In a room at the five-star Oberoi hotel in central Delhi, Masako Ono is getting ready. She is about to perform in front of a hall packed with hundreds of Japanese and Indian businessmen.
"Can you help me tie this?" she asks. "You must tighten it carefully so that I don't drop it," she says, referring to a belt bejewelled with small bells that fits around the waist of her bright turquoise pants.
Ono has already spent over an hour making her eyes cat-like with a thick layer of eyeliner. Her arms, nose and neck are decked with silver jewelry, and now she looks every bit the traditional dancer of Odissi, the country's oldest surviving dance form.
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