, Gitana opened her jewellery box. The stones she was
NATARAJA Of Dance 184 going to wear that night constituted in her opinion the most im- portant element of her fancy dress. Gitana believed in the in?uence stones had on her. Labradorite, for example, controlled her hormonal functions and was de?- nitely a good stone for women. The one she had was in the form of an inverted tear and was imbedded in a silver eye. She hung the Labradorite round her neck and then got out a pair of earrings from the sandalwood box. She bent over the candle on her bedside table and very gently blew the ?ame out. On the way to Disco Valley the policemen had stopped a couple. Most of the foreigners rented mopeds and motorbikes without even having an international driving licence, and it was even more dif?cult to ?nd someone with the vehicle insurance papers in order. Although the organisers of raves paid the police a substantial amount to celebrate these raves, these policemen increased their revenue by organising raids in the paths leading to the party venue. The baksheesh required to be able to continue on their way ranged between 300 rupees and one thousand, depending on the severity of the offense and the agent¡¯s mood. Gitana ?ashed her most charming smile at the agents and they smiled back at her, recognising her. Gitana was one of those beings that are always smiled upon by luck, a destiny that had a lot to do with her beauty.
NATARAJA Of Dance 185 At Disco Valley the mama chais began spreading their rag rugs over the two resting areas, while their brothers or children trans- ported the little portable stoves to warm up the milk with black tea and spices that was called chai . Gitana helped Jay hang his cloth from which my image could watch the dance ?oor and also be watched, and later approached Chris, the DJ for the ?rst part of the night. ¡°You, sweetie, place the ?owers for the plates¡±, said Jaron, an Is- raeli who was always involved in preparing raves, as he passed a garland of ?owers to her. Gitana smiled, knowing the honour that meant being responsible for the symbolic gesture. In India, partly out of superstition and partly as veneration to the forces of chaos - knowing where one ?nished and the next one began was impossible - all machines received ?ower gar- lands to encourage their correct functioning. No traveller that prided himself ever started a journey on his En?eld, the cus- tom motorbikes made in India since the UK had sold the patent to the subcontinent, without having had it blessed by a saddhu and receiving a garland. All buses that jolted through the coun- try usually ?aunted several. Gitana closed her eyes and placed the ?owers in front of the DJ table, where the minidisk was already playing a slow introduc- tory rhythm. Jaron gave her a second garland and pointed with his head to- wards the generator, which needed to work correctly to ensure
NATARAJA Of Dance 186 the party¡¯s success. Gitana placed the ?owers over the huge great thing, that worked on petrol, and then she walked away to observe the rest of preparations. The sound of the music rose and fell again, while the technicians adjusted the power, until they found a volume that was still too loud for the amount of people present so far, but which would soon be ?ne. Gitana went to sit next to Bhagmati, a young chai vendor (for her the name mama chai did not seem suitable, since she was a thin and pretty girl, without the motherly body that had earned most of them their name) who usually kept her belongings while she danced. It wasn¡¯t so much friendship that encouraged Bhagmati to provide this service as the guarantee that, in exchange, Gitana would come and sit down, along with all her friends, to her rag rug in each of her pauses. ¡°Thanks¡±, Gitana smiled at the girl, who handed her her ?rst chai glass of the evening. Feeling the vibration that the speakers transmitted to the ?oor, Gitana found herself thinking of trance music. In some way, it seemed to be an organic fusion between technol- ogy and nature. The electronically accelerated drums, the ?utes that invaded the rhythm and seemed to play around with the bass tones, more predictable, reminding her that the human be- ing lives immersed in the rhythm that You set, Pachamama, with your spinning that brings night and day, the succession of the seasons, the course of the tides.
NATARAJA Of Dance 187 Gitana put her hand on her heart and felt its beat. Somebody had told her once, but she couldn¡¯t remember whom, that the reason why the heart was the main organ in the body was that it was the only organ that had its own rhythm. ¡°But women¡±, she carried on thinking, ¡°have another rhythm which is equally important for life.¡± Her eyes fell on her lower abdomen. ¡°A lunar rhythm.¡± ¡°What¡¯s your stomach telling you which seems to interesting?¡± Sarjana¡¯s voice brought her out of her trance. Gitana looked at the entire group of Spaniards walking towards her, her eyes resting a little longer on Rocco¡¯s. She stood up and went to meet them. ¡°We need to try out the dance ?oor!¡± she exclaimed. Faced with the perspective of watching her dance, none of her friends could say no. Gitana had a peculiarly Indian way of dancing. She had spent some weeks in Poona with a friend of hers who was a profes- sional dancer, and the sinuous movements had seduced her so that she had incorporated to her repertoire. Rave music, with its Indian in?uence, matched her new dance style in particular. While her and Sarjana let their hands ripple like the statuettes of an erotic Deccan temple, the music enveloped the dancers, who were ?lling up the dance ?oor. Some closed their eyes, some had them wide open. Rocco in particular did not miss one of Gitana¡¯s movements.
