Life lessons from Dance Class

Connecticut December 16th, 2017

I was invited by a family friend to spend my weekend with them. Her daughter Laya is learning both Kuchipudi and Kathak. They picked me up from the train station and asked me if I would mind going to the Kathak class and then go home? I agreed and we went to a temple where the Kathak class was taking place. Laya joined the back row of the group and started dancing. They were dancing on Dhruv Taal. Their teacher looked calm and beautiful and just with a glance I understood that she must be a very good teacher. She taught them a whole new piece and made them dance. Then one girl who must be around 8 years, danced the sequence right and then watching her classmates doing wrong, she also started doing wrong. Then their teacher stopped her and said, " Why did you do wrong? Just because everybody is doing wrong? Cultivate this habit of being firm on your stand even if the world says you are wrong. People always give you their opinion and tell you it is OK to do wrong because everybody is doing it. That is when you have to endure your personality. It takes just a split second for a noble person to change to a normal person by doing what everybody else is doing." I was amazed by her words. I don't know how much the little girl understood her words but next time she danced the piece, she was more confident.

But the teacher's words were ringing in my ears. It takes a split second for a noble person to become a normal person by doing what everyone else does. And we today call it as 'Practicality'. As Devdutt Pattanaik says "Rationalists are not rational people (human imagination does not allow this). They are people who are good at rationalising their choices". This dance class rejuvenated my childhood and how unknowingly I have learnt a lot. I am extremely glad that I am surrounded by the people who always asked me to endure to the difficult things but not to quit. Today, they gave me confidence that I can achieve anything I want to. Yes. May be I take hell a lot of time. May be I make mistakes but I learn from them. May be I get embarrassed for my stupidity but I raise above it. Because, Dance is teaching me a lot. I am still learning..

Comments

If You Don’t Heal What Hurt You, You’ll Bleed on People Who Didn’t Cut You

"If You Don’t Heal What Hurt You, You’ll Bleed on People Who Didn’t Cut You." -Unknown All the ruckus in the world is a result of not loving ourselves enough and not healing ourselves from what broke us. Anger, greed, jealousy, insecurity, lust, power are the emotions that we spill on others to meet our own shortcomings. This is because most of us run away from our emotions like grief, jealousy, insecurity and the like. We think that by running away, we can get rid of ...

Emotional Reading - Part 1

“The reading of all good books is like conversation with the finest (people) of the past centuries.” – Descartes I have been writing my thesis for the past few months, reading a lot of books as a part of the process. Juggling between performing, teaching, practicing and Ph.D. has been so overwhelming that it gave me a lot of stress and anxiety. This led to a terrible consequence called 'Emotional Reading'. Yes. Although reading my subject books strained my eyes, I still chose to read so many non-fiction books to reduce my anxiety and stress. And what a wonderful bad habit it is. It keeps us away from the bad, boring and cliched movies, gossips, low-quality conversations and makes us travel through time. These are a few of the books I read, reading and re-reading for the last couple of months along with reading books related to my research work. Presenting five of them in this post. 1. Real Artists Don't Starve: Timeless Strategies for Thriving in the New Cr...

The Most Courageous Act – To Love Yourself That was my first Zumba session at my newly joined Gym (which includes cardio, endurance, flexibility training, yoga, Zumba and other outdoor activities). I, being a dancer, was very skeptic and prejudiced about the session for two reasons. 1. I am a classical dancer; I have never done anything like this. 2. Why should I join Zumba for fitness as I have my own dance form. I felt ridiculous and scolded myself for doing everything other than my dance practice. Then the trainer came in with a beautiful smile on her face. I could immediately sense her charm and positivity. She gave general instructions and asked if anyone of us danced before. I didn’t show off that I am a dancer and kept quite as I am sure I cannot do great Zumba on songs like ‘Kala Chashma’ and ‘High heels pe nacche’ :-p . The session was good and I was amazed by the smiling and energetic face of the trainer. The way she carries herself while dancing is amazing. All th...

Fluky Wisdom

Search This Blog