The world is a sucky place. A place where no woman has the right to have womanly curves, and where no man wants to dance with a FAT CHICK. You heard me: the title may say Phat. I mean "Fat".
Fat can be of many types; slightly overweight is the same as obese which is the same as curvacious, but its all the same in the end, innit?
I just dont understand it. Why would someone want to dance with a girl who has 2 left feet and is stick-thin, when he can dance with someone who manages to move subtly but sensuously, and has a bit of a belly?
I'm not talking about myself here, thought this post does stem from personal experiences. Since you've all guessed by now, I don't get asked to dance much. And thus I have time to stand in the corner and observe. Guys only dance with girls who are "pretty", thin, and who wear revealing (or whats currently "in") type clothes.
Say theres a grossly overweight girl, who is pretty even though she's fat (pretty fat-teehee) and she's wearing something that nicely covers up her bulges, makes her figure looks somewhat streamlined and is a good dancer. Like she manages to move well without doing too much or trying to do things she shouldn't be doing at her size even if she can manage them. She's danced before with these men, they've even seen and appreciated the way she moves.. yet she has to ask them for a dance. Ofcourse they wont say no. And they'll enjoy the freakin' dance. But a little part of her dies.
I know it seems sexist to assume that the guy should ask the girl, but then again it is not a girls place to refuse a guy a dance. Basic manners state that a if a guy asks you to dance, you cannot refuse him the first time. The second time you can plead hurting feet or tired-ness. But the first time, you HAVE to dance. No matter if he's butt-ugly, unattractive, cannot dance, steps on your feet, has bad breath, is shorter than you. No matter that your feet are killing you in those stilettos or that you're dying for a drink or you're short of breath or you are just plain turned off by the sight of him. You HAVE to follow through with the first dance. It takes a lot of guts for a guy to walk across the room and ask a girl to dance, especially if he doesn't know her. Be nice to him and dance with him. Its only 3 minutes of your entire life.
But the whole problem lies in him asking you. What if he doesn't? Then what do you do? And on a dance floor(as it happens in many other areas(not counting birth records) there are always more girls than guys. Which means that the most of the guys will be dancing on the floor, with a "hot" skinny chick, while the slightly differently shaped girls stand around at the sides hoping for a dance. Catching a guy standing at the side is difficult enough; asking him to dance just kills you. slowly, but surely.
Especially in India, where even in a place like Bombay, a girl going up and asking a guy to dance elicits stares, sniggers and weird looks. "oh my god, she is so desperate/outgoing(they say that like its a bad thing)/slutty" I mean come on!
Despite all my ranting on this subject, the other day I went to a local salsa night and made sure that I sought out all the guys I like dancing with and asked them.
Out of the 12 guys I danced with that night, only 2 had asked me for a dance. The remaining, stood mildly in a corner while paid no heed to my crying ego, and gathered up the courage to go and ask them to dance. I had quite a blast that night. Danced with full abandon, enjoyed myself to bits; I'm sure the guys enjoyed themselves too (well, they didn't complain - :-|)
I got home later that night, opened the door to an over enthusiastic dog jumping on me, so glad to see me home and while sitting down on the bed and cuddling her, cried my heart out.
The facts still remain:
1. It still hurts, no matter what.
2. Society and other peoples stares will affect you
3. You will have a blast dancing and get bunions from the heels you're wearing.
and
4. A little part of you will die when you lie in your bed late at night, wishing that you were ugly, thin and wore designer clothes that make you look more unattractive than you already are.
Showing posts with label Dance. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Dance. Show all posts
Monday, 25 June 2007
Saturday, 10 March 2007
The Bhangra-Tango Chronicles
This is the first in the series(hopefully, there will be a series)
The reason for this post:
Ever since i started dancing, (learning/teaching), The Mother and her bunch of friends (here forth called the 'Abacus Biddies', but that's another story) decided that they also want to learn to salsa. Salsa, mind you. Salsa. Fast, spinning type dance. Biddies + Salsa = Broken bones = Hospital bills and Bed rest = monetary trouble for Old fogey husband men and mommy sitting duties for dutiful daughters/sons (collectively known as the AB babies, no connection to the Bachchans whatsoever).
So, after a lot of procrastinating and persuading them to start with a slower dance like the rumba or with a dance like the cha-cha which is danced to songs that they would appreciate, i.e. music which is a part of their generation. But no, NOW they want to learn the tango. The Argentine Tango, no less. Which, like Pierre Dulaine (played by Antonio Banderas in the movie 'Take The lead') says, 'needs to be earned'. Heck, I didn't have the guts to learn it until i finished almost 2 years of dancing.
