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The Keeper of Tango

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The Keeper of Tango

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]If tango dance were a person, one could have called it hardy for it arose from nothing and survived many changes—good and bad. Invariably, its true followers find themselves karmically bound by the same fate

By Shailaja Paramathma

We often attribute greatness to artistes from the past. Frequently, we ignore, undermine, are myopic or plain indifferent to or even hold standards that are too high to allow us to call a contemporary great. But how about not being so snobbish and recognising greatness in its time? What about taking into consideration an artist who had to fight egos and face opposition from within a dance community for trying to defend that dance form itself? What about one who with every salida, colgada, gancho and ocho grew into a culture which was not just wildly different and distanced from his own but was also making him choose a career which was singularly iffy?

Vivek Yadav is that artist, a forty-year-old tango dancer from Village Kashipura in Etawah, Uttar Pradesh, whose family has been into farming for generations. This is the story of him moving away from the societal mores of caste-based professions and a milieu where a ghoonghat-clad woman is still the accepted norm. Vivek Yadav is the first Indian tango teacher in India.

Looking back

In 1988, Vivek’s father moved from Etawah to Ghaziabad in search of a livelihood. Vivek was then eleven years old. As his father wanted him to get a good education, he enrolled Vivek in Summer Fields School in Kailash Colony. At that young age Vivek found himself taking the local train from Ghaziabad to Tilak Bridge in Delhi and a bus thereon every morning to reach his school. Proudly and with a touch of smugness he says: “If a kid that young could travel those distances in a local train at that time, he can achieve anything he wants in life.”

Vivek Yadav with his students

Vivek Yadav with his students

Adulthood came knocking with a job offer in marketing at American Express. He took it up but soon quit. Forever drifting and never really satiated, he then learnt pattern-cutting in garment manufacturing from a master craftsman and soon landed a job as master pattern cutter for shirts at an export house. One day he saw an opening for a science teacher in his old school and applied. It was a job he got easily and kept at for seven long years. But the established norm of teaching ineffectually in school and taking on private tuitions at home was something Vivek never did and could never appreciate. Moreover, the demand of the establishment that a teacher be forever answerable to the parents was something he could not tolerate. One day when a confrontation with a set of parents got out of hand, he decided to quit his job without any clear idea of what he would do next.

Swooping into tango

Always motivated by movement and the body, he visited the Om Book Store in South Extension in Delhi, intent upon finding a book on any of the three subjects—martial arts, dance and fitness. After all, Vivek had earned a black belt in judo at the age of 16 from Delhi Judo Council. Luckily, one of the two books that he found called Lets Dance! by Paul Bottomer had lessons on 11 different dance forms; one of the dance forms was the tango. The other book was on martial arts.

If tango were a person, one could have called it hardy for it arose from nothing and survived many changes—good and bad. Invariably, its true followers find themselves karmically bound by the same fate. As for Vivek, he had jumped off the cliff and without yet knowing, had discovered his wings. Soon afterwards, with just Rs 3,900 on him Vivek decided to go to Mumbai. He found accommodation on sharing for Rs 70 a night at the Duttatrey Boarding and Lodging in Goregaon. But without much to do or spend, Vivek mostly only had his roommates for company.

One afternoon, feeling exasperated with his roommates, who in a fast moving city like Mumbai had all the time in the world to sit and talk about the big moolah that they were supposedly raking in, he went to a cyber café to kill time and ran into a salsa dancer. The two got talking and the dancer invited him to a salsa night at Juhu the same evening. This was the moment of truth in Vivek’s life when its course and the future of tango teaching in India quietly took a turn for the better.

The journey

Thirteen-year-old Vivek Yadav receives a medal after winning a judo contest

Thirteen-year-old Vivek Yadav receives a medal after winning a judo contest

On the dance floor that evening, the self-teaching lessons from the dance book came in handy. When Vivek started dancing, people on the floor stopped to watch him. A girl at the party, who later went to become the personal stylist of a Bollywood star, asked Vivek if he was a dance instructor, and he unaffectedly said yes. Call it a conjunction of events, serendipity, coincidence, synchronicity or just destiny, but when the girl asked him which dance form he taught, Vivek simply said: “I teach tango!”

From then to now, Vivek has taught tango at the 5th Peru Tango Festival in South America in 2013, and has been the only Indian teacher to teach at the Auroville Holi Tango Festival in Pondicherry for two years in a row. Since 2013, he has organised four Goa International Tango Weekender Festivals and taught alongside Pablo Tegli in one of them (Tegli has performed in the movie Tango Libre together with Chicho Frumboli). His students come from all over the world—Italy, France, Spain, Argentina, Peru, Germany, Japan and Korea, to name a few nations.

