Dancing Devotee

After Mumbiram left America he made his residence first in his native Pune and then in the beach village Akshi south of Mumbai. Those who had known him during those years were used to seeing him, mostly along the water front, sometimes with a retinue of exuberant and exotic slum kids and sometimes exotic and excited international India lovers. It can be said that he was known more as a man with extraordinary passion for dancing than as a virtuoso painter.
These regular performances were clearly not happening for pleasing any audience at all. Yet the joy that was experienced was all too obvious.

This passion for spontaneous dancing first was aroused when Mumbiram had an encounter with the magnificent excellence of the personality of Krishna in Seattle in 1975. It was an overwhelming experience to discover that the profound philosopher who spoke the Bhagavad Gita is also Rasa Raj, master of aesthetic and emotional grace. When the adolescent Krishna vanquished the many-hooded fearsome poisonous Kaliya snake, Krishna cooly danced a fascinating composition on the menacing hoods of the fearsome monster. That dance of 5000 years ago has continued to inspire musicians to compose compositions that aspire to capture the drama of that happening.

Here on this page we give a few glimpses of those wonderful dance happenings on the water front that Mumbiram and his friends celebrated.