RAFU

Indian choreographer Mihir Grover explores the complexity of human relationships.

In keeping with its title, which refers to the Hindi word “RAFU” (“to mend,” “to repair”), the piece unfolds as a journey of constant repair, construction, and reconstruction; an attempt to strengthen and preserve the connection between two people.

The dance performance asks why we often only address the cracks in our relationships when they are on the verge of breaking.

Staatstheater Wiesbaden, February 13 & 14

(c) Mayur Revanna

MEMORY.

(c) Mayur Revanna

I will write to you again today. And I will write to

you again tomorrow. I will not send a text or an

email as I don’t want to auto correct my feelings. I

will be a little poetic today, as I want you to know

that you mean the world to me. That no one can take

your place with me. When I look at you, I know

without hesitation that I want to stay and repair

what is broken and I know that you want the same.

Together it all makes sense, the beginning, and the

end. But I find it difficult to see how our story

shall continue. It wasn’t like this before. You only

speak when you are spoken to. I have questions, but I

don’t know if you have the answers. I don’t know if I

have the answers. How did we come to this? THIS

SILENCE.

Can I hug you?

Have you come and I don’t see you.

I want you to be amazed by me.

Be here one more time, for one more moment, one

breath at a time.

Allow me to color you with love.

Can I hug you?

I wait for you like I am waiting for pain. Because

even when you are here, I am still waiting. Waiting

for you to see me. Waiting to see if you are gone?

Waiting to see if I am still with you? I wish I could

say that there is nothing that I cannot do for you,and that you can always tell me when your heart is

sore and I can mend it.

But I am yours and there has never been anyone else.

You are my favorite, my favorite pair of eyes to look

into, my favorite lips to kiss and my favorite hands

to hold. I feel like I have missed you for most of my

life. If I had never met you, I would have dreamt you

into being, wished for your existence. Now you carry

with you a reflection of me. You are a part of me.

I thought I was free but now I am a prisoner of my

loneliness for you.

We have walked a long way to find love and now we are

nearly crawling to keep it. I know that you are full

of affection and kindness but also of pain and a

million unspoken words. I need to know more.

Your silence has been horrible. It has been a silence

of what feels like years, and I am out of breath in a

chase after you.

Sometimes I wonder if all this was so beautiful only

because it was brief and stolen? Were we acting for

each other to each other? Was I less I, or more I,

and you less or more you? Is it madness to believe

that this could go on? It is such a mysterious place,

this land of … silence. I studied you so much to

discover the possible flaws, the weak points, the

danger zones. And then I walked into them with my

eyes wide open.

And then I realized that not everything in life is

meant to be beautiful. Not every person we feel

something deep and moving for is meant to make a homewith us or is meant to be forever. I just thought, we

would be different.

How did we come to this? I want both to combat you

and submit to you, because I adore you. I adore the

pain it holds, the struggle you carry within

yourself, which I think I alone fully realize.

But now I stand divided… desperate and bewildered,

drowning and willing to quit or wanting to leap into

life, as upon a stage, to love you so wildly and

desperately that you have no choice but to keep

loving me back.

So, this time let’s not awake from our times spend

together to remember only the difficult moments. No.

We won’t do it this time, because while we are here

together, while you examine my being with more than

just your eyes, while you do that, I seize upon the

wonder that is brushing by, and I bring it to you, I

breathe it around you.

So fucking take it.

I love You. But there is always twilight in my heart.

Where has gone the time when men fought, killed, died

for love, a glance, a touch? Where has gone the time?

LOVE.

(c) Mayur Revanna

Did I choose you or did you choose me?

I don’t think we had a say in the matter, it was

inevitable, like the sun rising in the morning or the

lightning before the thunder. You were colors I had

never seen, flavors I had never tasted, your scent

felt like home. You are a little bit of everything I

never knew I needed.Something stirred in me every time I looked at you. I

see you sitting in your favourite spot. The open

window, the last rays of the day’s sun shine. The

silence and the air heavy with mutual recognition.

How often have we sat like this our minds as one,

recognising and surprising each other, complementing,

completing each other. Laughing at the top of our

lungs and gasping for air, being wildly an

unapologetically alive.

Your hair…I know exactly how soft it feels….the

sparkle in your eyes when you smile, your laughter

that ignites me at the core of my being. And your

lips… oh, the madness of kissing your lips. You are

the one who quickly became the axis of my world.

How many nights did I fall asleep in your arms?

Feeling like I had walked the earth a thousand times

and finally made it home. I rested in your arms

because you let me. No more wars of peace and hate,

fights of left and right. I felt your soft smile and

dark eyes caress my face as I rested. A breath away,

your beautiful face. Does the world know that there

is such a place, madly dancing, drunk with love?