NATARAJA Of Dance 188 Lev meanwhile observed the crowd and an overwhelming hap- piness took hold of him. This joint dance was solidarity, eroti- cism and sensuality, lyrical adoration and narrative, possession and community. It had something tribal, something primitive and primordial.

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Sample chapter for Puck... A Magical History of Goa

  • 1. NATARAJA Of Dance When Gitana went out into the garden, wrapped in a huge towel that Isa, who had just gone back to Sweden, had given her, with tears in her eyes, as a farewell present, Jay¡¯s new lunghi shone beneath the special ¡°black light¡± in the patio, ready to be transported to the scene of the rave. Those who lived in the house of Maria Vall¨¨s donated their belongings with a proverbial generosity, but the art products they produced could only be bought, with a tacit agreement, or exchanged for valuable goods. Jay¡¯s lunghis, cloths painted with mandalas, Hindu or alien mo- tifs in ?uorescent colours that shone under the black lights, were 180
  • 2. NATARAJA Of Dance 181 immensely successful, especially among the Israelis. They had reached an agreement with the proprietor of the Primrose, the bar where people got together to ?nd out where the raves would be each night, by which they could display their materials there in exchange for giving him a percentage of what they sold. This new lunghi of Jay¡¯s showed. . . me! Nataraja, the cosmic dancer, is a representation of the universal deity of which we are all a part, a characteristic of Tamil Nadu, the Indian state where the town of Madras is located, today known as Chennai. Nataraja is a rare mixture of art, poetry and science, forming a unitary synthesis. It symbolises the ?ve sacred acts: creation, protection, dissolution, illusion and benediction. Nothing has been created that cannot dance. Each one of us has his own dance, his own existential steps that no-one can copy. The whole cosmos is God dancing, and everything that takes place is part of that dance, even the most terrible things, because in everything, in a massacre as in harvesting, in all energy, how- ever sinister, teasing, destructive, cynical, blasphemous, the di- vine semblance of universal movement is present. Jay had granted me a face that represented to perfection this duality: curved eyebrows that appeared to be laughing and a closed mouth that appeared to hide a thousand secrets, while the eyes, orange in colour, faded in the distance. My dark skin shone with a yellow tinge that evoked the ?re that burned on palm of one of my left hands, and above my head religious sym- bols danced in harmony, a star of David, a yin-yang, a cross, a
  • 3. NATARAJA Of Dance 182 half moon with a star and an ohm, the faces of deity as parts of a prism that shone in all the colours of the rainbow. ¡°Our metaphors have divided us, and sharing them means danc- ing together to create a new reality where we all ?t¡±, re?ected Gitana standing still in front of the lunghi. Once in her room, all clean and fresh and full of joy thinking of the rave which was to take place, Gitana started to get ready. She chose a mauve swimsuit, hand-made by one of her friends from the Anjuna market, with strips of colours forming the triangles of the bikini, to wear under her dress, because in the morning when the sun came out it was sti?ing hot and a swim was the perfect solution. Then she put on a dress with straps with a ?uorescent coil at the back; she had made it herself by knotting the material and then dyeing it. What was vital for the raves was the hip bag where you could put the sunglasses, even more important than the swimsuit once the strong sun was out in the morning, and the torch required at night, apart from candles and matchsticks. After the practical things were covered, her own decoration of herself had to be selected. This was one of the most tribal as- pects of the cyber-hippie culture, where classical Hindu in?u- ences combined with the most modern elements of the urban techno tendency.
  • 4. NATARAJA Of Dance 183 Gitana chose a bindi in the form of a serpent that sparkled in the dark. The bindi, which one stuck in the centre of the fore- head, proceeded from the religious Hindu tradition of painting a black or red spot on the forehead on leaving the temple as a sign of devotion. Once bindis had started being made of ?uorescent colours, with celtic, geometric or Maya motifs, it had transcended its culture of origin and become a multicultural link. Tell me, Mother, when a symbol experiences a universal meta- morphosis, does it lose its magical power? I don¡¯t think so, I think that a ?uorescent bindi on the Gitana¡¯s beautiful forehead carries both the depth of the ancient Indian culture and the lumi- nous impulse of modern technology. I don¡¯t believe in looking back and thinking that the past was better ¨C the mixture of cul- tures is a dynamic and beautiful part of the universal dance. Opening a packet different from that which contained the ser- pent bindi, Gitana took out a pair of pearls, ?uorescent as well, and stuck them on her temples, near the corners of her eyes. This new use of bindis in the corner of her eyes was an invention of the cyber-hippie culture, ever innovative. She did not, however, wear any kind of make-up; the stick-on bindis were a much more practical decoration for a party on the beach where there were no toilets with mirrors to touch up make-up and lipstick. Finally, Gitana opened her jewellery box. The stones she was
  • 5. NATARAJA Of Dance 184 going to wear that night constituted in her opinion the most im- portant element of her fancy dress. Gitana believed in the in?uence stones had on her. Labradorite, for example, controlled her hormonal functions and was de?- nitely a good stone for women. The one she had was in the form of an inverted tear and was imbedded in a silver eye. She hung the Labradorite round her neck and then got out a pair of earrings from the sandalwood box. She bent over the candle on her bedside table and very gently blew the ?ame out. On the way to Disco Valley the policemen had stopped a couple. Most of the foreigners rented mopeds and motorbikes without even having an international driving licence, and it was even more dif?cult to ?nd someone with the vehicle insurance papers in order. Although the organisers of raves paid the police a substantial amount to celebrate these raves, these policemen increased their revenue by organising raids in the paths leading to the party venue. The baksheesh required to be able to continue on their way ranged between 300 rupees and one thousand, depending on the severity of the offense and the agent¡¯s mood. Gitana ?ashed her most charming smile at the agents and they smiled back at her, recognising her. Gitana was one of those beings that are always smiled upon by luck, a destiny that had a lot to do with her beauty.
