Duputta Dance Phenomenon

A see-through "Duputta" in pink with silver stripes was made curly moves between my hands as my face looked as serious as it could be. The thin-as-air duputta was as heavy as an iron bar when it was moved swiftly for an hour in the hands of a new duputta twister. Mystical dance move began with walking forward with duputta on the nose and flipped to cover the face. Pretending that the face was mysterious enough, I wondered if my master didn't want to see our bare faces but covered with duputta which could make our faces looked much better.

Duputta's were elegantly floating in the air as Ojos Asa was playing. The mystical dance was not in our moves for now as it was in our heart trying to make it stand out to the crowd. I hoped that my master wouldn't give up to the way we were trying to dance.

It was a phenomenon. Please bare with us!

Enough is Not Enough

It was 7:10 PM. I stood in the studio at Esplanade wondering why I was there in a crowd. This is the third dance in a row and I was so dead tried. I kept asking myself if I was insane.

The first dance was Namaste Ji and followed by Let’s get loud. It was enough and I had lots of work to do. Restless mind. I wanted to dance Dola Re Dola until the end of the song. There I was.

There were more than a hundred people in the studio and I had a hard time moving. I kicked to the right knowing that there was a guy beside me whom I may accidentally kick him on the face if I didn’t care enough. He survived.

The song was 6 minutes long and the dance was so cool. I could not stop even my body was screaming. I could feel my energy drained. My sweat was like water pouring from faucet. My eyes were blurred and limps were hurt from the bones. The devil in me laughed so hard and stretched out my torso to the edge.

The foremost was the move that I had to pull myself down to the floor and shook my shoulder then stood up again quickly to jump left and right. I thought it was my last shot. When the dance ended, I was so happy I could go home.

The odor of massage oil for muscular pain was not so nice. I had to sleep on electric warm blanket to relax my body. It was all pain and a blissful dream.

I couldn’t get enough and I didn’t know why. I wanted to be there again and again. Enough was not fulfilling and I dreamt of dancing again.

Dance Before The Doom

My stomach soared and my mind was unrest in the early morning. Tomorrow was the day that I had to be present to the committee for the research proposal. Work tickled my brain but I was very nervous. One side was telling me it was alright but the other was telling me I was insane. I could not rest a peace at all and I tried to search for meditative music to calm down. The meditative music was wiped out at the last iPod crash. I didn’t care to put them back. What for? Now I thought about listening to them but they were not there at all. Not even easy listening music. They didn’t interest me at any occasion. I looked at the clock many times in morning meeting. I didn’t care if anybody would notice. I set my time and I did my job. At 11 AM sharp, I drove off to the studio. My stomach roared again as if something was trying to pull me back. No way. I had a great battle to myself. I had to decide how many classes I should go. For sure, I was not going to skip all of them. I had to be there at least for a dance.

There I was in the studio at Esplanade. I stood there waiting eagerly for the song to play. It was not the song I expected to hear but it was not disappointing. And the dance was very much to my desire. It was not common to like it at the first class but I really did. It must be something extraordinary to this. I was overjoyed.

I had to break my thought and tried to get back to what I had to do. I couldn't help counting hours before the next dance. It was 75 hours to go. My heart would skip a beat for it.

Dance to it even if it was a doom day ahead and dance like there is no tomorrow.

......................

Dola Re Dola

In a pleasant surprise, I heard Dola Re Dola in the studio and I could feel my temperature rising. The first two bars of knee-up jerking and shoulder shaking with body leaning backward had inevitably made euphoria in me. Turning front with arms wide open and one knee up, followed by pushing hips to the right to the richness of Indian music was incomparable. This was what I really longed for. I searched for the old movie Devdas and played the dance scene over and over. Two beautiful girls in elegantly adorned sarees with half a hundred of dance crews danced in the hall in front of envious audiences longing to dance like them. It was a stolen moment of joy as I ran from basement from the regular studio to the first floor together with some of my friends. And my heart beat fast. I was daydreaming of dancers whose bangles tickled, eyes rolled, bodies moves spiritually like they would never stop dancing as I move mine to the tune. Love was in the rhymes and love was in the air. They clapped, tapped, jumped, and kneeled down. All my friends were gone but I was still there dancing among strangers. I looked at myself in the mirror smiling alone. Nobody else would understand this moment of truth. This was not the first time, nor the last. Knowing what my heart longed for, it was just a dance away to my dream. It was not possible to be anywhere else. I was not sure whether they were spotlights or my eyes glittered when I stared across the corner at the movement of charm. It was mind blowing, thus it was mesmerizing. I didn’t care what the time was.

Shake that, kick there and turn! Dola Re Dola!

Rising Frustration

One fine day, it became frustrating in the dance studio. The song I wanted to dance was ended sooner than expected because they would throw a party. Those remaining songs were not too bad but they seemed repeating of the same style in the mix of Western and Bollywood dances. I liked most of the dances after a few classes, not the first. Lately, the songs were not my taste; only one song entertained me and ended too soon in my absence. I didn’t like anything more than Indian dancing but I realized I was going nowhere. And my passion for dancing increased tremendously. Sometimes I wondered if I had made my time for something else. I rarely did. I was so in to Indian style and I got so high when I dance. I even dreamt of dancing. This time it reminded me of when Master Uday has gone to Hong Kong for good and I was completely lost. I felt there would be no way to regain my spirits without him teaching. After a while, I was relieved because my passion for dancing was never subsided. It was a challenge when I didn’t like the song very much but I tried. The only reason why it was like that because dancing was so divine. It was only frustration that annoyed me so much when I didn’t seem to fit in there like this time around.

I would never give up. I would be there again tomorrow and I would feel the spirits again in the chaos of my time. I would fight for a chance of being overwhelmed with joy when I dance. I would eagerly wait for the next dance and I would again in my full spirit, absolutely and whole-heartedly, “dance”.