Rhythm, Movies & Jhatkas

I’ll Put On My Shoes And I’ll Learn How To Dance…

Last weekend a few of my friends and I went to a club, after a hard day’s work. We started talking about our routine and how these night outs are a break away from it. Our talks then veered towards the political problems in Egypt and many other problems in the world. We love advocacy! We discussed many solutions that would help in ‘world peace’.

After a few glasses/pegs/pints down, we were not as concerned world citizens as we were an hour back. We were concentrating on making our friends with ‘two left feet’ dance. The songs which seemed raunchy or too retro to dance on were the ones we couldn’t stop singing, rather, shouting to. The ones who are good dancers were tapping their feet under the tables while a few were also swaying to the thumping music. After a while, everyone was on the dance floor - bobbing heads, swaying bodies and singing mouths and a feeling of exhilaration. The non-dancers were the ones jumping around the most! They can do that only when they are happily high because otherwise they are just too shy or know their shortcomings when it comes to dancing. But then, they did not care about who was watching them or how they looked while they were busy having fun.

Dance is not only for those who are trained in it or those who can. It is for anyone and everyone who wants to dance. It is a way of expressing oneself, a way of venting out one’s feelings. One need not be a good dancer but should just have the passion and willingness to dance. I witnessed this on the night I went out with my friends. I saw them dancing the night away. I saw that they did not want to leave the dance floor and wanted to continue dancing till the club shut down. They were dancing like Munnis and Sheilas with the boys dancing around them. These people, who were the elites a couple of hours ago shed their inhibitions and were dancing like there’s no tomorrow.

Just like dancing, many of us have many such inhibitions and fear to come out of it. But one has to. Hence I suggest everyone should go out and get rid of their fears. Let the world know you’re coming. To those who are reading this and fear dancing, put on your dancing shoes and your best clothes and go out and rule the world!

My non-dancing friends made me realise about my hang-ups and now I am going to start croaking… Oops… Singing soon. Karaoke bars, here I come!

Written by Jahnavi Sanghvi.

(Ed’s Note: The title obviously a lame attempt, by me, at putting to context Kelly Clarkson’s Breakaway doesn’t take away from the point highlighted in this piece that we dance better when we’re high.)