Mis-Steps...My
Boringly Long Journey In Trying To Learn New Things For The Wrong Reasons.
[Post dedicated to fellow blogger Megha who gave me this blog
prompt and made me write about long suppressed memories...so dear readers, both
praises and curses (the most probable when you get to the end of this post) go
to her account].
My very first memories of attending dance class (classical dance)-
the earliest scars on my still tender psyche, one might term them- were when I
was around 7 or 8 when a dance teacher, called colloquially as a natuvanaar
used to come home to teach dance to my sister and I was press-ganged into
joining the class because my sister insisted on having company. My mother who
was a big fan of actor kamal hassan in those day, was under the mistaken
impression that an early start to my dance career would endow me with enough
skills to reprise the salangai oli kamal haasan role in later life. Although unsuspectingly forced into learning the classical dance form bharatnatyam, I
nevertheless stuck on with it for almost two and some years learning to not
only pretend-dance to jathis and varanams but also giving rise to talk at home
(to my absolute horror and nightmares) of an individual arangetram soon enough.
But of course like all good things which come to an end, we moved houses away
from the locality and with that all talk of my continuing my classical dance
career were dropped from the family round-table discussion. After all these
years the abiding memories I have of learning bharatanatyam are the sharp and
painful taps on the toes by the jathi-kataiy (two sticks played on a wooden
board) which the nattuvanar used to beat time to keep with the rhythm of my
dance movements. The rest are lost to memory.
After a long period of staying away from dance, I finally had to
return to dance school during my college undergraduate days as I wanted to
escape college by attending any and every cultural programs hosted by other
colleges. The easiest way to do this was to join the dance troupe, stand in the
last line and just wave my hands and stamp my feet. Or so I thought. But the
humiliation of being trounced again and again in successive cultural s and the
deep seated feeling that I was making a foll of myself in font of crowds of
screaming girls (almost all of them more good looking than the girls at my
college) made me opt to learn western dance forms this time on. I went and
enrolled in the neighborhood dance school signing on for hip-hop classes which
were the in-thing during those years. For those not in the know this was in the
middle 2000's when western dance or any dance at all had not yet taken off in
everyday popularity like they did later on due to manada mayilada and all those
TV dance programs with fat price purses. Those learning western dance in those
days ( I specifically exclude Tamil film dance as done by Kala master and
troupe which I will talk about later on) were a sort of elite bunch segregated
into different schools. I joined swingers run by prasanna master and very soon
I was be-bopping like there was no tomorrow. And as a sidelight we ( I include
myself only marginally in this broad we as it was mostly my dance school mates)
often used to get into fights with a neighboring dance school boys- the famous
JB troupe- John Brittos class. If you have seen any of jackie chans old kung fu
movies you will have a fair idea of the dance school rivalries and consequent
street fighting between students of different schools. Worse, I had a couple of
close friends who had opted to join JB but as I was a swingers boy we had no
option but to meet on the battlefield to defend our dance schools reputations.
Of course both prasanna master and britto master must have known what we boys were up to from time to time but they preferred to turn a blind eye to our
youthful spirits. I suppose I showed a little bit of talent in hip hop for I
was invited to join a professional troupe of hip hop artistes and even went on
a few shows with them. But again studies called and I had to abandon hip hop to
sit and study for my undergraduate degree.
After finishing college, and getting into a reasonably well paying
job the dancing bug again bit me and this time I opted to learn a dance form
which suited my age- Latin- salsa, meringue, bachata, cha-cha and all those
smooth moves. In those days the only school which taught these dances was the
academy of modern dance at cathedral road run by kokila ma'am (who to my
constant surprise every time I run into her somewhere- still looks exactly the
same as she did when I was a young kid learning from her)- a bit of a long
commute for me right across the city. But hey when you want to learn from the
best distance is just a minor irritant right? Besides the primary attraction of
learning these were they weren't done in a group but as couples only moves. I
thought it would be a good way to meet some single girls and start dating them
in addition to dancing and I did do double duty- which experiences I will share
later on but let me finish about the dance first. The thing about Latin dances
are that you not only have to move gracefully and smooth (with a lot of hip
thrusts) but also need to constantly make sure that you are in sync with your
partners timings as otherwise both of you will end up looking clumsy and
foolish and staring at different directions for the same movement. So a prime
requisite for any Latin dance is a partner who moves with the same rhythm as
you do. And in this I was tremendously lucky. More by luck than by design , as
we were constantly switching partners and trying to find the right one to suit
us, I happened to run into a girl who was pissed off by being rejected by another
accomplished dancer who had judged her as not good enough to partner him. She
wanted to prove a point to him and luckily our rhythms coincided and we hit it
off as a pair. Pretty soon we were inseparable on the dance floor as we could
both fluidly move as one without a single misstep. It was all hunky dory and
going well until I made a mistake (typically) by enmeshing my personal and
dance lives together my dating my dance partner. Suffice to say that it was a
complete disaster and prompted my disappearing from the dance class to save
myself from a irritating and persistent stalker who was immature enough not to
take a no for a no. Lips sealed.
So after all these years whenever I see a dance competition on TV
or hear a bit of peppy music automatically my knees start wriggling by
themselves but thats the extent of my let loose and dance like nobody is
watching feeling. I always rein myself in, smile wryly at myself and get on
with everyday life. Those days are far behind me now and I can only look back
fondly on them in my dotage.
p.s. I did try out Kala master's kalanjali natya school once- to
try and learn our local tamil filmi style dubbakanthu style of dancing- I
lasted exactly one week there (although I had paid one months fees in advance)
– before I realised that my taste in dancing didn't run into kuthu and savu
molam ishtlye. I have never repeated that experiment again.
