Size does matter…not!

Birthdays were THE most exciting time of the year for me as a child. I looked forward to that one day when I’d get brightly wrapped gifts, no matter what size they were or how colourful the wrapping. Which brings me to present day, when just sometime back I picked up a birthday present for my little niece, being the doting (young) aunt that I am! At the toy store, as I looked for something for my niece, I went through a new experience. Being attended to by a patient sales person, I was distracted by this incessant rant, coming from a tiny tot, who kept insisting on looking at all the new toys, with little interest in what his father had to say about behaving himself. While my left brain was occupied with dealing with this tantrum, the right side of my brain was even more surprised to see another family coaxing their little kid to choose between the bigger toy gun and the louder mythological, musical, weapon. The only selling point of the toy for the kid, being – which will be more powerful. Having chosen my gift and waiting for it to be wrapped (in Barbie pink paper, as annoyingly recommended by the sales person, much to my annoyance), I looked around the toy store. All I could see were big, noisy toys in about 80% of the space, with books placed on one wall. It’s not entirely wrong to play with large-sized toys or the ‘musical’ ones, what I failed to comprehend was, whatever happened to those smaller, yet equally enjoyable, cars, dolls, Lego sets?

On an instinct, I asked the salesman if they had HotWheels and how much they went for “these days”. Now as a kid, with a sibling, I remember having some cars and truly enjoying my time with them! Perhaps on seeing the glint in my eye, the sales person showed me several models off the lowest shelf, when I saw the ’70 (s) Toyota Celica, an ordinary looking yellow sleek beauty. It did not matter to me that it was probably the smallest item on sale at the store, or that none of the kids in that store would even glance at it but, as I walked out of that toy store, while silently thanking my stars for my childhood, I said a bigger thank you to that little girl for whom size really did not matter!

A Dancer's Daughter

My earliest memory of my love for dancing, possibly, is borrowed from my sibling. She claims that, when I was about two, I posed in front of a dancer at a 5-star hotel where my grandfather was put up while he was working. I'd like to think that it is this spark that encouraged my parents to enroll me for some dance lessons. What I thought started out as something to do after school soon turned into all I could think of the moment I woke up and the time I'd fall off to sleep. Vowing to never let this passion go, I carried on with my life, education and some semblance of a career. Given all of these preoccupations, dancing took a backseat (much like this blog :p). 

After an embarrassingly long hiatus, I recently got back to dancing. While this isn't something that I would gush about, something that happened yesterday just could not stop me from reviving my other passion - writing. I realized that to be able to freely live out your dreams, you need that driving force. Now, we all have friends, family, lovers who support us, but for me, the one person who has believed in me, even as an amateur, has to be my mother.

All her life, for as long as I can remember, she has always stood by me, waited through the dance classes, technical rehearsals and attended every performance (yes, even the ones at house parties), never occurring to me that she'd have her own passion too. It was a few months ago, when, at my present dance academy, I noticed the number of women out there who had always wanted to dance, but could not or did not because of other obligations. It was this that prompted me to return the favour, however small an attempt, and got her enrolled in my class. 

Fiercely proud, I watched as my mother struggled with the putting her left foot ahead of her right, coordinating the hand movements and getting the expressions just about right and I saw in her, something that I had never seen all these years. They say that when you do something that truly comes from within your heart, it shows. And this is exactly what I saw in her. To the world, she may not be the best dancer around, but to me, that is all that matters.

So here I was, bogged down with work, listening to music while suddenly, one of our tracks began playing. On a whim, I asked my mother for a dance and there it was again - that glow, that unadulterated joy. 

I can now say, with unabashed pride, that I am a dancer's daughter!