The Garba Lesson

Dear dedicated reader,

My head has always known that I am a great dancer.

Unfortunately, it just so happens that my body disagrees. It fumbles and trips and awkwardly moves at untoward times in untoward directions. My body and mind have perpetually fought over this issue: through childhood ballet classes, middle school dances, high school proms, college frat parties and last of all, an ill-fated hip hop class at my fancy Boston gym.

My head sees how beautiful a dancer I could be. My body just has no vision.

Opportunities for dancing here in quiet Kadod (outside of the occasional bizarre yoga class) are few, but when they do come, they are served up as spectacularly as all special events here. The most recent is Navratri, the nine day festival devoted to Mataji that is currently playing havoc on my students’ ability to pay attention in class. The nightly dancing begins at 10 o’clock and routinely goes until one, two or even three o’clock in the morning. My students show up for class cheerful but tired and their sharpness is dulled by the sand in their eyes.

These past few days, there have been many inquiries into whether Ms. Ivins and I will make an appearance at one of these nightly dance extravaganzas.

“Teacher, you play garba?” Hitesh inevitably asked me the other afternoon as I walked in the corridor. For a kid who shows up to my class with no notebook, no pen and no textbook, he speaks a surprising amount of English.

“Uh, maybe?” was my truthful reply.

My mind says yes, but my body, it turns out, says a resounding no. Melissa and I decided that we wanted to venture out to one of these nightly gatherings; Garba is, after all, the traditional dance of Gujarat. Sejalben, the principal’s daughter in law, agreed to give us a short lesson.

“I’ll just teach you the basics and you’ll be ready to go!” She exclaimed happily as her husband Yashpalbhai set up his laptop with appropriate music.

She began to shuffle around the floor of our house, showing us the basic step.

“Left, Left, Right, Right, Turn, Turn, Back, Back!” She repeated happily over and over. I watched dubiously before joining in. It was a simple four steps; it couldn’t be that hard.

One half hour later, Sejalben had me firmly by the shoulders. “You turn THIS way!” She said laughing with frustration. My mind said, “Of course!” My body said “Why is she touching me?”

She let go and I tried it again. My mind zigged with the music, but my body zagged once again.

“This is hopeless,” I said with an apologetic laugh.

“Well…you almost had it,” she said with a smile that showed forgiveness quickly losing patience.

It was with that vote of confidence that I was sent off to play garba for real the next night. It was strange, leaving the school gate in the heart of the night in that way. We walked as far as the temple before we came upon a large gathering of people in the temple courtyard, clustered around a chair upon which had been set a small tray with fire and other offerings for Mataji.

“Oh miss!” Chetan, the daughter of one of the other teacher’s who lives near the school, yelled out to us. We stopped and sheepishly went over, hanging back from the crowd, who were forming a circle. The music began to play.

“Miss, you must play!” She said, as the dance took off. I took note: all the men on one side, all the women on the other. It moved round and round in a neat circle with a variation on that simple four step that Sejalben had showed us the night before. The players came in all shapes and sizes: old women clapped and stepped simply while young teenage girls twirled their hands in the air in time to the four step and tiny small girls in sparkling dresses followed and jumped and clapped. Everyone was synchronized, stepping in time; it was like the Electric Slide minus the open bar (and thus, minus the sloppiness).

“Come, come!” Chetan beckoned.

“I, uh…” I started.

“NO!” My body said, gluing my body to the stone bench where I was perched.

“GO!” Yelled my mind.

I jumped up, shedding my sandals in the process and joining the crowd. Jumping in was like jumping rope: you had to wait for just the right opening, but when it came, I was in and all of a sudden, my body cooperated and I was doing it! I was dancing!

After a few rounds, Chetan looked down at my feet and then up at me while she twirled her arms skillfully in the air.

“Ma’am, you dance well,” She said in Hindi. “You dance like this in the USA?”

I hadn’t realized the amount of concentration that doing that simple four step and clap had been taking until she said this. My mind tried to process the Hindi while maintaining the four step… it was like trying to pat my head, rub my stomach and jump up and down and my feet forgot what they were doing while I tried to formulate a reply. Finally I said, in babbling Hindi while stumbling to keep moving with the circle:

“Chetan, I…I can’t talk and dance!”

And the dance just kept evolving. Just as I’d feel confident that I’d finally gotten it, the girls would say, “Now do this, Miss!” (in Hindi, no less!) and try and get me to swing my arms in a playful pattern the way they were doing or raise my knees or twirl or sing. I’d try for a little until inevitably I’d lose my concentration and fall out of step and sometimes out of the circle altogether. When this happens, they would pull me back in, like a kid who falls off his bike, verbally dust me off and get me going again.

By the end, my body was saying disagreeably to my mind: “Okay, you can have this one. But no more!” My mind was willing to let it rest with that. For now.

Maybe these nine nights will bring about a truce? I can only hope…

Best,
Cat