Pappu Can't Dance Sala!!!

What is eighteen years for earth but in a man’s life it’s a big span of time. Many times when I remember my childhood it seems perhaps I am thinking about somebody else’s life. How can I do that? Gauss, was I like that? These questions just never stop. In the process of growing up a man go up through so many alterations many times his life changes upside down. When I sit with a mug of tea watching the rain knocking slowly in the pane of my window, I sometime like to watch those memoirs dancing in the pain. Slowly the stream of water wipes them away; the vapor of the hot coffee makes everything so surrealist. I wish I was always like that.
While turning the photo album I encounter so many immortalized moments and one of them is from eighteen years back. The photo was taken when I was receiving an award from then Education Minister. Clad in a white uniform, the photo is taken just when I step to the podium with one leg raised little above the ground. I remember I got two prizes that day one for being the highest scorer in the class and other for being a participant in a dance show. I think there were two dances in which I participated perhaps in one it was me and some girl and the other was a group dance. That was the first time I was receiving an award, in fact that was the first time any event had been organized in our school. I do not remember the song in which I danced nor do I have bleakest images of other members of my group. I even do not remember getting any compliments for dancing but there were many compliments for scoring highest mark. I cannot imagine how a grade one child would feel while shaking hand with a minister. Probably my small hands must have disappeared inside his hand. I came home elated to show it to mummy as she had missed the program because she worked in an office which didn’t give her leave.
I never danced for many years, even if I did I do not remember. Mummy says she used to be a good dancer in school but I never saw her dance either until I was a full grown teen ager. Then I danced in the wedding of one of my cousins’ wedding. Its must have been fourteen years back. I tapped to the most popular hindi songs of that time. Everyone appreciated it and I danced for more than an hour remembering almost all the moves performed by the actors. I had jumped, shook my hip, did some trick in the floor etc. When I was doing a move which required me to raise myself on one hand moving the other pointed in the air, my uncle came running to me because he thought I had fallen down due to exhaustion. That was a great fun, and my relatives kept mentioning that dance for a pretty long time. No events followed in which I could show my dancing talent as I had now assumed I can dance well. Then again there was another wedding in the neighborhood where again I had chance to shake my body. To my own surprise I couldn’t perform any moves, I knew the moves yet I couldn’t bring it to life. To forget anything is never a relief, it usually ends up with frustrations. There were no events and I never danced at home because I had carved one thing in mind ‘Study is the first priority’ and always took other activities as waste of time. The sick competition never allowed me to pick a hobby; it was such a boring bookish childhood.
In college again I was the most boring student. If there was a decree of executing the boring people, I would have been the first pick. The people they try to depict as the boring and lousy character is no exaggeration I was more or less similar. I still look the same but not got a spring. In the undergrad I had the same image of an owl with a glass, icy bookworm. But by then I was a changed man in my real personal life, I loved to dance. Dance to me was just shaking, jumping being funny. I could remember all the steps, the movement of leg, the body posture, the expression and could actually visualize it but could never execute it. But dancing is all about enjoying oneself unless you dance to earn your living. I to date carefully watch the steps they do while dancing and can still visualize it but still cannot execute it. I have been a shy idiot though no longer any more. To kill one’s interest is a crime one commits upon oneself and I am my own criminal. Many times even when I had chance I shrouded myself and today I hate myself for doing that.
The dancing bug is still inside me in same spirit and vigor. I feel if I can completely ignore others presence and really dance for myself I can dance but no I just can’t do it. The bug had me completely in spell when I was in Trishuli, I was also gaining weight so somebody advised me dancing can help me loose weight. I got a good reason. In Trishuli I would wake up early put the head phones, pull the curtain, raised the volume of the song to its maximum and danced the same monkey dance. Whenever I listened the same song I knew what the perfect move should have been in a particular line and when I was actually dancing I danced like milk shake in the mixy. I loved to have that bug inside me, one morning I danced so much that when I completed and sat down to take some rest I could not stand up. I thought I had fainted. My whole body was aching. I was feeling terrible in my neck, my back was killing me and lets not talk about my legs. I had to take the day off because I just couldn’t move. It was so embarrassing. From the next day there was no morning dance yet I relished on my monkey’s game time and again.
During my parents’ anniversary though the most pathetic dancer I was the one who was always dancing never tired. Now everyone in our family knows about the dancing bug inside me. Then came one dashain when we had so many enthusiastic young people at our home, I danced with the kids, with the ladies with everyone like a maniac. That has gone in silver color in the history of my family. Now whenever there is any program one person is remembered when it comes to dancing. I can dance in the wedding in the streets along with the paid pipers. I am no ashamed of my interest though I wish I could actually dance. I sent one video of my dance to my cousin sister because I had never seen anything silliest in the name of dancing in my entire life. Though I should have been embarrassed for sending that video, Santosh was embarrassed.
Its been a while that I haven’t danced. I know I cannot dance but what’s wrong in enjoying the silly jumpings. When there are opportunities to enjoy life one should keep skills aside and just enjoy.