Spontaneous Dancing
Spontaneous dancing-- something that Indians do well, and frequently. And one of the things that I love about India. Here, two stories of such unexpected, and enjoyable, impromptu dances.
Last weekend I went with my friend to the Wagah Checkpoint, one of India's borders with Pakistan. It's a 6 hour train ride from Delhi, 25 kilometers from Amritsar, and 25 from Lahore. There is a huge iron gate just hanging there between India and Pakistan. On each side, amidst billboards full of pro-India or pro-Pakistan proclamations, are bleachers where audiences can sit and watch the Daily Border Closing Ceremony.
Huge crowds filed in on both the Indian and Pakistani sides, hundreds of men and women, the only differences in the audience composition between the two sides being that on Pakistan, the women wore headscarves and the sexes were segregated. Though these Indian and Pakistani citizens looked almost interchangeable, I reminded myself that only YESTERDAY had been the Samjhauta Express blasts-- terrorist bombs that killed dozens of passengers on a train from Delhi to Lahore, a solitary cross-boarder train that had been dubbed "the Friendship Train." Security guards prowled around the whole complex with rifles pointed in front of them...
In the middle of my apprehension, however, came the uplifting, amazing, irresistible strains of Bollywood music. Yup, blaring away at us right in the midst of all this solemnity. Before I knew it, crowds of people on the Indian rushed down from the bleachers and started jumping and shaking their hips and dancing around to the music (meanwhile, on the Pakistan side, everyone starts crying Allahu Akbar and praying). It was seriously just amazing. After the booty shaking we had some victory chanting:
Bharat.... MATA!!! (Mother India)
Jai... HIND!!! (Victory... or something like that... v common Indian slogan)
Hindustan... ZINDABAD!!! (Long Live India)
to which Pakistan responds with:
Pakistan...ZINDABAD!!!
and a little shouting match commences.
After all of this came the actual ceremony, with soldiers strutting up and down, pretty much like any other military/changing of the guard ceremony that you see anywhere. Quite a remarkable experience altogether, only dampened by the fact that I realized afterward that a security guard had snatched my mobile phone while searching my bag. By the time we figured out what had happened, he was probably well across the border...
The second episode of spontaneous dancing occurred tonight, at a music performance at the Alliance Francaise. The group Darb Al-Harir, with their "fusion Arabic-Indian-Spanish music" gave a fantastic show to an audience of about 50 people, and began a series of highly-demanded encores. Suddenly, a young-ish man sitting near the front stood up and burst into a regional dance from Kutch (western part of India) that kept perfect time with the music. He grooved on for an unbelievable 10 minutes or so, while everyone watched in awe, clapping and shouting him on. The band members even looked excited to be upstaged in such a manner, and it all culminated in everyone shaking their heads and clapping wildly.
As my landlord commented to me in the car the other day, while we noticed that no one stopped at the red light, "This is India. You can do what you like."
Last weekend I went with my friend to the Wagah Checkpoint, one of India's borders with Pakistan. It's a 6 hour train ride from Delhi, 25 kilometers from Amritsar, and 25 from Lahore. There is a huge iron gate just hanging there between India and Pakistan. On each side, amidst billboards full of pro-India or pro-Pakistan proclamations, are bleachers where audiences can sit and watch the Daily Border Closing Ceremony.
Huge crowds filed in on both the Indian and Pakistani sides, hundreds of men and women, the only differences in the audience composition between the two sides being that on Pakistan, the women wore headscarves and the sexes were segregated. Though these Indian and Pakistani citizens looked almost interchangeable, I reminded myself that only YESTERDAY had been the Samjhauta Express blasts-- terrorist bombs that killed dozens of passengers on a train from Delhi to Lahore, a solitary cross-boarder train that had been dubbed "the Friendship Train." Security guards prowled around the whole complex with rifles pointed in front of them...
In the middle of my apprehension, however, came the uplifting, amazing, irresistible strains of Bollywood music. Yup, blaring away at us right in the midst of all this solemnity. Before I knew it, crowds of people on the Indian rushed down from the bleachers and started jumping and shaking their hips and dancing around to the music (meanwhile, on the Pakistan side, everyone starts crying Allahu Akbar and praying). It was seriously just amazing. After the booty shaking we had some victory chanting:
Bharat.... MATA!!! (Mother India)
Jai... HIND!!! (Victory... or something like that... v common Indian slogan)
Hindustan... ZINDABAD!!! (Long Live India)
to which Pakistan responds with:
Pakistan...ZINDABAD!!!
and a little shouting match commences.
After all of this came the actual ceremony, with soldiers strutting up and down, pretty much like any other military/changing of the guard ceremony that you see anywhere. Quite a remarkable experience altogether, only dampened by the fact that I realized afterward that a security guard had snatched my mobile phone while searching my bag. By the time we figured out what had happened, he was probably well across the border...
The second episode of spontaneous dancing occurred tonight, at a music performance at the Alliance Francaise. The group Darb Al-Harir, with their "fusion Arabic-Indian-Spanish music" gave a fantastic show to an audience of about 50 people, and began a series of highly-demanded encores. Suddenly, a young-ish man sitting near the front stood up and burst into a regional dance from Kutch (western part of India) that kept perfect time with the music. He grooved on for an unbelievable 10 minutes or so, while everyone watched in awe, clapping and shouting him on. The band members even looked excited to be upstaged in such a manner, and it all culminated in everyone shaking their heads and clapping wildly.
As my landlord commented to me in the car the other day, while we noticed that no one stopped at the red light, "This is India. You can do what you like."
posted by Molly at 8:46 AM
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