Yes this is a post out of nowhere. I was in a confused mood when I logged into the office atmosphere, there was too much in my platter to be sorted out and I was having a tough time prioritizing things. There were mails pending and some notes on my PDA reflecting back to me in RED!
I sat ogling at the blank computer screen, when my colleague asked me if I was expecting the idiot box to become live? I didn’t even have the zest to answer him and merely logged into cyberspace when Google reminded me that it was Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, 170th birthday and smile was back on my face!
If you belong to the category of mortals like X, you might scratch your head and say WHAT? seeing the happy me. But then if you have danced throughout your life on the most romantic ballet numbers composed by this man, you would know the reason behind the smug look.
As a child when TV was beyond leaps and bounds, those half hour sessions of pirated versions of the Swan Lake and Sleeping Beauty being played on the local cable channel and my desperate attempts to copy it (yea for a week I even walked on my toes, till dad pulled me up for it!)
Years later the romantic me (yea I have that shade too… no matter how much X chuckles!) still feels her twinkle toes tingle when she hears the romantic instrumental composed by him.
Dance – it’s always been one of the most soothing points of my life. Given my kind of music (which differs as drastically as my mood swings) I am transported to another world when on the dance floor. I barely care about the people around when music overpowers me. If they say you need LSD’s to experience trance, I tell them that they haven’t experienced the joy of dancing.
It all started as a routine I remember, like in every Bengali household with daughters. While my sister loved her dance classes, I grumblingly tugged along. Classical dance never interested me then, mainly because I found it boring to repeat the same steps and sought to dance on the entire ‘taals’ like the big Didi’s did! There was always a streak in me, which sought to defy my current age!
A major accident which made me immobile for a year, made me put off my dancing shoes in fear that if I fall I would be never be able to walk again. The eight year old in me showed great maturity then to let go of her passion. It was as if I let go of it completely, so when I turned 12 and was allowed to dance, I was never again interested. But then Wills World Cup 1996 happened and dancing in front of millions and amidst my heroes and with the Diva made me enthralled and fall in love with the graceful contemporary style of dancing. I followed it up for a few years in a local ballet troupe (Mamata Shankar’s) but then simply lost it out when the adolescent troubles set in.
Dance to me was a way of loving my own self and somewhere as the troubles set in and I emerged to be the pink elephant I gave it up. Even in college I could never dance, somewhere that fervor was totally lost. People only knew that I could dance when I got drunk for the first time and threatened to kill the DJ when he called it quits.
Since then there have been innumerable videos where even if the sane me danced people have later asked me how high I was (including my mom!). But then dance was just fun at those garba, freshers and v’day parties – never the self loving kinds!
Dance came to be my saving grace when again quarter life crisis hit me. It somewhere made me realize that I had fallen out of love with the most precious person in my life – me! Through Salsa, Waltz, Rumba, Ballroom I again rediscovered the joy of just feeling the music in the veins with my eyes closed. I thought I had lost it, when suddenly someone played the Swan Lake a few months back and I could immaculately copy a few steps.
I enthralled my instructor after 5 months of waltz, I could feel the love in the air each time the ballads played! Dancing made me realize a lost childhood princess dream!
Today, this little Google header made me happy because it made me sing a few songs in the head and tap my feet. It made me happy knowing that I am a part of this great man because I too can dance.
Not many know, but the pink elephant me was refused to be a part of a show because of weight issues… dejected and hurt I had turned to dance again, to come out with a near perfect figure needed for waltz. Somewhere now I can dance on shows but I don’t because somewhere the dancing me shows the world a part of me, which is not known to me.
Yes, I dance like no one’s watching but a very few people know that. Yes, I love like I have never been hurt. I am a closet dancer and somewhere the pink ballet shoes I feel are gathering dust waiting for my dark prince on the white horse ;p
This is an ode to dance, because suddenly thinking about a few dances I finished a few pending worksheets smilingly… this is the effect dance has on the demented me!
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* The title of this post is based on a popular German Fairy tale of a princess who used to dance all night after everyone slept and nobody knew the secret of the worn out dancing shoes! Need I say more why I chose this?
.. but could come up with this report which rated it as the top ad of 2001 …. http://archives.digitaltoday.in/businesstoday/20020317/features2.html – See I was not wrong people!!! Hmmmph!
