MOVE TO BAN SPICE GIRLS' INDIA GIG

NEW DELHI: Bharatanatyam dancer Geeta Chandran has written to the collector, district administration of Khajuraho, Madhya Pradesh, pleading that the Spice Girls who are scheduled to perform at the world famous Chandela monuments later this year, be prevented from doing so.

The Spice Girls have already visited the monuments and had been photographed against the sculptures for publicity stills, noted the dancer.

Geeta Chandran who has just returned after performing at the Khajuraho Festival of Classical Dances, said in her letter that the Spice Girls’ gig would be contrary to the spiritual context in which the temples were erected. The eroticism of Khajuraho is part of the larger Hindu view of the cyclicality of life, the dancer noted. By reducing the temples to a mere erotic prop to their pop-performance, the Spice Girls would hurt the sentiments of Indians. Eroticism without spirituality would be mere pornography, she said

Chandran lambasted the “dollar-hungry commercial event-producers” who were attempting to damage the great artistic heritage of India and debase it with such peurile shows. She said the archaeological Survey of India (ASI) which had prevented the Indian classical dance festival from being performed on site, should also call for a ban on the Spice Girls’ gig.