All the world's a stage
And all the men and women merely players
They have their exits and their entrances
And one man in his time plays many parts…
William Shakespeare – ‘As You Like It’
Waiting impatiently for the traffic light to turn green, I froze at the sight of two barefooted and dry-haired urchin girls dressed in foul-smelling rags and dancing beside my car. Though untrained, scruffy and scrawny, they seemed to exude an amazing sense of confidence - as they somersaulted over one another on the uneven pot-holed tar coal surface - coupled with an excellent sense of rhythm and timing. The two-minute spectacle culminated as one of them cupped her hands in expectation, tapping on the window pane of the car. As I smilingly slid a currency note into her gratefully-clasped hands, the other girl repeated the drill on other waiting vehicles - with some degree of luck. As the light turned green, I glanced through the rear-view mirror. The girls ran gleefully to the road divider.
The hour-long drive back home from my dance studio was punctuated by protracted thought aggravated by the unexpected encounter with the two roadside ‘jiggers’. I asked myself if Roadside Dancing was different from dancing on stage or on an ‘appropriate’ platform. Like many other Classical danseuses, I did feel some disdain for people breaking into a jig on the roads, without any ‘valid’ reason or purpose. I also silently cussed the unruly ‘gentry’ dancing to ear-shattering decibels at discotheques, parties and marriages. But if I were to be true to my inner-self, I did enjoy the dance of those urchins. In fact I had to admit that even their truncated steps were unbelievably acrobatic - something that I could or would have never attempted. Another instance came to my mind. It was during the December marriage season, on a day when over ten thousand marriages were solemnised in my city. It seemed to me that the whole world was driving to one of them, cramming and choking the roads, along with numerous ‘Baraat’ gatherings out in the middle. Here, middle-aged ‘aunties’ were breaking into impromptu jigs to badly composed tunes of local bands, and jostling for space with vehicles. ‘Inconvenient and improper’ I had then declared, as I sat sweating in an 8’ x 5’ cubicle on wheels - while the ‘aunties’ were having the time of their lives. My mind also veered to the Dussehra and Ganesh Chaturthi festivals, when huge processions pass through narrow streets, leaving no space for vehicles, which pile up in kilometres-long traffic jams. ‘Volunteers’ dance in devotional trances, which would put religious bards to shame. Such ‘in your face’ public display of devotion unnerves me. In fact just a few days earlier I had driven past a crowded road, honking loudly within an ‘election crowd’. I was entwined in a serpentine queue of vehicles adjacent to a ‘pandal’ (makeshift tent), where a politician was to address an audience as a part of his Parliamentary election campaign. As the ‘leader’ arrived, I saw a group of boys bouncing up and down with a ‘dhol’ (drum) in hand. Thankfully I meandered my way out within a few minutes, leaving the happy dancers behind. But my ultimate brush with Roadside Dancing was undoubtedly in a town in Tamil Nadu, where a group of young men were dancing happily and animatedly with a ‘Damaram’ (drum) in a procession where a dead body - seated on a chair decorated with flowers - was being taken out in a procession before burial. I learnt that in parts of Tamil Nadu it was customary to dance in front of a dead body.
As my car meandered through the traffic, I pondered the significance of my encounters with Roadside Dancing; I tried to ‘logically explain’ each incident to myself, to understand the psyche of the Roadside Dancers. The middle-aged ‘aunties’ would have never danced at their own weddings, so they were entitled to their share of fun dancing at someone else’s, I justified. Though I believed in quiet prayer, the devout motley ‘volunteers’ perhaps felt a connect with God through Trance Dancing, I justified once again. The electioneering sycophants may have loved their leader or might have been paid to love him, so they did have a reason to dance on the roads, I presumed. And the acceptance of death as a process and not as an end, was the plausible reason for ‘Death Dancing”, I vehemently remarked to myself. Through each experience, I had realised that self-expression often overrides logic, place and purpose - and that passion often drowns wisdom. I also contemplated that Street Dancing unified caste, sex, religion and even economic status, and that there was some inherent connectivity between a rich ‘aunty’, a begging urchin, a delirious supporter of a politician, a young death-dancer and a devout religious volunteer. I accepted I had been judgmental…vanity be damned. My drive through bumper-to-bumper traffic did not seem long anymore for I had reached my home, having learnt a big lesson of life. I was reminded of what my Guru had once told me, quoting Wayne Dyer: ‘When you dance, your purpose is not to get to a certain place on the floor; it's to enjoy each step along the way’. The urchins’ two-minute Roadside Jig was the best two-minute ‘non-floor’ performance that I have ever witnessed.
The writer is a renowned Kuchipudi Danseuse and Choreographer
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