MOHINIYATTAM, literally the dance of the Mohini, the enchantress, traces its mythic origin to that forgotten time when the story of the amrit mathan was played out. After the churning of the primeval oceans by the two teams of the gods and the demons, and after 17 other great treasures had been taken out, among them the Kalpavriksha, Lakshmi and Hala, the poison that finally found a resting place in Shiva's throat, the pot of nectar was brought out.

Inevitably there was a fight between the goodies and the baddies and the latter, always being stronger, were in danger of walking off with the pot, becoming immoral. Quelle horreur! Equally inevitably, the Supremo referee felt it was time to do a little arm twisting of destiny by distracting the demons and appeared on the scene as Mohini, the enchantress. And enchant she did, dancing up and down the two rows of thirsty warriors, to the point that while the demons forgot the nectar and kept lusting after her, she smartly tripped past them and helped the gods to the nectar! Ergo, Mohiniyattam!

There is definitely something in that training, especially of the eyes and the face, that enables even an average Mohiniyattam dancer to become a personification of feminine grace. Pallavi is decidedly not average. Her training has been with Gurus Kalamandalam Sankaranarayanan (Santiniketan), Kalamandalam Leelamma, Bharati Shivaji and Kalamandalam Kshemavathy and other inputs from Kavalam Narayana Panikkar. In his biography of Shanta Rao, Ashok Chaterjee has recorded her description of this incredible training of eyes and the muscles of the face from old masters and how they were meant to change the inner being of the dancer. Unlike other classical styles which are self-effacing, here the dancer consciously projects a strong persona.

Pallavi, at the India Habitat Centre's HCL series, did all this and more. She combines a high degree of control over those slow motion torso bends which Kanak Rele describes as breaking the body in two and then holding it just with the small of the back!