Dancing Away The Blues

Attending an Indian Hindu wedding is like being a part of cast of a fully fledged Bollywood blockbuster. The show begins with thumping sound of loud music and ends with baraatis burning the dance floor hot. Who cares for the half bald men with fat tummies doing a belly move on a Katrina Kaif number or the overly dressed aunties (sometimes even more decked up than the bride herself) shaking their booties to a Daler Mehndi Bhangra rap. As long as songs keep playing one after the other, the entire floor…err…. roadside follows the musical command of the band, baja and baraat.

However, when you have a life partner who is not only coy about dancing publicly but is also unfortunately blessed with two left feet, all you are left is to either keep cheering the already half-crazy crowd with your claps or join them all alone while your poor ol’ man stares you from a distance returning unpromising smiles.

Well, by now you may have guessed that the discreditable dancing couple would be ‘us’. And this how our dancing-saga started some fourteen years ago.

While dating each other as fresh and young love-birds, soon to get married, we were offered to participate in a couple dancing contest at the district level. I haven’t still been able to figure out whether it was out of sheer excitement or out of sheer mockery of our inabilities to dance together that few of our seriously- thoughtful friends got our names registered without seeking our prior permission. When the idea was brought before us, we had but two choices. Either quit fearing a face-loss or face ignoring hoots and eggs!!

Attending an Indian Hindu wedding is like being a part of cast of a fully fledged Bollywood blockbuster. The show begins with thumping sound of loud music and ends with baraatis burning the dance floor hot. Who cares for the half bald men with fat tummies doing a belly move on a Katrina Kaif number or the overly dressed aunties (sometimes even more decked up than the bride herself) shaking their booties to a Daler Mehndi Bhangra rap. As long as songs keep playing one after the other, the entire floor…err…. roadside follows the musical command of the band, baja and baraat.

However, when you have a life partner who is not only coy about dancing publicly but is also unfortunately blessed with two left feet, all you are left is to either keep cheering the already half-crazy crowd with your claps or join them all alone while your poor ol’ man stares you from a distance returning unpromising smiles.

Well, by now you may have guessed that the discreditable dancing couple would be ‘us’. And this how our dancing-saga started some fourteen years ago.

While dating each other as fresh and young love-birds, soon to get married, we were offered to participate in a couple dancing contest at the district level. I haven’t still been able to figure out whether it was out of sheer excitement or out of sheer mockery of our inabilities to dance together that few of our seriously- thoughtful friends got our names registered without seeking our prior permission. When the idea was brought before us, we had but two choices. Either quit fearing a face-loss or face ignoring hoots and eggs!!

Without much mulling over, it was obviously was a big ‘No’ from my side until my partner, strangely the weaker of the two dancers, insisted that we take up the challenge. Not just the challenge of dancing but also the challenge to begin doing difficult and funny tasks together. After what he said with a charming smile, one and one was no longer two but eleven!!

As least that is what I’d thought until the time we began rehearsing. Despite meticulous planning, help from a trained jive performer and step-by-step demonstration like kindergartners on the song was “Itna na mujhse tu pyaar badha…” what seemed to turn out was anything but a perfect ballroom happy and boppy dance. Right in the first move trying to swing across, we bumped our heads into each other and in no seconds, he managed to knock me off giving me a swollen lump on my forehead. 

Love-birds don’t quit! Gathering my broken hopes and wearing the madly-in-love gleeful smile back, we continued rehearsing subsequent steps, only to end it up even more grouse. With every heroic knee lift that my man did, he ended up passionately stomping with all his might on my tender feet. The lyrics of the romantic number kept getting punctuated with moans, grumbles and oops-and-ouches!

By now, all my patient nerves were giving away and I couldn’t bear it continuing even few hours longer. Nevertheless, before we would start rehearsing the finale steps, I like a cautious wise girl, forewarned him about the “really serious” implications on our relationship that could follow, thus, dropping a hint for him to catch!

