The Dancing Dolls of Silvassa

It was a long weekend. We had been wanting to visit Silvassa for some time and this seemed like a good opportunity to do so. Driving down means that somewhere down the Bombay - Ahmedabad highway one has to turn off onto a much narrower 17 Km long tree lined road. The drive is lovely and as long as you have all the time in the world on your hands, you will enjoy it.

After a lazy lunch in the hotel, we decided to explore the town. Our first stop was the Tourism Department Office. This unfortunately was closed. But what was open, and just a couple of doors away was an nice small museum. It had an amazing collection of masks. From a 10 headed Ravan mask to a tall Raktai one, they were all so very colourful and vibrant. The museum took us through a short journey on the various tribes of the region and how they differed from each other.

Having been suitably educated we decided to walk around the town. Silvassa has a nice lazy, feel to it. There was an exhibition in town - the type that is put up under a large tent where you have people selling things as varied as cloth by the yard, ready made clothes, shoes, magic cures and the ever present kitchen appliance person who specialises in chopping up various types of vegetables into various shapes! Most of the stalls had people asleep or almost asleep. It was after all the afternoon and normal people sleep in the afternoon!

Out of the tent, in the hot afternoon sun, the games guy was setting up his empire. There was the toy train that went round and round a circular track with lights flashing and the sound of a horrible reverse horn. There was a huge lump of plastic which he was carefully unfolding into what looked like a giant parachute. Later that evening, when we walked past this place, we realised that it was one of those huge inflatable slide into which kids climb up and come bumping down.

And just then, in comes a guy, pushing a hand-cart laden with bottles. Bottles that had the most amazing colours of liquids in them. From a clear beer colour to a shocking pink to a ferocious red and even a tangy green. Oh, the options were so huge, so varied that it would put a Photoshop colour palette to shame. Each bottle was capped and on top of that was a plastic glass. The uneven ground on which the cart was travelling, made the plastic glasses dance like the kuchipuddi dancing dolls while the bottles clanking together, created the orchestra for the dolls. And then it all stopped. Each of the dancers frozen in the middle of a mudra. Where am I, what am I doing here, where have the dancers gone to? Questions...questions and more questions.

And then I heard a little boy asking for a gola.