Dancing isn’t my forte

Sophomore Karen Sung

I’m not trying to toot my own horn (or maybe I am), but way back in first grade, I had pretty impressive skills when it came to Indian dancing.

After performing in that year’s variety show at Argonaut Elementary, all my Indian friends’ moms patted my head and told me I had a natural inclination for Indian dancing.

Nearly a decade later, though, I’ve discovered that all my self-proclaimed talent has vanished down the drain.

After being assigned to learn a new dance for a newspaper dance-off between me and two other reporters, I chose to revisit my Indian dancing roots and asked to temporarily join the sophomore Bombay in the Bay (BNB) group.

When I first arrived for BNB practice, hosted at sophomore Trishika Shetty’s house, everyone was already partnered up and dancing away to Bhangra music, which first originated in the Punjab region.

Shetty, who helped everyone with the dance, said she especially enjoys Bhangra because it is “upbeat and fun to dance to.”

“It’s a really energetic dance, and every time I hear the music, it pumps me up,” she said.

Unfortunately, I soon realized that I was clearly out of my league when the girls took me off to a corner to teach me the beginning of the dance. Walking around on a daily basis already presents enough of a challenge for me; trying to balance my hand and foot movements for the dance proved extremely difficult. I mainly relied on mimicking the dance steps of the people in front of me, which explains why I always seemed to be a beat behind everyone else.

I never realized the dance would require so much shaking and rotating of the hips. The low point of the entire practice was when I tried to do a body roll. “Tried” would be the key word.

Nonetheless, I had fun bonding with my Indian sisters and moving along to the catchy music. I’m not sure what the songs are called, but I do know that the mash-up is titled as “LEGIT” on my friend’s iTunes account, so there’s an idea.

As sophomore Sachi Verma aptly described it, “You’re getting your inner Indian pride on, Karen!”

After multiple practices and aching feet (bouncing around barefoot on hardwood floor is not a good idea), I finally performed the dance in front of the newspaper class during third period, but not before stressing out to everyone in my general vicinity.

I think the dance turned out pretty well, though by then the choreography was mainly just muscle memory.

One effect of all this dancing is that I can’t seem to stop humming to the tune of the mash-up, even though I have no clue what the lyrics mean. I’m not the only one, however; I’ve had more than one person come up and ask me for a download link to the music. After two weeks of hard work, I’ve realized that Indian music is pretty incredible.