As the music rolled-on, there he moved towards me, in a poised and gentlemanly gait, neatly lifting me up in both his arms, looking right into my eyes, rocking me from one side to other on the beautiful, romantic lyrics of the old world and just when I was ready to tuck myself closer to him, suddenly his grip weakened, he stumbled and dropped me on the floor with a loud thud!!! In a flash of a nanosecond, there I was, the heroine of the show, lying flat on the ground and half-wet having dashed myself on a water jug kept nearby.

Before I could even gather up my lost embarrassment, I saw my partner dropping himself on ground next to me to give company and pouring the remaining water from the jug on himself to match my wet looks. He looked silly but funnily cute trying to make up for the heinous mistake he’d committed.

Our neatly planned out dance act had turned into a crazy fiasco, albeit a delightful one.  All my anger vanished with whoosh and we sat on floor laughing out loud for many cosy minutes, holding hand-in-hand and cracking-up at what had happened. Those few hours of happy moments were worth living a thousand years.

What followed for the next few days were rigorous rehearsals, sequential bumping, stomping and repeated falling down but laughing away our follies in each other’s joyous company. By the end of the week, we had prepared before us an imperfect but effortless ballroom dance. It may be called nothing if compared to the skills of dancing but an amazing experience of a free-spirited and doppy couple ready to take the world in their jumping shoes.

Unfortunately, the dancing contest was called off by the Organizers at the eleventh hour, thus, bringing our short stint to dancing at an abrupt end.

However, life had something even more beautiful in store for us. We got married soon after and for fourteen consecutive years down the line, we would jump in to be a part of dance in any and every of the cultural functions in our family or friend circle. Our close few know about the ‘few’ amateur steps that we’d together picked years ago and would not leave a stone unturned to rope us in.

Last night, when we were impromptu dragged on to a Wedding Sangeet stage by a distant relative, we unhesitatingly donned the floor with our half-forgotten jive moves, sometimes bumping and sometimes stomping but all in good taste. Burning the floor hot with dance is now just a matter of little laughter and of lots of love!

Difficult times, TV jokes, magazine clippings, social gossips or even routine arguments, it’s comforting to know that we can stay unpretentiously silly and happily maladjusted to each other’s weakness.

We learnt to dance like nobody’s watching and laugh like nobody’s holding!

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[This post is a part of #LoveAndLaughter activity at BlogAdda in association with Caratlane.]

How I Happily Grew Up With Glasses

“Twinkle twinkle little star, how I wonder what you are…” Brilliant nursery rhyme to begin with pre-school toddlers telling them that there are millions of tiny little stars up in the sky above that glitter on a clear night, making acrobatic constellations around a pretty ombre ball of moon. However, the much talented poet failed to imagine a large number of young readers who would be reading his poem with utter curiosity, but from behind thick concave or convex lenses resting on their nose and wondering why the stars twinkled less and spread more like a fearful patch of spread-out rays straining their poor eyes. I was one such reader. Welcome to the hazy world of the myopic few for whom stars twinkle either in a poem or through power glasses on the nose.

Why just stars? Wearing glasses ever since I started going to school, I can vouch how in absence of a pair, a dog looks similar to a pig, a donkey to a horse, a car to a jeep and one man to another. Let’s not even get down to birds. They all look like small black dots moving in the sky like a statistician’s colourless frequency polygon plotted on blank paper. Leave alone flying a kite which looks no different from a kite flying in the sky!

When in school, no matter how much I would squeeze my eyes or crease my nose, I would fail to read what the teacher put on blackboard and be easily be categorized either as a slow reader committing disastrous spelling mistakes, or as the Peeping Tom of the class whose one glance perpetually rested on the neighbour’s notebook. Every second adult I met, like an ophthalmologist, claimed to know the reason for my poor sight. Either I watched a lot of television or did not eat leafy green vegetables or was a studious bookworm! The reason would be anything crazy under the sun but that I was born with it.

Whether anyone liked it or not, I soon realized that glasses are like dresses. Wearing one all the time, except to bed, is mandatory.