So, one day, The Mother and The Father are both at home one evening (which is a rare occurrence) and they started harassing me to teach them the tango. So, bracing myself, muttering curses under my breath and platitudes to Terpsichore to save me from These Two, I reluctantly agree.
Shift the furniture around, put the dog out into the balcony and close the door(she is very jumpy and tends to dance along with you) and put on some music.
I explain the basic 8 steps, and The Mother interrupts with a "I don't get it". To which i reply, "Ma, can I please finish my sentence?"
They dutifully follow my movements and directions for the next 2 minutes, then The Father asks me whether he needs to place his foot where he is currently placing it or a centimetre to the right. The tango is precise, my friends, but not THAT precise.
After they practise a bit more, I explain some more to them(not going into the details here, not worth my time and your lack of attention/interest), and The Mother goes, "See if you explain it this way, then I understand. Say it like this"
Who is the teacher here?! She doesn't even know the 'T' of tango!
I tell you, these parents!
BUT this is not the worst bit. And this is just the much-needed background for my topic.
The next day, The Mother, during one of her interminably long phone conversations, proudly announces to one of The Biddies, "Yesterday, my daughter taught me tango"
"Yea of course she'll teach you also"
"Why don't you and D and R and S(various other Biddies) come over on such-and-such day at such-and-such time....(to me: "baby, you don't have class then na?" i shake my head).. haan, she's free."
:O (In my head: HELP! MOTHER, WHAT IN HEAVENS NAME ARE YOU GETTING ME INTO NOW?)
so she looks elsewhere and keeps talking.
Darn it.
I manage to convince her and them, along the line, somewhere that it would be much better to start with a dance like the rumba.
D-day arrives and I come home to find a gaggle of middle aged women in my living room along The Sister(who claims to have two left feet and hates dancing) and one of the AB babies, P, who I know for a fact, cannot dance.
So, all professional, I go and put on my shoes and start setting up the music.
The Mother: "Baby, we're all very hungry, why don't you order bhel for us from around the corner?"
After half an hour, when all the plates have been put away and people are fed-up and full-filled (;)), I say, "Shall we sta..."
only to be interrupted by Biddy N: " haha, I'm so full now, I cant even move"
Me: "umm...."
Others: " yea OK, come on, lets get up"
So we start doing the basic step and everybody is going out of time. I say follow my counts "one, two, three, four", but nobody follows except for Miss Two-Left-Feet (The Sister) and The Mother who has had a secret private class in the rumba before.
Every time someone messes up, they all stop and giggle, P abuses and shakes his head, The Sister stays mum. And I try to restore order, without much success.
NO ONE follows my count, or the timing of the music. The Biddies have a Bollywood jhatka way of moving their hips, P moves like a caveman and The Sister is the only one who seems to show some semblance of the Latin hip movement required for the rumba. *SIGH*
I've been teaching the rumba for 1.5 years, I've taught old and young alike, I've taught people who cannot move and people who you have to only demonstrate a move for and they copy it perfectly, I've taught one-on-one and a class of 30, BUT I've never had so much problem as I did with this bunch.
Honestly, the only saving grace was The Sister, who listened to every word I said and managed to execute the steps well. This from a girl who doesn't like dancing, and who claims not to be able to dance! Sheesh.
Later that night, i tried to figure out why this was so difficult and I realised that, these women, can never look at me as being "superior" to them in any respect. They cannot see me as their 'teacher'; for them I will always be a child in their eyes, especially since I am, in effect, their (this refers to ALL of them) child.
Thus they could not give me the respect they would give a teacher/professor type of person.
I'm not saying that they're incapable of it, just that they didn't
then.You never know, tomorrow is another day and I might just have a better class with them sometime in the near future(hopefully).
*Keeping fingers crossed*
That's all for now, I shall keep y'all updated as and when the next class happens. Over and Out.
The reason for this post:
Ever since i started dancing, (learning/teaching), The Mother and her bunch of friends (here forth called the 'Abacus Biddies', but that's another story) decided that they also want to learn to salsa. Salsa, mind you. Salsa. Fast, spinning type dance. Biddies + Salsa = Broken bones = Hospital bills and Bed rest = monetary trouble for Old fogey husband men and mommy sitting duties for dutiful daughters/sons (collectively known as the AB babies, no connection to the Bachchans whatsoever).
