Friend 1 – Shireen Isal, My Dear Friend

We meet many people in life,
Some just appear and disappear too
Like pretty butterflies,
Some stay for a while leaving behind
A sweet-scented fragrance of a flower,
Few stay longer,
Intense friendship while it lasted,
Then, gone suddenly, only
To reminisce as a pleasant memory!
But there are a few,
That you can count on your fingers,
That stay steady and strong,
Firmly rooted like a Peepal tree,
Throughout your life.

One such friend of mine is Shireen Isal!
We met each other professionally
Thirty three years ago,
When I was an aspiring danseuse.
She watched me dance Mohiniattam
And before I knew what was happening in my life,
I was dancing in different parts of Europe-
France, Holland, Belgium, Luxemburg,
Switzerland and England.
If the word ‘Mohiniattam’ is known to some in Europe,
It is all because of the effort put in by Shireen.
The credit of popularising and propagating
Indian Classical dance and music in the
European countries, undeniably, goes to her.
Shireen has been one of the pioneers
Promoting the best of Indian artistes in Europe.
In her list of artistes are some great ones
Like Ravi Shankar, Lakshmi Shankar,
Bismillah Khan, Parveen Sultana,
Malvika Sarukkai, Rohinton Cama
And many more.
I was lucky to have her as my Impressario.
We worked together almost till
The end of the 20th century.
The last tour was in 1997,
When my daughter and I danced together
Touring England in celebration of
India’s 50 years of Independence.

But the story does not end here.
Shireen and I continued our association
And became very good friends.
Every year when Shireen came down
From London to Mumbai,
We met over lunch,
Talked on every subject of life,
From mundane to high philosophy.
Early this year when we met
She gifted me a book authored by her.
A beautiful book on her French teacher
Zenobia Mistri! A teacher par excellence!
An incentive to write another poem
In my teacher series!

Thank you Shireen, for your faith in me,
And your warm, beautiful friendship!