History, however, has been particularly cruel to ones wearing spectacles. Isn’t it almost established by now that the loveliest of idols, Gods, actors, superheroes and famous paintings to admire have all been of characters who had a perfect six by six vision? In no possible way could Ram, Rahim or Christ be bespectacled, let alone their female counterparts? Even the fictitious Spiderman and Superman turned into their heroic avatar only when a poor sickly Peter Parker or Clark Kent did away with his thick black glasses. As if wearing one would have robbed them of machismo or have tattered their intelligence level? Sadly, in the mathematics of spectacles, wearing one is inversely proportional to looking hot or sexy. The calculation is easy. Thicker the lenses, uglier you may look!

Quite ironically, the life savior weapon of spectacles does not fail to invite nastily spectacular comments from few courteous nobles amongst us. Most bespectacled people in India would know what ‘chashmish’, ‘chaar aankh’ or ‘laaltain’ means despite these words figuring nowhere in the decency of Hindi dictionary. For those who didn’t get it right, the words are often commonly mistaken for a hello or hand shake with a friend in glasses! Besides, in every such prominent gathering there would be family or friends getting hugely attracted to glasses, so much that their overflowing love unabashedly makes them propose for your dearest spectacles, “Can I try yours? Just once.” Before you even nod your head in consent, they would have already moved a step ahead snatching it off your eyes and putting them onto theirs, only to return it the next moment with a whine, ‘Ooh! These are heavy. Gives me a headache.” How you wish you had said to them, “So do you!”

If only you could make them understand that the story of growing up with glasses is very personal and dear to our heart! It is about the umpteen numbers of times when you would forget where you last kept your specs and would run crazily to look for it in every nook and corner of the house until you got it back, and got it safe! It is about those fine moments of photography when sheepishly you would take them off to slide into your skirt pocket for one click and put it on again the very second it was over. And how sometimes there would be terrifically difficult moments of indecisiveness when you’d have to choose between getting out in the rains without glasses or keep standing under a shelter putting them on?

Nevertheless, changing times redefined the definition of carrying glasses, much to the respite of millions across the globe. Gone are the days when people gave serious consideration to laser surgeries for vision correction just to look good. With so many shades, frames and style to choose from the market, spectacles are no longer eye-gears but accessories making a crafty fashion statement. Full rim, half-rim, rimless, wayfarer, rectangle, cat eye or aviator, there could be one for every occasion. The old age plastic or metal have conveniently been replaced by light carbon fibre, titanium monel metal. Contact lenses of various varieties to choose from like soft, toric, hard, and daily, monthly, annually disposable, have sky-rocketed the eye business. The child of yesteryear who was taken to the local optician year after year to get a frame that looked tad boring and heavy, now hops from one Titan Eye Plus joint to some Lawrence & Mayo showroom to sitting at home PC browsing lenskart.com hunting for the latest trend and getting a pair customized.

Thankfully, not only things have grossly improved for the bespectacled but there has also emerged for them a vision beyond just the vision.

By the time I’d be wrapping up this article, it would be late up in the night and time for me to part with my most loyal friend. Before I jump into my bed, I make sure it lies within an arm’s reach, stays safe in the dark and is swathed in a cosy satin whole night long. And why not? Isn’t our relationship very precious, private and forever?

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[This post was originally published in the Women's Web.]

30 Things That Indicate You Are Woman In Her 30s

Cutting a 30s birthday cake gives a very mushy feeling. The size of cake gets smaller to hold a big bunch of candles; the guest list is strictly filtered to rope in a close few (shouldn't sound shocking if 'close few' conspires to just the husband and children); loud bhangra numbers get replaced with soft romantic salsa to dance on and at the end, spending cosy, precious time with oneself sounds a much dearer option to playing silly party games.

If you could relate to half the way I have felt in my recent last birthdays; Lady, you bet you have entered your 30s!! Trying to figure out my mid-age frets, frights and favourites, I landed up jotting thirty things that indicated I had pretty much arrived there - in my "thunderous thirties"! Have you too? Try ticking this checklist -

1) Your hair has begun to gray but you are wise enough to have found a way out to camouflage it by now. Quite likely, your hairline has also receded by a centimeter or more but you've deftly picked up a hairstyle to hide the pull back.