So, after a lot of procrastinating and persuading them to start with a slower dance like the rumba or with a dance like the cha-cha which is danced to songs that they would appreciate, i.e. music which is a part of their generation. But no, NOW they want to learn the tango. The Argentine Tango, no less. Which, like Pierre Dulaine (played by Antonio Banderas in the movie 'Take The lead') says, 'needs to be earned'. Heck, I didn't have the guts to learn it until i finished almost 2 years of dancing.
So, one day, The Mother and The Father are both at home one evening (which is a rare occurrence) and they started harassing me to teach them the tango. So, bracing myself, muttering curses under my breath and platitudes to Terpsichore to save me from These Two, I reluctantly agree.
Shift the furniture around, put the dog out into the balcony and close the door(she is very jumpy and tends to dance along with you) and put on some music.
I explain the basic 8 steps, and The Mother interrupts with a "I don't get it". To which i reply, "Ma, can I please finish my sentence?"
They dutifully follow my movements and directions for the next 2 minutes, then The Father asks me whether he needs to place his foot where he is currently placing it or a centimetre to the right. The tango is precise, my friends, but not THAT precise.
After they practise a bit more, I explain some more to them(not going into the details here, not worth my time and your lack of attention/interest), and The Mother goes, "See if you explain it this way, then I understand. Say it like this"
Who is the teacher here?! She doesn't even know the 'T' of tango!
I tell you, these parents!
BUT this is not the worst bit. And this is just the much-needed background for my topic.
The next day, The Mother, during one of her interminably long phone conversations, proudly announces to one of The Biddies, "Yesterday, my daughter taught me tango"
"Yea of course she'll teach you also"
"Why don't you and D and R and S(various other Biddies) come over on such-and-such day at such-and-such time....(to me: "baby, you don't have class then na?" i shake my head).. haan, she's free."
:O (In my head: HELP! MOTHER, WHAT IN HEAVENS NAME ARE YOU GETTING ME INTO NOW?)
so she looks elsewhere and keeps talking.
Darn it.
I manage to convince her and them, along the line, somewhere that it would be much better to start with a dance like the rumba.
D-day arrives and I come home to find a gaggle of middle aged women in my living room along The Sister(who claims to have two left feet and hates dancing) and one of the AB babies, P, who I know for a fact, cannot dance.
So, all professional, I go and put on my shoes and start setting up the music.
The Mother: "Baby, we're all very hungry, why don't you order bhel for us from around the corner?"
After half an hour, when all the plates have been put away and people are fed-up and full-filled (;)), I say, "Shall we sta..."
only to be interrupted by Biddy N: " haha, I'm so full now, I cant even move"
Me: "umm...."
Others: " yea OK, come on, lets get up"
So we start doing the basic step and everybody is going out of time. I say follow my counts "one, two, three, four", but nobody follows except for Miss Two-Left-Feet (The Sister) and The Mother who has had a secret private class in the rumba before.
Every time someone messes up, they all stop and giggle, P abuses and shakes his head, The Sister stays mum. And I try to restore order, without much success.
NO ONE follows my count, or the timing of the music. The Biddies have a Bollywood jhatka way of moving their hips, P moves like a caveman and The Sister is the only one who seems to show some semblance of the Latin hip movement required for the rumba. *SIGH*
I've been teaching the rumba for 1.5 years, I've taught old and young alike, I've taught people who cannot move and people who you have to only demonstrate a move for and they copy it perfectly, I've taught one-on-one and a class of 30, BUT I've never had so much problem as I did with this bunch.
Honestly, the only saving grace was The Sister, who listened to every word I said and managed to execute the steps well. This from a girl who doesn't like dancing, and who claims not to be able to dance! Sheesh.
Later that night, i tried to figure out why this was so difficult and I realised that, these women, can never look at me as being "superior" to them in any respect. They cannot see me as their 'teacher'; for them I will always be a child in their eyes, especially since I am, in effect, their (this refers to ALL of them) child.
Thus they could not give me the respect they would give a teacher/professor type of person.
I'm not saying that they're incapable of it, just that they didn't
then.You never know, tomorrow is another day and I might just have a better class with them sometime in the near future(hopefully).
*Keeping fingers crossed*
That's all for now, I shall keep y'all updated as and when the next class happens. Over and Out.
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