Following story after Part 1
With my prior experience of going to salsa classes in India, I have met a wide range of salsa dancers. Ofcourse there have been some of the gracious ones, and it’s a pleasure to dance with them, but the funny part is to watch the dancers with two left feet and hip stiff like rock. Trust me it’s usually funnier than watching Sunny Deol dancing in Kammo. I am myself not a great dancer, but I have been known for my capabilities of imitating item girls with some hip thrusting action and I can be an outright chamiya dancer when a little drunk. In my favor, salsa involves a lot of hip movements and it just makes me feel like I belonged to it.
So the class begins and for the initial steps people are dancing individually in neatly formed rows. With my prior experience of learning a few lessons, I could easily pickup the basic moves. However, surprisingly there was absolutely no one in the class with 2 left feet. Even though they were old and otherwise not interested in the class, they could really move their body very well. I sure had some serious competition here. However I was the only Indian guy in the class, and fortunately the instructor was pleasantly surprised to see an Indian guy dancing salsa. Later in the class he came-up to me and mentioned, I was better than the other Indian students he had trained. Well I sure got back to him saying he probably hasn’t got a chance to train the good Indian dancers yet, I was just an average.
Mostly I didn’t understand if the trainer spoke English or Chinese. I could only pickup the numbers and the key words – left, right, back, front, “can can” and “OK OK”. Then it was time to try the newly learnt steps in couples, and started the tough part. Most were in couples and I waited 2 mins till everybody found their match and then I got the ultimate shock. The hottest aunty, whom I had been checking out since the beginning of the class was alone. She readily agreed to dance with me. This lady had long golden hair and she was dressed in the sexiest salsa outfit I had ever seen in a dance class. She wore a loose ended skirt ending way above the knee level, a tight top with glitters, freshly painted blue matching nail paints and to top it all, 4 inches heels. The only sign of aging and the obvious one was the heavily wrinkled skin. She has a really sweet smile and I only wished I had met her 40 years back.. Oh.. I mean in my last birth..
So we had a quick introduction and as usual I didn’t really get her name. However, we started dancing to the instructors counts and I realized I was dancing with the best dancer in the class. It’s unbelievable how graciously she could move at her age wearing those high heels. The hip movements were swinging her skirt just like it’s supposed to do in salsa and I am sure a few old men must have been trying hard get a glimpse of something under. Usually while dancing with a stranger, it’s the guys job to make the girl feel comfortable so that she can dance and move openly. Even though I am really not good at the gesture, I didn’t even have to try. It was the lady who made the guy comfortable in this case. That even we danced together for the rest of the evening and sure we were the best couple in the class. The instructor again came to us and the lady and himself spoke in Chinese. Then they both gave me a thumbs up and said "very good ..... can can". I was glad I could impress the lady as much she could impress me with her dancing.
Since then we have together attended some 5 – 6 session. My initial intention was to join some kind of activity where I could socialize with new people. Well that really didn’t happen, as most people here are actually older than my parents. However, I have sure found the best dance partner ever and it’s amazing to learn dancing with her. I am not sure if it would be socially acceptable to ask out a lady older than my mother, but given a chance I would surely want to take her out to some salsa night and dance our guts out. In all these weeks, I never bothered to ask her name again.. but I look forward to every Sunday evening dance session.
