Where there’s a will there is a way. One of the earliest phrases we learnt in school. But over the last few years and more than few experiences, I’ve come to realize that where there is will, there is embarrassment and a lot of it, trust me!
In 2007, a single, young independent woman living in Mumbai with her friends decided to learn salsa. No prizes for guessing, that woman is standing right here. Now salsa as per Wikipedia is a syncretic dance form with origins from Cuba as a major original American meeting point of European and African cultures….. thank God
I didn’t know such an explanation existed or I might have never given it a shot.
The word salsa actually draws up images of a ‘close-up’ dance that’s stylish, swift & sensual, though not necessarily in the same order. But all such myths gets shattered within a week of your class. Soon you will realize that more than anything thing salsa is about mouth wash, deos & perfumes. And people like me who are blessed with sensitive olfactory nerves are always in search of that perfect smell or should I say ‘no smell’.
Of course in between we catch a few words. Like I heard my female instructor, once giving an invaluable piece of advice ‘ladies, remember the five seconds rule; when the music stops, you have five seconds to thank your partner and run back to your seat. If you're too slow, the music will start again and you'll be stuck with him for another dance.’ Interesting, I thought.
Next, after practicing the individual moves, we were asked to find partners for ourselves. And once done, the guys would get the girls hand in his. But the moment my partner took my hand, “BREAKING NEWS” Mumbai had an earthquake of magnitude 5.6 on richter scale. He was literally trembling with fear. I looked at the girl next to me and she smiled in acknowledgement. Apparently she had felt the earth quake too. I was confounded. Did I look like a DON to him? Was he petrified of me? I remember when I was telling my team member about my decision to learn salsa, he had quipped with a sly guys smile ‘salsa for guysss is an amazing activity. You can go up to a gorgeous woman that you've never met before, spend three minutes close to her spinning and dropping her the way you want, and she thanks you for it afterwards!’ My partner definitely belonged to the other category.
Nervertheess, Undeterred by such small irritants, I continued with my classes, giving glossy descriptions to my room-mates about the hand some guys, the ‘oh! so cute’ instructor along with few demos of the moves I’d learnt.’ While they turned green, I was on cloud nine.
But it was short lived. Soon I had to step down a few clouds. And it happened the day we were asked to focus on the eyes. More specifically - your partners’ eyes. ‘Students, from today onwards, we will move, turn, drop and do everything else looking into our partners eyes. Let’s begin.’
We stared at each other for sometime, but soon gave up. I couldn't think of one reason to gawk at him tenderly. Using some common sense, I tried focus on the chin, on the forehead on the nose but it didn’t seem to work. So we went back to our original routine of me counting the marbles tiles below and he staring at the ceiling fan.;
Next class, I saw him comes in floaters once with his toe secured with a band aid. I had bruised his ego earlier, when he commented that I was leading him. I had politely replied saying 'someone has to do it.’ Now it seemed I had bruised his toe with my heels, so I thought it safe not to mess around by asking how it happened.
The only good thing about the whole mess was that in the beginning, I had a company of 29 salsa enthusiasts, and by the time we moved from beginner’s batch to the intermediate batch the number had reduced to 21, which meant more of breathing space & a lot less of bumping around.
And then it happened on that fateful day. It was supposed to be the last class of our beginners batch. But it wasn't a class, it was a stage show. A roaring success if applause was any measure of it. And more than that, it was the dance that had successfully cast its spell on me. I was walking talking and dreaming salsa. And while I was getting down the stage. I remembered an old Japanese proverb that said, ‘We're fools whether we dance or not, so we might as well dance.’
