Opinion Dance as my revolution

Should you belong to or live in any area geographically or mentally close to ‘the Punjab’, you would know the pressure. We don’t know of a celebration that doesn’t involve the whole family merrily and loudly shaking a leg, among other parts. I remain in awe (long after age-addled wonder) of all the women who join in, as I look for corners I can disappear into.

Should you belong to or live in the aforesaid area, you would also know that someone or the other will find you and, but for the force of will, you will be among the swaying bodies — praying no one watching can tell one from the other.

The thing is, no one is really looking to judge. But even if my saner mind knows that, what do I do about my stubborn feet? Or my dreams, in which I am somehow smashing a dance floor?

I remember just one occasion when I absolutely let my hair down. The occasion was a wedding, the setting was close family only, and the song was Chane ke khet mein. It required some serious swirling of the upper half, and maybe it was all of the above, or just the dazzle of Madhuri Dixit’s version overwhelming my other senses, I let abandonment take over. The family was thrilled, or maybe just surprised.

Not that I need to look far for inspiration. My sister, the extrovert, is a natural. And my mother doesn’t need to be called twice to join the dancing melee, not deterred by the fact that she must do so now wobblingly, thanks to age, extra kilos and double knee-replacement surgeries.

Another time, another family occasion, I and a reluctant spouse were told we had to be part of a choreographed performance. Now the spouse belongs to that part of the country which proudly holds its distance from ‘the Punjab’. But as anyone married into the region’s sphere of influence knows, we as a people don’t take no for an answer. So, there it was that we found ourselves gyrating to London thumakda. When it was our turn to go to the front of the stage and do that thumka (sorry, there is no English equivalent for that waist manoeuvre), I realised the spouse had seized his chance and disappeared.

If there is a video of that dance, and of course there is, I have blanked it out on the family WhatsApp group.

Increasingly, though, dance beckons you even outside family settings. Like neighbourhood Navratri/garba/dandiya nights. For a month leading up to the festive season, I can see women my age, and older and younger, rehearsing in the community hall. Come the night, they own the night, as I and others like me — and the men, completely bedazzled — see the women flying, dipping, rocking the stage.

Mothers-in-law, daughters-in-law, sisters-in-law — there are no hierarchies on that platform. When they jump and bounce to Lungi dance or sway to Chaiyya chaiyya, I feel my spirit leaving my body and joining Shah Rukh Khan’s. The stage is then thrown open to everyone, but the flesh remains stuck to a sweaty plastic chair.

On a recent trip to Vietnam, in the centre of Ho Chi Minh, we came across another dance ritual. Every Sunday night, a square in its main market is cordoned off and, as music blares off boom boxes, anybody can join in and jive. We stood in the circle that had formed around the dancing area and couldn’t peel our eyes away as ordinary people, old people, young people, tall men, short women, short men, tall women, enthusiastic tourists, and one wondrously spry and spiffy old man serenading his companion, kept stepping out to join the dancing middle.

Ho Chi Minh, you might say, has lived a revolution. And earned its dance.

I wait.

National Editor Shalini Langer curates the fortnightly ‘She Said’ column