1st June 2008 - the day dawned gloomy and cloudy – a sharp contrast to the excitement among the 14 girls who would perform together that evening for the audience in Coonoor.

‘Silambam’ – a Centre for Dance and Allied Arts in the Nilgiris was about to celebrate its 15th anniversary. Nalini Prakash is its founder Trustee, and she started ‘Silambam’ in an attempt to infuse Indian culture into a culturally devoid society and passed on my dedication and enthusiasm through dance to many young girls in and around the Nilgiris.

The gloom outside could not dampen the spirits of the evening’s performers – students who had gathered from Coonoor, Mettupalayam, Coimbatore and Bangalore. They had practiced intensely for the past month and were determined that this evening’s performance would be their best – a tribute to their guru’s efforts!

The auditorium at the Providence College, Coonoor, was tastefully decorated and soon filled up with an audience that had braved the inclement weather and chosen to put their love for dance ahead of the final of the IPL cricket series!

The items selected carefully for the evening’s programme kept the audience enraptured. The dancers began with the ‘Jhalan Jhalitha” seeking Lord Shiva’s blessings.
The ‘Alarippu’ and ‘Jathiswaram’ were fine examples of the precise movements that have become the hallmark of Silambam students. This was followed by the Naachiyar Kauthuvam. Drishyami, followed by the Raas – an excerpt from the production ‘Krishnam Vande Jagadgurum’ choreographed by Prof Sudharanai Raghupathy was a very lively piece and was greatly appreciated. “Shri Jagadamba’ in praise of Goddess Meenakshi was next and the programme concluded with a Thillana in Sivaranjani of Vidwan Madurai N Krishnan.

The chief guest T. S. Ramani Shankar, consultant architect, Sankar & Associates, Coimbatore, compared architecture to dance and said that aesthetics played a very important role in both these fields. He said the soul stirring performance of the children had warmed the audience inside the auditorium in spite of the cold, rainy weather outside.

To have started and sustained a school for dance in the Nilgiris over one and a half decades was no small achievement, he said. He also said that this form of art gave children the confidence, grace, beauty and the aesthetics which make them cherished mothers of our soil.