Some hip-shaking number with a groovy beat spews forth from the speakers, and immediately all those on the stage with me begin to shake their hips and groove to the beat as if it were the most natural thing in the world. Some people are just naturally born to dance, aren’t they? When you see them dancing you feel that they are fulfilling their purpose in this universe. They seem to me to possess the grace of a gazelle, the eyes and smile of a Grecian immortal and the finicky precision of a kamikaze bomber. I, on the other hand, look like a fish on a cold slab of ice in the last throes of its existence. Not generally, you understand. Only when I am dancing.
I still remember the first time this happened. It was that time when Oshin, the Japanese serial on DD-1 was all the rage, and as a mark of appreciation, all of us girls in Std.I were sticking pencils into our hair. Dad's office's annual day came around, and along with it came the stick-weird-things-on-your-kid-and-show-us competition, also known to laymen as Fancy Dress. I was dressed as your friendly neighbourhood vegetable vendor, and my best friend, who was appearing in a Japanese costume drama organised by our teachers (I missed out on a role cos I was too tubby to fit into the costumes) promptly appeared at the fancy dress venue in a golden-yellow kimono with a colourful waistband, a foldable Chinese fan in her hands and what suspiciously looked like knitting needles in her hair. She pirouetted around daintily, her elegant kimono fluttering prettily with every move, batted her pretty eyelashes behind her fan, and said, of course, ‘Sayonara’. I could see that the judges were floored. Applause and ‘cho chweets’ rained down on her like fireworks on the Bird’s Nest stadium at the opening ceremony last month. I was up next. I felt two big hands envelop my small form and cannon me onto the stage. And then, as I began my routine, extolling the virtues of my fresh vegetables (get your dirty minds out of the gutter, i was 8. EIGHT!!), I sensed a collective frown settle on the brow of the judges. Undeterred, I carried on for a while until, unable to bear the mounting tension in the room, I paused midway between the carrot and the bitter gourd, and the following conversation took place:
Judge 1: That’s all very well, kid. But can you dance?
Me: Wha-??
Judge 2: You know, dance! C’mon kid..
Me: Erm.. Dance?
Judge 2: You heard me..
Judge 3: (helpfully, in the worst attempted rap I have ever heard) C’mon! Shake what your mama gave you! Shake what your..
Oh, I shook all right, ladies and gentlemen – shook with the righteous indignation of a vegetable seller whose freshest stock has been sullied, shook like a trembling leaf whose stomata have been called into question and which has been asked to stop photosynthesizing and take a shot at oil painting.
The judges were getting fidgety now.
Judge 3: That kid before you did a very good Chinese dance, you know. Did you see that? Can you give us some moves from that?
Me: (the floodgates finally bursting open) Chinese? CHINESE?? She was a Japanese woman. Sayonara is Japanese! You’ve missed the whole point, haven’t you?? And I can’t dance! I’m not supposed to dance. I’m a vegetable vendor, remember? Haven’t you ever heard of character consistency?
Well, I didn’t come away with the first prize. Nor any prize. Nor the Little Miss Congeniality award. I know what you’re thinking. Weird, huh?
And that, dear children, was the beginning of a series of situations, circumstances, occurrences, events, happenings, incidents and occasions, in which I was called on stage, time and again, not to sit quietly in a chair and read, or play the national anthem on a piano with my teeth, or even cook up a very steamy bowl of instant noodles, but to dance. I played an immobile Lord Krishna in my class group dance as the gopikas cavorted around me because when I moved it looked like Lord Krishna was having trouble with his bowel movements. I was a tree in Panchatantra : The Musical - the tree which knocked a terracotta elephant over in the final scene when the whole forest comes to life and dances with joy. I was probably the one with the really awkward moves at your DJ party whom the entire crowd took a moment to gawk at while pausing in between songs.
But last month, my friends, I encountered the proverbial last straw. The final milligram of weight that, when placed upon the accumulated heap of a lifetime of dance-related insults, broke my barrier of patience and called upon me to avenge two decades of pent-up anger by blogging about it six weeks later.
I went to see a play. With a couple of friends. Now, for those who had arrived early, there was a special attraction – certain unused props had been placed in an area (silver cloaks, swords, wigs, hats), and we could use them and strike poses in teams of three, and the best tableau would win. Wheeee!! So we got a-dressing, struck some poses, and forgot all about it after the play began. Well, midway through the play, they announced the results of this, and it seems we’d won! So we were called up on stage, and the lead actor went “Well, ladies, I have some good news and some bad news. The good news is that you’ve won a free salsa dancing class sponsored by us. The bad news is – it’s right now!!” And boy, was that bad news!
Well, to cut a long story short, we danced. At least, my friends did. Me, I stood there and tried not to look constipated. And that didn’t escape unnoticed, for as we were given a round of applause and shoo-ed off the stage, an actor remarked “Some of you girls dance like a skunk skates!!” Dance like a skunk skates indeed. I wonder how many times an unsuspecting skunk sitting quietly in the audience has been called on stage randomly and asked display its rollerblading skills. Hmph.
But that, dear readers, was when I made my decision. No more dancing in public. I, like Fred Astaire, but for a very different reason, will no-more co-operate in on-stage terpsichorean displays. If such a situation should ever arise again, I will gently but firmly march up to the person responsible for arranging it, and say “WHAT HORRENDOUS ERROR IN JUDGEMENT LED YOU TO BELIEVE I COULD DANCE, YOU SAD MISTAKEN IDIOT?? I DONOT DANCE, I HAVE NEVER DANCED AND I WILL NEVER DANCE, NOT EVEN IF HELL FREEZES OVER. I HOPE I HAVE MADE THAT VERY CLEAR TO YOU, AND IF EVER YOU OR ANY OF YOUR ACQUAINTANCES CALL UPON ME TO SHOW MY DANCING SKILLS AGAIN, THEN I GUARANTEE EACH OF YOU A VERY UNPLEASANT TIME WITH ME AND A PAIR OF GARDEN SHEARS. Now, would you like me to play the national anthem on the piano with my teeth?”
That should do it, don’t you think?
1 comment:
Congratulations. You are not alone.
I dressed up as a reporter once, for a stick-weird-things-on-your-kid-and-parade-them competition. But my parents were sensible and to some extent lazy. So they just let me be in my formal attire and gave me a camera, and lo! I was reporter. Easy , no dance, no dialogues. I survived. But your post makes me wonder, what I'd have done if a judge had asked me to do a reporter-dance. Err, scary thought.
Shake what your mama gave you.. wth.. you should have shoved the vegetables.. err.. you were in eight.. Hmm.. down his throat..
And if it offers some consolation, my girlfriend once dragged me to a Rumba workshop by a celebrity choreographer. Well, she knows better now.
Cheers!
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