Myself and Dance have come a long way.Its almost as if she is my best friend.I have tried my best to be in constant touch with her but I do agree there has been spans in life where I hardly communicated with dance.Well, after each such span, she has made sure that she makes me go through a tough few months before I speak her language fluently.
Our association started when I was 4 years of age. My parents decided to teach me dance and this was when we had newly shifted to our sweet home in HillGardens, Thrissur. At 4, you really don't expect yourself to be too thrilled about learning anything seriously, and I was pretty non-opinionated when my parents decided that they should try my interest in dance. My mom was pretty sure that I had some interest because of the numerous times she has seen me swaying in front of the mirror with some song on my lips. Mothers!
I met my Sir. He was an 18 year old boy then whose eyes gleamed with passion for this amazing art form.But at that age, all I could think of is why in the world would a stranger want to come to my house, and try to teach me dance, when I was already pretty happy about my own choreography in front of the mirror.
Little did I know that what I did in front of the mirror was nothing compared to what I was showed and taught later on.
I remember my parents took myself and Sir to the terrace and they sat around to see the first class.Their keen eyes were on each action of mine in front of my Sir, with my mom eying me to behave myself. I was so busy playing with Barbie that I had no interest in what ever was going to happen.
Sir gave me a smile and asked me my name and I meekly replied. Then the usual question, "which class are you in ?" for which I answered "LKG A".
Oh god, I have this new "cooking set" to play with, when can I get back to that?.
He told me we will begin and I was asked to bend down and get his blessings first. Once that was done, he told me it is essential to get blessings from mother Earth, before you stamp on her and he showed me a very interesting movement where he spread his knees and sat with only his toes touching the ground. I tried to imitate him, but was almost falling off on my butt. After we tried this a few times, he said for the first class this should be enough and ended the lesson.
I remember thinking that it didn't look so tough after all and has some interesting sways, so might as well do it the next time he comes home.
The next day, again he came exactly when I was playing with the new "cooking set" and I almost glared at my mom. Again the blessings were done and he said we are going to the first set of steps. Man! I had not prepared for this. Basically, you are supposed to sit with your feet spread apart and it looks like you are sitting on an invisible bench and keep stamping your foot according to his tapping speed. And you just cant stand up from this bench and relax until the counts are done. And to my annoyance, Sir's counts were strictly 16 and with 4 speeds. Those of you who have learned classical dance, you would agree with me that this was the most dreadful set of days. I totally hated this as my legs pained and me,who is this plump kid almost had my cheeks red with exhaustion. This was too much exercise than I ever wanted.
The next week, he came again. The moment I saw him opening the gate, I ran to the bathroom and closed my door. My mom tried her best to get me out of the bathroom, but no way I was coming out. Finally, my dad, the super man came and told me sternly to get out. I came out with tears in my eyes. I remember Sir telling my dad that he would come another day to teach me. My mom convinced it should be fine, and sent me to class.
I was so upset, that I hardly listened to him. Fortunately, he was a patient man. If it was me in his place, I would have just left the house instead of putting up with a kid who has no interest. But he stayed. And to this day, I thank him for staying...and not losing hope..
He came regularly to teach me in spite of my tantrums of hiding in the bathroom and taught me the little I allowed in between my whining, and leg pain excuses. By the end of 2-3 months, we were done with this first set of tough ones and he started with hand movements. This looked more interesting, at least you had something to relate the so called "footwork" with. I did feel some connection now, because when you do movements with hands, you do feel you are doing something, there is something to show people. In my tiny mind, I started developing few theories about how I could do each step with little effort, much to my Sir's annoyance. He repeatedly corrected me patiently. But still I used to get away with few things here and there.
As the years passed, I started understanding this language better and I found myself really looking forward to the classes. Once a full fledged dance piece starts, you really are telling a story to the audience, so it makes it more interesting. Well, now I can appreciate a piece much more, but then, all it meant was that you have some story to think of, instead of just steps. And with story comes, parts where you can actually catch some breadth;).
But even after graduating to more challenging pieces,there has been many a time, when I did convince Sir to count the clouds in the sky, before I agreed to do one of the tougher ones. Yes, I know you must be thinking, "Poor Sir", he is the target of your sympathy now and I really do feel the same way too.
I had my share of dancing on stage, with school competitions, occasional temple performances and school events. And I want to thank my parents here. They have been there for every performance of mine, in spite of their busy schedules. I feel so happy when I think of this now, and I don't think I could have asked for anything more than their constant support from the moment they realized that I was developing interest in this. There was no pressure to be the best, and that I feel was amazing as it really allows you to enjoy what you learn with full freedom.
Thank you Dad, Mom and Cheri.
Years passed by, in the midst of exams and classes, I still managed not to avoid the dance classes, for two important reasons, one for the love for my Sir and secondly for the love for Dance. Through school, through college, I still kept in touch with this art, as much as I could, for the pure fact that I thoroughly enjoyed whenever I was involved in any activity related to Dance. I don't know when I realized that this was one thing which gave me great happiness and peace.
This time when I went back to India, I made it a point to visit my Sir. I went to his place, the place where we used to have our summer dance classes and where I used to run around and pick up the tamarind seeds dropped under the tree, the umpteen number of times Sir's mom has fed me,place where we had all our rehearsals. It was great. The place has changed a lot with Sir renovating the dance school and roads widened. The students have changed. I don't know any of the new students now.But I knew one thing that hasn't changed and that was my Sir. The same passion in his eyes, the same patience, the same love. Felt really happy to have met him after a long time.
Now when I look back, I am glad, that my parents forced me into this, glad that my Sir patiently stayed along, glad that I made so many friends through this, and mostly glad that it gives me great pleasure and gifted me with a whole lot of amazing memories. I am not sure, how much time one would have to invest in this art form in future, but whatever it left me with was well worth not having played with the kitchen set for 3 hours a week :)
Below is a pic of my sir and his niece in dance costume