Vivek has also choreographed Hrithik Roshan for a Bourbon biscuit advertisement and Anushka Sharma and Virat Kohli for the All Clear shampoo ad. He is recognised the world over for his teaching clarity and innovative approach, and for his magical dance embrace. He says: “The quality of one’s embrace is decided by the length of the smile on the partner’s face.” Watch this video from the Goa Tango Festival in February 2017 to decide for yourself.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_video link=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kirR8dYyMkk”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]It goes without saying that to dance well you need good shoes. And tango teachers the world over make their own shoes, including Vivek.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Tango in India and the world

In India, even though tango is not as popular as salsa or zumba, it nevertheless has a small and committed fan base. However, it is startling that the number of dancers of this intimate dance form in some Muslim majority countries like Lebanon, Dubai and Malaysia is way above that in India. Istanbul, Turkey, in fact is viewed as the number two destination for tango after Buenos Aires, where thousands dance tango everyday in various festivals and in clubs.

Vivek cites two pertinent reasons for this situation: “As a nation we do not have a sense of touch, we are shy of even holding hands with our partner in public. Secondly, as consumers we demand return for our money fast. We lose interest in anything that needs long-term dedication and investment.” Furthermore, unlike other Latin American dances that one can learn in India, tango and clubbing do not go hand in hand. You cannot even perform an eye-popping number to showcase your talent in a friend’s Bollywood-themed wedding.

However, what tango offers is pleasure­—a sensuous gliding to a music with changing rhythms, the warmth of a close embrace, a balance in leading and following, proposing and accepting, initiating and executing and as one gets better—a passionate conversation between two pairs of legs which is exclusive to the two dancers but can captivate a room full of people. Traditionally, tango in India leans towards people in the age group of 35 to 50, which is also the demographic that is financially most well-off. Therefore, rivalry is rampant between the different schools of tango as everyone is vying for the bigger share in terms of popularity and business to teach this not-so-new dance form.

Vivek teaches a class

Vivek teaches a class

Tango sprang-up in Buenos Aires in Argentina in the early 1900s amongst the poor and the disadvantaged who lived in apartment blocks and on street corners. The exact origins of the dance form are obscure because no records exist. However, for a dance form this sensuous there are as many juicy anecdotes. One such belief goes that the dance originated in the brothels of Buenos Aires. The story behind says that as there was a marked shortage of women, it was common for men to have to queue up and wait outside brothels for their turn. To entertain them while they waited, the brothel owners brought in musicians. With the passage of time as the spirits of the waiting men were high they began to pair up and dance. The close embrace of tango, with the cheek together and the rest of the body away, was the only acceptable way two heterosexual men could comfortably sway as a couple. As the dance style gained popularity, even with a man-woman couple, the cheek together and the body away from each other’s came to be the unique style of tango dancing. 

An unusual story

Just like the fascinating anecdotes on tango there is something legendary and almost anecdotal about Vivek, too. It is incredible yet true that he never went to any class to learn tango. You read it right, never! He taught tango to himself. It is a fact that inspires awe and envy in the Indian tango community unfailingly and with habitual regularity. Vivek says: “I have chosen to put myself right on top of the A-list of dancers. Any time I have come across a dancer, foreign or Indian, who is better than me, I have worked on getting better than him before the next season. For that, I watch his videos closely and improve my own dance. When watching, I do not just focus on his technique but also read his expressions intently to gauge the dancer’s emotions. Most importantly, I have not stopped learning; even my competitors admire that quality in me. But what they hate is that I don’t learn what they think I should,” he adds mischievously.

Vivek’s kind of tango is a conversation between two human beings which is constructed outside of the rules of tango. His style is not limited to leading and following nor does he believe in forcibly learning techniques to attain unnatural body postures. He says: “You dance tango as you are. When you have to work to strike a particular posture, it becomes more of a workout than actual dancing. My tango is constructed around how our body naturally moves and how to keep the other person with us and move together without any compulsion.”

His dance style is about texture, movement, music, and most of all about the centre and the connectedness of the body. The tango walk is the most important element in his dance and the connection between the partners the most arresting thing to watch. If you watch his videos, what will strike you is the beauty in the simplicity of his style. There is a certain profoundness to the dance and his moves are engaging but you realise only later that he does not do anything fancy. Watch how in the absence of a partner Vivek danced with a pair of sticks at the Auroville Holi Tango Festival in 2013.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_video link=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kvuug9egcQk”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Of Portalea and Yadav

Gerardo Portalea, a tangoer from the golden era of tango who invented the turn, the contrafrente, the change of postures and the boleos, said: “Tango is a refrained emotion which later bursts. It can’t be said tango is danced this way or the other, one dances it as one feels it, it’s a creation.”

