A Dance

The beats play. The funky Bollywood beats well known to one and all. The beats of the song ‘Tamma tamma again’, a remake of the old evergreen ‘Tamma tamma’ song, the 1900’s version. The beats that her feet knew so well even as a three-year-old girl. She looks straight out of long British architecture window of her Baba ‘s house (paternal grandfather) and all she saw was a ninety-four years old man dancing perfectly and beautifully even technically to the beats all alone, occupying the central part of the lawn of the house. It is a common sight to see the relatives of the bride dancing in the post-wedding celebration and any other person dancing on it wouldn’t have mattered that much to her but she knew her baba well. Music and dance were two things he always refused to participate though he always appreciated the art and encouraged the girl to pursue the same with his consistent love and support, acting as a shield from all kinds of peer pressures so that the girl can pursue for what she always felt for.

When her head was engrossed in flashbacks, she heard loud, long and fast steps on stairs and found a young, tall, lean man, her life partner, grabbing her arm and dragging her down the stairs. They had met when she was nineteen, and he was twenty-one. It was a well-planned effort to bring them together as they were like-minded people, but nothing happened. In the next twelve years of their life, they saw various turmoils and experienced various odds which transformed them from simply quiet and creative people to strong and bold who was quiet but never scared to voice their opinions and make a stand as well as work for a cause they felt for irrespective of how strange it was for others. As she saw him running wildly down the stairs, she was super sure that proposing him for marriage was one of the best decisions of her life, a decision she took a couple of months back, to which he replied after few days affirmatively with a note there are few people in one’s life to whom one can actually look up for any kind of partnership and in my case, you are one of them. His simplicity and brutal honesty always won her heart.

As she passed the main door of the house (entrance door), she saw her entire family and her close friends, not more than twenty, dancing wildly and madly to the beats of the song to which the newly married couple happily joined in.

There was no synchronicity, no technicality, nothing conventionally beautiful about their dance. It was absolutely flawed and imperfect but the pure joy, love, and fun involved made it divinely beautiful for her. It is rightly said beauty lies in imperfections, the imperfections that are natural, after all at the end of the day irrespective of our efforts, we all are flawed.

But there was one person, her baba who stood apart, who was methodically and sequentially doing the steps though filled with supreme ecstasy after all it was one of the most special moments of his little girl’s life. The cause of his happiness was not their marriage but the fact that she was hitched to a man who appreciates and falls for who she is and not for who she is not.

When they (couple) were looking forward to establishing a service-based organization which was a bit unusual and rare in its ways a couple of years back, she had looked to her baba for advice and all he said was don’t bother about competition and resistance, just build up a heart that is strong enough to stand up for what it feels is right and focus on building yours as well as organization’s competence. When she asked whether he would make a good business partner as she knew to face resistance, a strong bond between the founders was required, to which he calmly replied, “Don’t worry, the guy is sensitive and sensible enough to take your tears and temper. He understands them”, to which she guffawed loudly as she knew it was true.

Seeing her baba dance, she replayed the track, she wanted to enjoy his every step, after all this was his first dance in all the ninety-four years of his life. He was always open to all kinds of efforts except for one and that was dancing. He always politely refused it and she knew there was the only person in the crowd who had the love and patience to teach him all those steps and also have the required skills of persuasion to convince him for same, it was her man, the man with whom she will share her space, time and energy from now on as life partners. One entire lifetime, oh god that was too much she thought but she was super happy about the torture.