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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..

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