We have moments of letting go, honesty, positivity and simplicity. Or sometimes, we have them altogether. This was only made possible by an incredible personality with so much of life and energy into him—Ben.
We were in a room of twenty people we hardly knew. Clueless about what the next four hours would do to us, we started with calling out our names, as if from the hilltop. It was almost like looking for our own selves within our bodies, feeling every rhythm the voice created within us. No matter where the voice travelled, there was a positive flow of energy seeping right into every marrow of our bones through the knees and ultimately deep into the roots, away from our body. And the very next moment, we are all at ease, pouring our hearts out in some way or the other! I am not sure how many of us have ever been as spontaneous to meet a person, ask their name, and share our closest dreams with them. But one thing I know for sure, it just felt good.
More than anything else, this session was about people and all the connection we share. Moving around making eye contacts and feeling this special bond with everyone around was effortless yet a learning. Ben needed honest stories from us to do justice to that moment. In fact, it was only through the diversity of stories and ideas that the actors could come up with beautiful enactments of life tales.
An activity that I would like to mention is when Ben asked us to form a circle. He started by making a gesture to the person on his right and that person reacted to the gesture to the one on his right. This basically portrayed the cause and effect relationship and helped us realize how a cause leads to an effect, and it is all upon us to change the course of situations that come to us.
Then Ben made all of us walk around concentrating on how our body responds and reacts to our surroundings without the mind helping too much. It was somehow difficult for me considering how much my mind dominates over my mental and emotional character but the moment we actually started letting go, I realized that doing it was indeed a different experience. In times like this, when we are so busy running behind deadlines, dealing with our adversities, creating a radius and moving around it, we need to stop and think if we really need to be that hard on ourselves.
Every activity conducted made me reflect as to how much we have seen in life and what all it can have in store for us. One thing spoken by Ben I will always remember is that it is okay to make mistakes; we do not have to be perfect. All we need to be is a little sensitive towards people and everyone around us. Whenever we meet a person, we have to remember that they too have a story. Everyone has gone through something that has changed them. It could be a rusty memory, a faded scar or a cramped secret waiting to be shared with the ones who are ready to embrace these stories as their own.
—Shraddha Agarwal and Rakshita Mittal
