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(This article first appeared in The Hindu Friday Review, dated June 30, 2016 and is reproduced here courtesy the author.) It was yet another sleepy day at a national seminar on Mohiniyattam two decades ago. I remember the newspapers, for that extra punch, even carried a picture of me dozing while a scholar presented his paper. During one such mid-day snooze at the 10-day seminar, something caught my attention. It was not the usual history or sampradayas that we had been mercilessly subjected to in the preceding days. Neither did the speaker throw up borrowed words of some author or scholar. On the contrary, what I heard was something so pragmatic, rustic, yet greatly appealing. I woke up to Kavalam Narayana Panikkar and to Mohiniyattam.