I FEEL STRONGLY...

  The year was 1986. Time - a warm day in September. Occasion - Smt. Leela Samson's Bharatanatyam

Lecture-Demonstration on an open stage at Vivekananda College (University of Delhi). In a largely student-dominated audience watching Smt. Leela Samson painstakingly explain the nuances of Abhinaya, I was one of the very few teachers present. Mesmerized by her impassioned lecture- demonstration, I was transported into another realm, a world of the beautiful and the abstract, a world where the "instant" was "made eternity"and spirit alone prevailed. The experience reminded me of Wordsworth's emphasis upon the primacy of "spots of time" during one's life. This day, an unforgettable "spot of time" in my life, created a deep-seated yearning within me to have more and more of these spiritual experiences where the self within comes face to face with beauty, with truth, with permanence, even if these experiences are fleeting and time-bound. Such was my initiation into SPIC MACAY, a movement where youngsters are passionately driven into seeking values of truth while living in a rapidly transforming transient world that offers merely materialistic pleasures. And SPIC MACAY is there to freely provide young students with such life transforming, soul uplifting and self evolving quests - into the treasure troves hidden in India's diverse cultures, into the mystic magic of Indian classical music and dance, into the serenity of yoga, into the creative joy of crafts, into the vibrancy of theatre... the list of treasures in our culture is endless. After all these many years working with SPIC MACAY, I strongly feel that it's contribution to the education of India’s youth is invaluable, illimitable, immeasurable. Being with this movement is, indeed, an enriching, enchanting, enlightening and an elevating experience. Apart from the countless VIRAASAT series and FEST series activities the movement holds across the length and breadth of India and abroad, there are the annual Conventions where a week in every summer becomes for those present, a cultural feast, a voyage into the recesses of the self. Having attended national conventions (before they turned ‘international’) at Bengaluru, Guwahati, Dehradun and Indore in the 1990s, I can vouchsafe for the immense benefits to be gained through one's presence at these conventions. As a young volunteer at these conventions, I heard and saw so much classical and folk music and dance, met the greatest of artistes and felt at one go, humbled, dumbstruck and inspired. I was present at the screening of some beautiful film classics and saw demonstrations of beautiful craftsmanship at the crafts workshops. I have seen how conventions bring together at one place and under one roof volunteers from across the globe, clusters of excited students from schools and colleges across India and even visitors from neighbouring countries, apart from music and dance aficionados.

A convention is in some sense a homecoming too where one meets and interacts with fellow volunteers, brainstorms over improved coordination and management of future SPIC MACAY activities and imbibes so much from the cultural fare that is offered. A SPIC MACAY convention is a world within a world, far away from the mundane, mechanised world we live in. It is a spiritual retreat, where students practice yoga and meditate, learn the value of SHRAMDAN, keep their rooms and the surroundings clean, eat only holistic food and participate in diverse. It is a spiritual sojourn for all those attending it. It is a relaxation for the overworked mind of city dwellers and an exhilarating voyage (for the uninitiated) into a world hitherto unknown and unexplored. Students leave the conventions more thoughtful, more introspective, more self reflexive and starry eyed about the music and the dance forms heard and witnessed. I would urge all youngsters to come forward, experience the magic of Indian culture directly and join hands for a collective cooperation in furthering the movement called SPIC MACAY. I quote Tennyson's memorable lines in support of my encouragement of all students:

"Yet all experience is an arch wherethrough,

Gleams that untravelled world whose margin fades,

Forever and forever when I move. How dull it is ... to rust unburnished"

 SPIC MACAY's contribution to the education of India’s youth is invaluable, illimitable, immeasurable. Being with this movement is, indeed, an enriching, enchanting, enlightening and an elevating experience. SPIC MACAY's contribution to the education of India’s youth is invaluable, illimitable, immeasurable. Being with this movement is, indeed, an enriching, enchanting, enlightening and an elevating experience.