  • 6. NATARAJA Of Dance 185 At Disco Valley the mama chais began spreading their rag rugs over the two resting areas, while their brothers or children trans- ported the little portable stoves to warm up the milk with black tea and spices that was called chai . Gitana helped Jay hang his cloth from which my image could watch the dance ?oor and also be watched, and later approached Chris, the DJ for the ?rst part of the night. ¡°You, sweetie, place the ?owers for the plates¡±, said Jaron, an Is- raeli who was always involved in preparing raves, as he passed a garland of ?owers to her. Gitana smiled, knowing the honour that meant being responsible for the symbolic gesture. In India, partly out of superstition and partly as veneration to the forces of chaos - knowing where one ?nished and the next one began was impossible - all machines received ?ower gar- lands to encourage their correct functioning. No traveller that prided himself ever started a journey on his En?eld, the cus- tom motorbikes made in India since the UK had sold the patent to the subcontinent, without having had it blessed by a saddhu and receiving a garland. All buses that jolted through the coun- try usually ?aunted several. Gitana closed her eyes and placed the ?owers in front of the DJ table, where the minidisk was already playing a slow introduc- tory rhythm. Jaron gave her a second garland and pointed with his head to- wards the generator, which needed to work correctly to ensure
  • 7. NATARAJA Of Dance 186 the party¡¯s success. Gitana placed the ?owers over the huge great thing, that worked on petrol, and then she walked away to observe the rest of preparations. The sound of the music rose and fell again, while the technicians adjusted the power, until they found a volume that was still too loud for the amount of people present so far, but which would soon be ?ne. Gitana went to sit next to Bhagmati, a young chai vendor (for her the name mama chai did not seem suitable, since she was a thin and pretty girl, without the motherly body that had earned most of them their name) who usually kept her belongings while she danced. It wasn¡¯t so much friendship that encouraged Bhagmati to provide this service as the guarantee that, in exchange, Gitana would come and sit down, along with all her friends, to her rag rug in each of her pauses. ¡°Thanks¡±, Gitana smiled at the girl, who handed her her ?rst chai glass of the evening. Feeling the vibration that the speakers transmitted to the ?oor, Gitana found herself thinking of trance music. In some way, it seemed to be an organic fusion between technol- ogy and nature. The electronically accelerated drums, the ?utes that invaded the rhythm and seemed to play around with the bass tones, more predictable, reminding her that the human be- ing lives immersed in the rhythm that You set, Pachamama, with your spinning that brings night and day, the succession of the seasons, the course of the tides.
  • 8. NATARAJA Of Dance 187 Gitana put her hand on her heart and felt its beat. Somebody had told her once, but she couldn¡¯t remember whom, that the reason why the heart was the main organ in the body was that it was the only organ that had its own rhythm. ¡°But women¡±, she carried on thinking, ¡°have another rhythm which is equally important for life.¡± Her eyes fell on her lower abdomen. ¡°A lunar rhythm.¡± ¡°What¡¯s your stomach telling you which seems to interesting?¡± Sarjana¡¯s voice brought her out of her trance. Gitana looked at the entire group of Spaniards walking towards her, her eyes resting a little longer on Rocco¡¯s. She stood up and went to meet them. ¡°We need to try out the dance ?oor!¡± she exclaimed. Faced with the perspective of watching her dance, none of her friends could say no. Gitana had a peculiarly Indian way of dancing. She had spent some weeks in Poona with a friend of hers who was a profes- sional dancer, and the sinuous movements had seduced her so that she had incorporated to her repertoire. Rave music, with its Indian in?uence, matched her new dance style in particular. While her and Sarjana let their hands ripple like the statuettes of an erotic Deccan temple, the music enveloped the dancers, who were ?lling up the dance ?oor. Some closed their eyes, some had them wide open. Rocco in particular did not miss one of Gitana¡¯s movements.
  • 9. NATARAJA Of Dance 188 Lev meanwhile observed the crowd and an overwhelming hap- piness took hold of him. This joint dance was solidarity, eroti- cism and sensuality, lyrical adoration and narrative, possession and community. It had something tribal, something primitive and primordial.