Ajitha Ghorpade
We were nostalgically going through our old family album one day. I came across a picture in which I was biting my pearl necklace with a puppy face on the stage. Tears were about to roll down my cheeks. I was 4 years old when we had a dance program at my school. It was compulsory for every kid to take part in it. My mother told me that I had practiced well for the dance but all I remember was, I was getting dressed up to go out to the market , when all of a sudden my father picks me up from the street I was walking on and places me on the stage. I see few kids dancing around me, few others crying and few others with leaking noses. I didn’t know what to do so I started chewing my pearl necklace. I still feel like I was betrayed by my parents that day.
Another incident was when we had a family get-together and I was 6 years old. Everybody got bored of playing ‘housey housey’ and that’s when I volunteered to dance. I started dancing with so much zeal that one of my older cousins left his seat and joined me. Our moves were crazy enough to keep the audience on their toes!
From then on, I was sent to dance class for a year or two and I remember one particular step we used to do for the song ‘chaiyya chaiyya’. The step was similar to an exercise where we had to lift both our arms up half folded and bring it back down by lifting one leg up each time. It was funny to perform this step and I used to laugh every single time I had to do it.
We had to shift from one city to another as my father has a job that transfers him to a new city quite often. Hence my dance classes were discontinued but I used to take part in my school dance programs. In 8th std, we danced to the song ‘Awara bhavare’. I had laughed till my stomach hurt when my class teacher had instructed our dance team to “Not shake too much”. Of course she meant it in a humorous way. This can be taken offensively today but it was extremely funny back then.
My folks motivated me to join dance class again when I was doing my second year degree. So I complied and my Mother accompanied me to the class but not to dance with me (Got you there!). I was very nervous and bashful but I managed to keep up with the pace of the song ‘badtameez dil’. I could feel my confidence building up, when suddenly, I was on the ground. My heart was pounding and I felt an extreme pain in my knee. My knee cap had gotten dislocated and I was not able to get up from the ground. I was highly embarrassed and my mom was dismayed. My knee cap had to be put back in its place for me to get up. It came back in after the two longest minutes of my life. My Mother actually had the thought that I was doing this to avoid dance class but soon she realized it was serious. I tried controlling my tears but I couldn’t and I cried all the way back home. I was told by the doctor to rest for 3 to 4 days. He added that this was a lifetime injury and if I put too much pressure on my legs, I would have to face the same situation again!
We had been to Raichur for a rural camp in the first year of my Masters degree. Along with three of my friends, I decided to put up a dance performance. I was doubtful if I should really dance or not, but I continued practicing, when yet again I felt my knee give way. I hit the floor real hard and my respective dance partners who didn’t know about my problem started laughing and I started crying due to extreme pain. They, like my Mother, were dumbfound and slowly walked me back to the room. One of my other friends treated me well by massaging the injured area and fortunately we proceeded with the dance the next day and everything went well.
Though many of my dance experiences were disastrous, and in no way would I want to relive those memories, my love for dancing has not reduced a bit. I have watched myself dance in my reflections and my moves do seem quite graceful. It was all about finding my ‘comfort zone’. It is true that not everybody can dance to perfection, not everybody can sing like a nightingale, not everybody can write creatively… similarly it is also true that not everybody can face the crowd. No matter how hard one tries, they end up failing, which eventually reduces one’s self-confidence. Instead, if all of us who are prone to social phobia are given a suitable chance; I believe we might each dance around in every walk of our lives.
Josephite Literary Review 