Twinkle toes.

Every time I come to work, I pass this advertisement for a “Dance Studio” which I am seriously contemplating joining.

People who know me in offline life and are reading this, will probably be falling off chairs and breaking bones after reading this earth shattering revelation (serves you right, you scoffers) or maybe calling each other up to discuss what has brought about this metamorphosis in me (Hmm. Probably not) .

Well, maybe they have a point. For a greater part of my young adult life (say between the age of 18-23, (round about the time I accumulated these scoffers), I excelled so much in wall flowering that I almost made it an art form. I had a problem for every solution they offered on dancing (I can feel my spinal disc slipping, angan tedha hai, I don’t dance to Hindi flllum music, my shoes- they, bite like the serpent and sting like the adder)

The reality was that all these people I used to fraternize with seemed to be the direct descendents of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers (Or Hrithik and Madhuri) – all sinuous moves and grace and light toes. I on the other hand, well, let’s say if you wanted to be kind, you could have compared me to a left-footed, coordination-challenged china-shop-Bull, high on fevicol, let loose amongst these graceful gazelles and dewy-eyed-does.

At 22-23, round about the time I started working, I improved slightly. It could be attributed to the fact that my then-super boss threatened to sack me if I didn’t get myself on to the dance floor. They told me I wasn’t half bad. It was probably all those nerves twitching at the prospect of no money, which they mistook for jazzy dance moves.

Fortunately I quit and ended up at a places where the bosses were male and more interested in making us dance through hoops IN the office (Boss No.2) or in the mythology of dance ( hyuk, hyuk, this last one is such a GOOD pot-shot at my erstwhile (unloved and unlovable) Boss No. 3. Such a pity no one will see it)

Then I got married. Husband dearest has a well, rhythm-sense, which seems to be operating on a frequency known only to him. So while he DOES dance well enough, he dances to a beat is in his brain, which is usually not even remotely in sync with the tone actually playing outside it.

So one COULD be forgiven for thinking one was watching a drunken rout of some sailors on an unsteady ship in a storm, if they happened to see us boogieing together.

So anyways, coming back to what I was saying. What has brought about this metamorphosis? This complete volte-face? This turnaround in principles dearly adhered to, most of my life?

Trigger number 1 – at the sister in law’s wedding party – there was this razzmatazz-type-thingummy where the dratted video camera has caught enough footage to make an Ashutosh Gowariker length movie of S trying to get me on the dance floor and me sneaking away from it. All it needs are some background tracks from Aaja Nachle and me yodelling ‘na, na, na, na, na, na. Dancing like a drunken sailor with friends is one thing, but to do it with a posse of in laws, not to mention a video camera, is something which I would gladly pass.

Trigger number 2- We were dragged kicking and screaming to some party where even the doddering centurions were waving their walking sticks in accompaniment to the beats while I was quietly (and unsuccessfully) trying to merge with the woodwork.

This stain on the reputation of the valiant descendents of la Cynique de Wonderlande cannot continue I have decided. So I shall either conquer dance, or dance shall conquer me.

(If I don’t come back with another post, chances are dance MIGHT have conquered me)