My body is filled with you for days and days. Even in

your absence I am yours. I waited so long for love

and here it was. You cracked me open, you found rooms

within my heart and my mind that were padlocked and

hard to touch and you held me there. You stood firmly

in front of me, held my face between your palms till

I am overflowing with feelings so much ours, yours,

mine, you and I together.Nothing can prepare you for love until it happens to

you and you fall hardly and deeply and never want to

look back. You come and the time slips away in a

dream.

I’ll never hold anyone but you, for no other soul

could ever fit in my arms as perfectly as you do. I

am so much yours, I am no longer myself.

I want you so desperately, I want to open my legs so

wide I am melting. I want to do things so wild with

you, I don’t even know how to say them.

I will kiss your lips like crazy.

I will carry your name like a pulse on my tongue,

like hunger, like breath,

like this is all we’ve got.

No one can take your place with me. We sit in each

other’s soul. Even though you are distant, you are

nearer to my bones than I myself. I love you. Nothing

makes sense without you. Please be here. Enjoy this

moment, this time. I promise you it will be

beautiful.

But now things stand differently. In some strange way

I am not with you. I am against you. We are destined

to hold two truths. I love you and I fight you. Years

of love forgotten, in the hatred of a minute.

You demand without grace and receive with no thanks.

You numb me.

You destroy and you suffer.

You build and you break.

You hurt and you heal.You love and you hate?

The terrifying thing about a love like this is that

the same person who makes you indestructible has the

power to shatter you with absence. I’m tired, worn,

exhausted. You packed up your eyes and left. No more

smiles. Just scratches on my breath from sharp

questions marks and memories we weren’t meant to

have. I am a wreck but somewhere among the wreckage

there are pieces of me and pieces of you. So is it

safe enough to ask, was it once there? I have found

it harder than usual lately to pretend. I believe

this is worst of me.

You are now my enemy. My dearest enemy.

ANGER.

(c) Mayur Revanna

Why can’t I get away from these lingering, nostalgic

feelings for you? Am I dwelling on a past that only

exists in my head? My mind tries to comprehend, that

you are not my memory of you. That we are not the

memories, the people we remember to be. Sometimes I

fear, that everything, you and I were only constructs

in my head, which now consume me as a story consumes

its reader. Today you are a pain to me. I have to

leave. I am tired of allowing you to make me feel

anything less but whole.

Your silence is full of things that do not interest

me.

I have always found it wrong that people think

ignoring a person is making a point to them. The only

point it makes is your inability to stand your point

of view because deep down you know you can’t win.

So, this is it then. The love I have for you is

fading; I find my dislike for you growing everymoment. I see you and I don’t even like your face. I

have a heart to give, but I will for sure not give it

to you. No one is more foolish and selfish than you.

You will do me a fucking favour if you think this is

the end!

I am not a toy you plan play with when you are bored

or lonely or horny. I am not a fantasy. If you want

me – earn me!

Goodbye! Believe me. I do not care for you. I will

grow a new skin that you can never touch, a new heart

that you can never break and a new soul that you can

never corrupt.

I have one last thing to say – FUCK YOU.

I tried to be philosophical and poetic for you, but

it doesn’t work, nothing does. Your silence has been

nothing but dark and disgusting. Can you not see it?

You fucking demon.

Release Me.

I am tearing you out of me,

I hate everything that you have become.

Go and never seek me again.

I don’t want to hear from you. If there is anything

I’d enjoy, it would be not having to see your damn

face ever again!

You really speak an infinite deal of nothing, don’t

you!

Every word from your mouth has been a lie.I`m undoing you from my skin, from all your broken

promises, to hell with you.

You are awfully so small to be so hugely irritating.

You are not worth this pain!

I don’t give a shit what you think. You think I was

born a bitch, so maybe I am. I am whatever name you

call me. You are shit!

AFTER ANGER.

(c) Mayur Revanna

Do we look less or more alive than we used to?

Has the toxin in our mouth burned holes in our cheeks?

Did we forget to remain kind in cruel moments?

Could we have given another colour to the whole affair?

You should know that I blame myself terribly.

I blame myself for allowing this wide gap between us.

How fragile we are between the good moments.

But then no matter how bad it gets: here we are, breathing the same air, despite everything.

Our Story does not end here.

Loving you has made me understand that real love will

take you far beyond yourself; it will devastate you.

I will write to you again today and I will write to you again tomorrow. I will choose you. And keep choosing you every single day. I love you. It’s as simple and as complicated as that.

Do you think now is the time for one more attempt at conversation?