The Night I Went Dancing

I had a GREAT time last Friday night! My friend Uma took me to a Gujarati dance party. Apparently during the Navarathiri festival in India the Gujerati community organises these dances called 'Dhandiya' every night for a week. But here in Singapore they only had it for 2 weekends. We went all the way to the East Coast to the Singapore Swimming Club and I took Rubhs along as well.

When we walked into the hall I thought I had walked into a Hindi movie set! The whole place was done up really nicely with wall hangings and big colourful lanterns. And the girls! Wow there were so many pretty girls who really looked like the ones you see in Hindi movies -wearing these long flowy skirts! And then to make more movie magic there was this huge circle of people dancing to the music and everyone seemed to know the steps! It was so Bollywood. R and I stood on the edge of the circle for a really long time and got nudged further and further out because honestly, no one had time for spectators! All kinds of people were dancing - the young girls, the guys (and some were obviously out to impress the girls with their whirling and twirling), small kids, matrons.. and there were me and my daughter on the peripheral of this mass of humanity desperately trying to look like we fitted in!

The way Uma described it the dance looked deceptively simple. It's a North Indian version of the 'kolattam' we do in the South - you know, where each person holds a pair of sticks that look like drumsticks & then click the sticks together as they move in a circle. Well, that is it actually except that the beat here began slowly and then got faster and faster till by the end of an hour (which is how long it takes for 1 dance to finish) everyone is going at a mad pace! People get into 2 circles with partners & the outer circle moves clockwise & the inner circle moves anti-clockwise so you lose your partner pretty soon. I think R & I were unpopular partners. For one thing R bashed people on the knuckles with her sticks & I couldn't co-ordinate my sticks to cross with the person opposite so instead of crossing nicely our sticks were flailing the air!

We only did 2 dances though. I think it's terrible the way roles are reversed in this family. My daughter made me go home! At 11.00pm! Just when I thought I had got the hang of things (yes, after the second dance)... But it was a great experience. Though I felt really self-conscious because it was pretty obvious that we were not Gujeratis and we didn't know a soul - oh, ok that's not strictly true - I met one of my students there. I think it spoilt the night for him. I bet he was all ready to 'buaya' the night away till lo and behold there was his ex-teacher who knew what he was up to... Can't have been much fun for him, poor guy. :)

But it was funny the way the good dancers kind of separated themselves as the music got faster. Soon there was a smaller circle inside the big one and all the good dancers (the ones who could not only click sticks with those in front of them but also twirl and click with the one at the side before clicking back with the one in front - so Bollywood) went there and then the big one (where we were) kind of disintegrated and people started dancing in 3s and 4s but it was real fun. I wish now that I had taken my camera along - then I could post the pics on my blog.