8 minutes of your present. (thank you all)

Again it has been very long since I have written and posted anything. Nor I have planned the length of this write-up. Perhaps if you have patience and love my writing I request you to read it all. It was just that I wanted to try a few things that required my time. It was nothing new but just an old

incomplete dream (GUITAR), which is still very much incomplete.


Before we begin  I wish to thank Tanvi maam and debu sir. Anyone who has given me any kind of knowledge is similar to GOD for me. It is my faith and you are no lesser. A guru is imitation of god, I was taught by my teacher. If a challenge doesn’t lets you sleep at night perhaps it’s a challenge worth taking. Thank you for giving me this challenge and pushing me to find my true potential.

Blame it to the time I would say again. But there is no one except me to blame. Its really strange when you somehow put time into perspective the dynamics of life change so quickly.

I always felt that time was running faster than me or maybe the pace at which others are running was faster than me. Various times I also felt that I was running a race that I had already lost. Some wounds of past are so deep that time and again the pain keeps up coming. Although you want to, but no matter how hard you try time just keeps getting faster than your life.

Yes indeed the perspectives of life change once you put time into it.

“Life is too short to live with regrets”. Those who know me often find me repeating this sentence time and again. And indeed its a fact that I came across just few months back. Specially when regret is about something or someone who will never come back. Time is one such thing.

A lot of great and deep influential thing are already written about value of time and present moment and I am not a person who suddenly had and enlightened vision about it. It was something that came across in my life and kept coming over and over again until it was clearly clear to my mind.

It was the same reason, I decided to dance again. I knew there will be people criticizing it. There will be people envying it. There will be people sarcastic about it. But most importantly there will be people who will not value it and respect this thing in me. Dance was something that happened very late in my life. Like many things in my life taking up dancing and continuing it was my decision.

Maybe I wanted to get rid of stage fear, trying a new dynamic of creativity or just to impress someone I don’t quite remember now. But after a certain point i guess everything got aligned with motivation creativity and inspiration. And since, I had always found myself as a performer rather than an audience. It is tough to imagine myself otherwise. You may feel that there is always a next time.

But TIME makes you realize that its not true. For a performer never knows when could be his last performance. Weather you would get to get on the stage again and perform again. This is something that I realized just few months back. life and time are not to be predicted. When you see people close to you and your friends walk away never to return, things do go to a different level.

Perhaps this could be the ultimate motivation for any performer like me. There was indeed a time just few days before my AEM 2016 performance when I thought of giving up dancing henceforth. Honestly speaking I just wanted to dance so that people who knew me felt proud to know me. And that they don’t feel embarrassed to tell that they knew me, that I am no mediocre in what I am doing, that if not all then at least those few could clap and cheer for me when I am under the spotlight.

But there were indeed few only, but there was one who I felt mattered a bit more. I say so because most of the people I knew were going to be on that very stage with me. I was leading them in some routine and following them in remaining. This was the first time when I was going to be in center stage. But something was missing and that thing was impacting me so much that I was dancing like a zombie. No expressions, no joy, no excitement.  And should there be one I asked myself? Would it matter to that person as well. As there were only few in the crowd for whom I wish to smile and give expressions. I thought it may feel like mobbed pair of hundreds of unknown eyes.

It was the very reason why I thought about giving it up. I was hardly sleeping 4 hours daily and at time even less. Maybe it was a tired body that was making me think like this or maybe it was just too much of learning. I have gone through this earlier as well but at those times I had a motivation, a goal, some pair of eyes in the audience that would become bright when I land all my moves perfectly and shout and cheer for every smile and expression that radiates out of my body.

As the days built up that thing seemed to be becoming more and more impossible. But that is how a life of a performer is. No matter what goes on in your mind once you are on the stage you are visible to the world. It’s the show in the end that matters. Pain, cramps, tension, sweat, lunch less days, hollow nights, nothing matters. Everyone has issue, the whole point of life is issues. But once you begin the first move of your final performance nothing and no one matters.

And we did it finally, I did it finally. It was never easy for me and for all of us. I never expected it to be easy, I never wanted it to be easy. It is because once A PERFORMER ALWAYS A PERFORMER. And that’s me for you.

All I wished was of your acceptance. Be it good or bad performance. For your acceptance was the reward for all my hard work. It did matter to me a lot.. It did hurt sharply when amongst the few people i expect to come up to me with a bright smile and shiny face to acknowledge my effort and hard work, one doesn’t show up eventually. All that required was willingness and perseverance to do the same. But it doesn’t matter now.

Like I said “life is too short to live with regrets”. I have realize it and I wished that person too would realize someday. And this very line was the only thing that kept me pushing on and going beyond my physical and mental barriers everyday through pain and fatigue. It was a choice that I took and I don’t regret it even one bit.

I never planned this write up. I wish to express my feeling in details hence taking the liberty to increase the word count as much as I want. A superb support system of friends and colleagues for which I have no words to thank the almighty. But most importantly both critic and motivator for your perceptions, as it made us what we are.  Lastly to the entire team of AEM 2016 my soul and life goes to you. Because if this indeed happens to be my last AEM 2016 MUMBAI performance, it will be memorable for a life time to me.

Kal ka koi bharosa nai… na he waqt ka… aur na he kismat ka. But I promise you that I will not give up on dancing as doing so would be an insult to god’s gift to me.

Words is all I have to express my feeling and blessing and best wishes is all I have of my own to give you in return.  Ending with a few line from my own poem….

Kal me bhi aaj hoga fasla yeh yakin kar,

Mazil na sahi par waida-eh-safar hasin kar,

Tham le hath fir rasta na dekh….

Tez si chalti zindagi zara ruk ke dekh.

Always remember life is too short to live with regrets of thing unsaid and undone. Say it now, do it now.

Remembering all the near and dear once who are no more amongst us…….this performance is dedicated to them.

Happy Independence Day.

Feedback and comments are welcome.