2) You have developed a paunch which you badly want to burn away, but the worry of which you would not exhibit in public. Rather, like a prudent lady, you gracefully choose to speak of it as an inevitable symbol of a beautiful growing up process.

3) You know the importance of black, dark colours and flowing fabrics in your life. And if you happen to be slightly style-conscious also, in most probability you would also know which stripes to pick from - longitudinal or across!?

4) You have at hand a pill to pop-in for some or the other medical reason - thyroid, calcium, iron, a nutritional supplement or a precautional sugar-free!

5) You are considering cornflakes, oats, muesli or daliya as replacement of one of your meals.

6) You've arranged for tracksuit, walking shoes, a treadmill/cycle (maybe) or have decided to hit the gym more than once but most always have failed to stick to the regime, and which you promise rework on the next week onwards.

7) Justin Beiber maybe a heart-throb of millions but makes a hopeless bachelor. George Clooney may be quondam and taken, but then 'old is gold'.

8) You are under a loan, mortgage or paying EMI that just doesn't seem to get close to ending.

9) Your cherished dream-destination is no longer an exotic land across seas but a quiet revisit to the place where you spent precious time of your childhood.

10) The scariest thing to think of is not ghosts, thieves or calamities but a call in the middle of the night from your parents who stay far away from your place.

11) It is embarrassing but delightfully silly to find younger boys going gaga over you. In such a case, age is seriously just a number!

12) You have considered supporting a charity, a cause or an NGO.

13) You have revived an old-forgotten childhood interest or hobby and are working towards it with child-like passion.

14) Things which you had always thought of as looking dreadful in your vanity are now must-haves - like deep red lipstick, indigo nail paint or neon slippers.

15) Your sex life is happier than ever. By now, the experimenting phase is almost over and you know what you want, from whom you want and how you want it.

16) By far, you have had at least one dental-filling or root-canal treatment done.

17) The honey-coated glorifying words which once were 'thank you' or 'please' are now replaced with 'it's benign' or 'normal report'.

18) Your book-shelf has at least one bestseller on optimism or inspiration.

19) Your children think of your dresses and head-gears from schooldays (in photographs) as a vintage collection of antiques.

20) You hardly recognize new celebrities and faces on the block except the ones whose parents were once your favourites. For the rest of the crowd, you seek your children's help.

21) You have learnt to take vitriolic comments from others with a pinch of salt, and use it as an appetizer like a pickle. Keep bringing them over dear in-laws, over concerned neighbours or corny bosses!

22) You've decided to do away with silly but precious belongings which you'd treasured in secret chamber of your wardrobe for years.

23) You let your children follow their heart and fight the world if they try stopping them.

24) Your personal diary has more of mini interrogative sentences that simple statements. Why me? What now? How far? Which way? Will they? Won't it? Who next?

25) Strangely, when everyone else's best time to work is day long; your precious me-time is either the wee hours of day-break or past-midnight.

26) You have developed zero tolerance for eve-teasers who you are no longer hesitant to grab the collar of, give back a cold stare or punch nose in public. The dude must be fixed, is all what runs in your head.

27) You are desperately trying to be able to learn the art of weeding out people from your life who pull you down, leave you with negativity or get nagging. Life, you realize, is too short to spend with morons.

28) Away from the real-time buddies available on facebook or whatsapp, you consider looking for and reconnecting with true old friends, who you have let vanish in thin air, racing against time.

29) You style your way! Even if the entire world is going nuts about some crazy fashion statement, you decide to follow your own. Those who do not appreciate are free to tread different way.

30) Marriage and children may be important but nothing is as important as time-for-yourself, looking for which you are on a perpetual hunt.

Looking back to my recent past years, I have come to believe in the old age tenet - 'growing old is a choice - either get better like wine or fret with a whine!' However, when in 30s, the choice is easy - it depends on who is asking.

Happy Growing-up, fellow dames-in-thirties!

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[This post by the author was first published on The Women's Web and later republished on The Huffington Post.]