Bhangra... and me!

Preparations are in full swing for Diwali. Yup you heard right.. Diwali may be long gone for the rest of the world but it isn't over yet for UNH. A couple of days ago yours truly was asked to participate in a Bhangra dance. Yours truly very enthusiastically reported for a practice session. It must be noted that I have not done much dancing in the last 10 years except for swinging my arms and legs like a madman at a few dance parties. Much to my dismay I discovered that Bhangra required feats of a greater magnitude.

Firstly, it was expected that I would get my hands and legs to move simultaneously. I tackled this problem very intelligently using the divide and conquer method. I first got my leg movement right. Then I got my hand movement right. Finally, I tried to put both together. "Tried" is right, because I couldn't. When my legs moved, my hands would be paralysed and vice versa. It was downright frustrating.

On top of that, I was expected to get my shoulders to shake. However hard I tried, my shoulders remained rigid and unmoving and only my hips would shake. I guess I've seen too many of those tamil songs. Imagine concentrating hard to move your shoulder muscles and your hips shaking instead. After giving serious thought to the matter, I tried to consciously move my hips to see if my shoulders would move but they didn't. More frustration.

After the one and a half hour practice session, I was offered feedback from several members of the audience(participants in other dances). Comments ranged from "It would look as if we were short of people, if the compere had to step on stage to perform" to "Perhaps you would be more suited to a break dance or a tamil folk dance."

I sat pondering over the hidden comments for some time and then decided to gracefully withdraw from the dance and stick to compering, administrative tasks and a skit. The sigh of relief that emanated from the gathering could probably have been heard as far as India.

All's well that ends well.. :-)