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| Kishore Singh: A bad case of Delhi belly |
| Kishore Singh / New Delhi Oct 17, 2009, 00:40 IST |
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When we were planning our Diwali cards party for three score or so people, give or take a couple more or less, my son suggested we build in some entertainment. “I hear belly-dancers are hot this year,” he said, reading from the newspaper supplements. “I’m not dancing for your guests,” my daughter protested immediately, maybe because she and her sorority group had been taking expensive lessons in belly-dancing “for the sake of exercise”. In the event, neither our daughter nor professional dancers made the cut: If there was any more space, my wife would have picked card players over dancers any day, there was simply no contest.
We may have nixed them, at least this once, but belly-dancers have remained haute in Delhi parties, the performance of choice at Holi in some circles for several years now, and at a birthday dinner we attended recently they kept popping up amidst the guests to shake a hip or two, causing not even a pause in the drinking and gossiping, with practiced partywallahs continuing to talk over their heads. Not to long ago, their presence would have invited wads of currency notes being hurled in their direction, but now they’re as exciting as the cutlery on the dining table: If they aren’t around, you notice their absence, but if they’re there, well, they’re there.
For years, our friend Sarla’s piece de resistance was a version of the belly dance that was more comic than risqué. But a saree-clad belly-dancer doesn’t have her moments — and particularly when she doesn’t have the moves either, pointed out my daughter, now the family expert on these matters. “It’s a really tough dance to learn,” she told us when she saw her brother trying to hide his grin behind a book. “What do you do at your practice sessions?” I asked, stepping in before a skirmish broke out between the two. “Mostly,” she said, “we just look at the others and giggle.”
She may not have been at the receiving end of wolf-whistles but dare hoot at her and Sarla gives it back with a waspish tongue. “You think you can do better than me?” she’d challenge anyone who dared laugh at her belly-dancing — though both the belly and the dancing had seen better years — causing any whisper of a snigger to vanish as soon as it had appeared. “I did a dip-stick survey once,” she said, when a newcomer at a party had dared to openly laugh, “and guess what I found?” To the chorus of “whats?” she responded, “That every one of you, though you won’t concede it openly, men included, has belly-danced in private.”
The thought of it was ludicrous, of course — who wiggles a tummy while preening in front of a mirror? My wife pulls in her stomach when dressing for dinner, true, but does she throw it about when no one is watching? Do our friends? Neighbours? The family dentist, the tailor, the lawyer? “It’s true,” insisted Sarla, who had once had the alcohol-enhanced courage to jump on to the stage while a performance was underway, forcing the belly-dancer to retire while she reigned centre-stage. The belly-dancer was so upset she refused to step back under the spotlight until Sarla had left.
These days though, Sarla is in retirement: It has been months since anyone saw her drape a sash around her hips. Not that she’ll admit to age, and my wife puts it down to the matter of her mood: “If Sarla gets up to dance,” she directed us as we re-arranged the furniture to lay out the floor mattresses for the cards session, “clear the area furthest from the bar, because,” she added meaningfully, “people will need to charge their drinks if they have to let her dance.”
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