Dirty Dancing :)

And then there are some days when all you want to do is go dancing!!

Most probably the only thing that comes close to being something i am passionate about, dancing and me go a long way. I will always remember my first performance. I must have been around six years old when there was a wedding in the family. Hordes of cousins landed up at my grand father's house and somebody let it slip that i didnt think twice about dancing. Suddenly, there were clamours all around for a dance.

I insisted that all the doors be closed. (It didnt matter that everybody was already inside the 'performance room' !) And then i sang and danced - 'I am a disco dancer..ta na na na" My aunt felt the need to explain my 'steps' ocassionaly like - oh, she is shifting the 'mike' from hand to hand' which would always be followed by an 'ohhhh' that went around the room. I was least bothered by this continuous explanation because in my mind, i was right next to mithun chakraborthy, matching him step for step. Needless to say, i got thunderous applause that evening and relentless torture for the rest of my life as the cruel cousins would remember my performance and publicly describe it every time we met.

That, however, did not douse my passion one bit. Fast forward to sometime when i was in the seventh or eigth standard. Most of the dancing i got to see was in the movies. I knew i was not pretty enough to be the heroine but i was quite sure i looked better than all those ladies behind her who also danced when she did. So i did not think twice. I walked up to my dad and said, "Daddy, i want to join the movies and be a dancer" My dad, being the sensible person he is, did not react at all. He just nodded and smiled. But that very summer, my dad called somebody who called somebody who called somebody and who called somebody else and it was all arranged. We were going to see 'movie shootings'. I was so excited, i could hardly breathe.

Since we were living in Andhra Pradesh then as well, i got to see a few south indian movies being shot. I saw Venkatesh at his prime doing a fight sequence. I saw Amala and Srividya and just missed rajnikanth in a movie they were doing together. And finally, we got to see a dance sequence - one which i will never forget. It was the actress called Ramya Krishnan dressed in something like a bharathanatyam costume but minus the sleeves and a whole lot of other parts. So, ok, i swallowed a bit. And then, in the forty five minutes that we watched them, they did a small 5 second step over and over and over again. Which was also ok. But the last straw was that between each practice, this small, dark, hairy man would walk up to the actress and actually wipe her sweat off her back.

My movie aspirations came to a grinding halt.

I still love to dance though and have gone for a class or two and had the best time of my life. Jun and i freak out quite often in our living room while maddy wonders why he couldnt have married some nice quiet girl who will just cook and look nice for him. Luckily in this one respect, Jun totally takes after me. Amazing energy and fun but slightly lacking in the talent department.

But when did THAT ever stop a dancer ? ;p