Hooray For Bollywood

I have said in other postings that the year we spent in Switzerland gave us lifelong friends around the globe. Fortunately for us, some of those friends actually live fairly close. Paru, one of Ken’s IMD classmates, lives less than 15 minutes by foot from our Brussels apartment. Thanks to her, along with one of the IMD partners who became a good friend, Radhika, I have developed a great love for Indian food over the past 4 years. The first time Paru cooked for us, she warned me about the intense spiciness of one of the dishes to which I shocked her by devouring my portion with gusto. Last week, she presented more insight into her Indian culture with a truly unique experience. She invited me to attend a Bollywood party in downtown Brussels with dance entertainment she helped to choreograph. If you have seen the movie ‘Slumdog Millionaire’, then you would recognize many of the moves and even some of the songs used within the dancing at the party. However, one of the dance troupes preformed more traditional dances which I found mesmerizing and stunning as the women seemed to feel every note and word of the song with their bodies. The highlight of the night for me, though, came when Paru asked if I would like to wear one of her sarees to the party. Since I had absolutely no idea how to wrap the yards and yards of colorful material around my body, Paru kindly stepped in to help me dress. After draping me in the exquisite burgundy, green, and gold silk, I felt like an aristocratic beauty, and I did not want to take it off at the end of the night. With such a festive evening, all I can say is…Hooray for Bollywood!