Vivek has never heard of Portalea but laughs out when he finds a striking similarity exists between him and the latter. Portalea enigmatically once said: “In tango you have to dance the silence. And the violins. Even if there are none.”

Tango shoes designed by Vivek

Tango shoes designed by Vivek

The key instrument in tango music is the melancholic sounding bandoneon and while dancing the main challenge is syncopation. Regardless of the ever shifting rhythm, according to Vivek, it is the holistic feeling of the music that should be felt while dancing instead of tracking the eight count beats, the half beat or the ¼ beat. He says: “Music in my kind of tango is not structured in the so-called paragraphs or phrases. I might want to pause on moving music or move on melody and not on the beat. And why hanker after the strong beat and the weak beat, find your musicality,” he entreats.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Forever evolving

Vivek’s style of tango is influenced by Chicho Frumboli, Pablo Tegli, Fabian Salas, Gaston Troili and Pablo Inza. Apart from Tegli, he has never met the others. Vivek says: “I have only watched their videos and the common factor in all their dances is that they do not choreograph them. I don’t believe in choreographing one’s moves either. Dance needs to be about spontaneity and connection and your own feelings.” However, he cautions: “You have to choose what you are dancing for—for the dance, for enjoyment, for an audience, for being popular, or for a pay check and a trophy.” While dancing “looking good should not be your priority, feeling good should be. If you are feeling good there are better chances of your looking good automatically. Vice versa is not true,” he adds carefully.

Just as a tiller ploughs the land relentlessly and does not request the earth to grow things, Vivek Yadav works hard without giving himself the option of failure. In this dance community which has either learnt the dance directly from him or from a student of his, Vivek noiselessly only demands his place in the tango space in India. Amidst the clamour for self-projection, those with the means manage to buy the limelight for a bit. As for Vivek, he surveys but remains mostly unaffected. His only tool is perfecting his art to a level where even the question of a comparison with someone else does not arise. Being the best consistently is what he is after. Humility is not always the only sign of greatness, possessing a silent strength and being aware of its power is also a language spoken by the great.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]

Book reviews

Walking On The Razor’s Edge: The path of the seeker

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The Power of Karma Yoga by Gopi Chandra Das (Jaico Books) is an attempt to unravel the mystique of the Bhagavad Gita in the contemporary context. Is Lord Krishna’s counsel to Arjuna still relevant in today’s time and social space ? How can the timeless teachings of Lord Krishna be adopted by people struggling to cope with the stresses and challenges of modern life? Is there a key teaching which can be easily adopted by stress-torn people? These and many more questions are answered by the author in his easy-to-read style.

The basic premise is that the stress is a function of identity; identity with ego or with role-playing. We all play roles in life: in the family, the office and in the social sphere. These roles demand close identification and exact their cost by way of fear, frustration and failures.

The way out is to ease one’s sense of identity with one’s temporal roles. At the metaphysical level, it means keeping oneself in a detached state from one’s ego. This requires sustained spiritual discipline, but automatically yields to mental distancing with mundane roles as well. No wonder the Katha Upanishad compares the spiritual path to a razor’s edge.

Lord Krishna sought to instil this detached perspective in Arjuna by underlining the perishable nature of the body and the transitory nature of the world. However, the key is to strike a balance between total detachment and total attachment. The golden mean is attained by letting go with discrimination. If we detach too much, it will become difficult to perform our duties; if we cling too much, the material will become a millstone. The idea is to be in the world and yet not be of it. As the Persian saint Abu Said said, “To buy and sell and yet never forget God.”

Detachment, however, doesn’t mean irresponsibility. On the contrary, it means working with utter responsibility; with a sense that the job at hand is a moment to glorify the divine. It is not only work for work’s sake; work is taken up as a tool for self-realization. This is more deeply grasped if we acknowledge that the Gita is not only a handbook of divine knowledge or spiritualised action but essentially a guidepost for the man treading the path of enlightenment.

Sri Aurobindo says: “The Gita is not a weapon for dia­lectical warfare; it is a gate opening on the whole world of spiritual truth and experience, and the view it gives us embraces all the provinces of that supreme region. It maps out, but it does not cut up or build walls or hedges to confine our vision.”

Or as Paramahansa Yoganananda puts it: Gita sheds light on any point of life in which the devotee finds himself in.

Delving yet further, Gopinath explains in the book that letting go is made easy by the practice of apagriha, or being unattached to desires with conscious control on attachment-driven strivings. In the process, one’s motive gets transformed from want-driven to purpose-driven. The aim, at the highest level, being self-realization: the acme of spiritual strivings. For all material strivings ought to be in essence spititual strivings.

