Ladies Circle

GB & I Ladies Circle Travel Grant Report

I am 38 yrs old and I have been in circle for 9 years.  India was my 4th LCI conference, and my report is about my experience of a home party.

Fiesta@50 had 13 home parties and I was in party number 2, my hostess was Radhika Venkatesh, who had already been very busy as she was the Accommodation officer on the Conference Committee.

When I register at LCI the first thing I do is check my home party number and then go through the participants details to see who I would be with, this is a handy way of finding out if you already know someone and gives you an idea about which countries they where from.

Therefore I knew I would be partying with ladies from Finland, Israel, Germany, Denmark, India and others from GB&I.  What was unusual about this home party compared to my previous 3 is that partners had also been included – I did wonder if men would hamper our partying but actually the men proved very useful when it came to taking group photographs!

The journey from Ashok Hotel to Radhika house took 45 minutes through busy Bangalore traffic.  On arrival we were welcomed by Radhika husband and a tangent member.

The evening started with a Hindu ceremony for Ganesha: Lord of Success.

Radhika’s mother had set this up for us and then it was explained that Ganesha is the destroyer of vanity, selflessness and pride.  All the members of the home party took part in this by placing flowers on Ganesha and receiving cleansing incense smoke.  We were also shown to the prayer room, which all Hindu homes have. After the ceremony we were all given 2 bananas on a leaf with a nut which is a traditional gift given during a Hindu festival.

From the ceremony for Ganesha we moved to the 4th floor terrace overlooking Bangalore where a bar and music where setup.  It didn’t take us long to start chatting once we where in the more informal atmosphere of the terrace with drinks in hand and Brittany Spears playing!

Once we were all settled with drinks, and nibbles had been brought around we went around doing introductions.  Radhika's husband was surprised to find Circlers who weren’t married to tablers and were happily single or happily looking.  Not only was there a mix of nationalities but also a mix of married, divorced, single, significant others etc with or without children – I think this shows how circle is attracting a wider range of women and is a very positive thing.  That is except in India where you can only join circle if you are married to a tabler – though the Indian Circlers say they have been trying to change this at their last few AGM but each time it gets defeated.

During the drinking, eating, dancing and chatting we where asked to take our seats for a special guest – then this fabulously dressed young women arrived...

...our special guest was a Professional Indian Dancer.

She performed 3 dances for us explaining before each one what her different hand movements signified and the theme of the dance.

It takes 12 years to train to be an Indian dancer of this standard.

Indian schools teach dance and if you are very good you can then move to a school which teaches dance as the main topic with your other school work fitting around this.

In Great Britain this would be like going to the Royal School of Ballet at the age of 11.

It was also explained to us that once a dancer is qualified to a professional standard she can continue her studies and even gain a PhD in Indian Dance.

At the end of her 3 dances, she then showed us the 9 faces of an Indian dancer these included love, excitement, fear, sadness, happiness, anger and I am sorry but I can’t remember the rest!

It was amazing how long she could hold these poses on one leg, and her hand and facial expressions.

After the professional dancer left we then gave our home party gifts and received Indian circle pins and banners from Radhika.

It was about 10.30pm by this time and we all went back downstairs to enjoy the food that had been laid on for us.  There was a mixture of traditional Indian as well as pasta, and the dessert of mud pie and ice-cream went down very well!

The reason the food had been served later in the evening is because this is how a social evening in India happens, you come and visit and then eating is the last part of the evening before going home.

Before we left Radhika got out her wedding album from her marriage 20 years earlier when she had 2000 guests at her wedding.  The photographs where amazing, she explained how an Indian wedding works and then also showed us the photographs of her 2 sons being blessed – an Indian version of a Christening.

At midnight the party came to an end and we headed back to our hotels on the coach, surprisingly the return journey only took 20 minutes!

Diane Culshaw
Widnes & District 217
Area 44