When we shift from want-driven to purpose-driven action, the need for personal validation ceases. In our quest for a spiritual-centric action mode, yagna plays an important role. The concept of yagna is transposed from a religious fire-rite to diurnal mundane acts in which personal motives are quenched. As the borderline between the spiritual and the material gets increasingly dissolved, the quest for enlightenment becomes the summum bonum of life.

The direction and blessings of a sadguru is also needed in this eternal quest for soul freedom. In the ultimate sense, the material life and its duties become a stepping stone for a higher life which man embraces to achieve the state of kaivalya. The book lucidly interweaves real-life stories with philosophical concepts, which make for interesting reading.

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Entertainment

Justin Bieber shares unseen pictures from Anant Ambani and Radhika Merchant pre-wedding sangeet

Justin Bieber’s energetic performance on Friday was the highlight of the sangeet ceremony, which took place at the Nita Ambani Convention Centre in Bandra, Mumbai.

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Justin Bieber shares unseen pictures from Anant Ambani and Radhika Merchant pre-wedding sangeet

Global popstar Justin Bieber brought the energy at Anant Ambani and Radhika Ambani’s pre-wedding sangeet on July 5 in Mumbai. The soon to be married couple (wedding in July 12th) was spotted enjoying themselves as Bieber belted out his hits. While glimpses from the night went viral earlier, Bieber has now shared unseen photos and videos from his memorable trip to India.

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The heartwarming pictures show Justin Bieber bonding with Anant Ambani and Radhika Merchant and their family. In one picture Justin stands with Anant and Radhika, all three dressed festively for the sangeet ceremony. Another photo captures a casual moment where Justin Bieber is seen chatting with Akash Ambani on a couch while Anant and Radhika are posing with him.

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The group also posed for a larger picture that included Shloka Mehta and Anand Piramal. The final photos show Justin Bieber and Anant Ambani engaged in a friendly conversation, solidifying the warm atmosphere of the visit. Justin’s trip to India started on Friday morning with his arrival in Mumbai.

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That night Bieber transformed the Jio Convention Centre into a party zone with his hit songs and celebrities like Salman Khan and Alia Bhatt grooved along with him. Videos circulating on social media show Justin Bieber dancing with Orry and receiving a hug from Alaviaa Jaffrey( daughter of Javed Jaffrey). According to reports Justin Bieber has been paid $10million for this special performance.

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Bieber’s energetic performance on Friday was the highlight of the sangeet ceremony, which took place at the Nita Ambani Convention Centre in Bandra, Mumbai. The singer made the guests groove on his songs Baby, Love Yourself, Peaches, Where Are You Now and Sorry. Bieber’s fresh off his triumphant return to the stage once again set the internet ablaze with his electrifying performance at Anant and Radhika’s sangeet ceremony.

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Entertainment

Yashraj Mukhate collaborates with Amit Trivedi for Mann Dhaaga song

In a post circulating on Instagram Yashraj Mukhate talks about his experience of listening to Amit Trivedi’s music and recalls how he had always dreamt of collaborating with Amit Trivedi. He said his dream came true 2 years later in 2024 where he collaborated with Trivedi on the song Mann Dhaaga.

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Amit Trivedi is known for his soulful compositions which weave profound lyrics, captivating music lovers. His songs spark a deep desire in aspiring artists to collaborate with him. Music producer and You Tuber Yashraj Mukhate had immense admiration for Trivedi’s artistry. In a post circulating on Instagram Yashraj Mukhate talks about his experience of listening to Amit Trivedi’s music and recalls how he had always dreamt of collaborating with Amit Trivedi.

He said his dream came true 2 years later in 2024 where he collaborated with Trivedi on the song Mann Dhaaga. He wrote that he had been listening to the entire Dev D Album carefully in 2012. And he kept listening to it on loop for 3 weeks. He continued to listen to Amit Trivedi compositions in Aisha, Kai Po Che, Udaan, Lootera, Queen, Fitoor continuously. He said he could not stop himself and became a big fan of the music director. He said he started dreaming of meeting his idol one day and collaborating with him.

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He recalled that he had to download songs from songs.pk and listen to them. He said the songs kept running inside his mind all through the day. He added that he even remembered Amit Trivedi’s ad jingles word for Fanta, Frooti, Dish TV and all of them.

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Mukhate said he always dreamed of meeting Amit Trivedi and wanted to thank him for giving this experience. The post has gone viral on social media with 96,445 likes till now. Large number of social media user commented on the social media post where one user Parth said the Yashraj Mukhate was truly an inspiration. One user said his dedication had brought him to level. One user said a man should make all his dreams come true by going through one hustle at a time.

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