This blog is a result of an urgency that was felt after a long day of conversations with my aching hamstring and probably over-stretched back. It has been a little more than a week since I have been a ‘regular’ member at a gym close by. Nope, not the whole weights and treadmills gala, I mean a batch of different forms of cardio and functional training spanned over a week (no weights for me, I am terrified and not very fond of them, but that is a fear for another day). If you are wondering how I have the capacity to reflect and think while breathing through cardio, well, that is step one of me introducing myself to you!
Since I hurried to get this thought of mine across, I believe this blog should also house my introduction. Fear not, it is not something very distantly related, since my body has been my primary form of expression for as long as I can remember.
I would describe 5 years old Vaidehi as a goldfish, swish-swooshing(slang for struggling) her way through the water, all while proudly looking back at the camera. Grade 4 Vaidu was the most bouncy ball in the gathering dance and grade 9 Vaidehi was a graceful Kathak dancer, poised with her back and stomach pulled together, her gaze- steady.
Vaids in Junior college spent 12 hours of her day getting the Lavani steps perfect for a college play and Vaidehi from Undergrad (aka Vee today) enjoys her mindless sessions of Improv with her college theatre group. She also writes poetry.
What is the point I am trying to make here? That I have been, more often than not, defined by what my body is capable of (apart from the times when I was the girl with the football field-sized forehead). And that brings me to my next point. As I grew up, the divisions between what my body looks like and what my body does became blurred.
I never looked at classical dance as my profession and eventually had to let go of it when I moved to another city for education. Not dancing thrice a week meant losing the superpower of knowing my body inside out, knowing what it looks like even with my eyes closed and forgetting what having really strong muscle memory feels like.
As a teenager, words like cringe took over my brain space. How my body looked while doing certain actions became more important than how I felt while performing that action. Sitting in a place and working from my laptop for hours meant that my posture changed. My fingers went from swiftly switching between finger-twisting mudras to cramping while typing within the span of a couple of years.
Cut to a couple of days ago, when I was being a darling doll, struggling to open up in the Zumba class at my gym. A class with more aunties close to completing 50 years of living than people my age, eager to cross their twenties. While I was enjoying waking up early and the sense of routine that this gave me, I had my own questions about not working out with the rest of the young crowd, not lifting weights, having arms that jiggle and not being as good a dancer as I was a couple of years ago. As I was struggling to catch up with my thoughts and my breath, trying to look myself in the eye whilst also matching the instructor’s steps, I saw one aunty, dancing like she was the main character, not catching every beat and finding her moment of freedom in the lost ones.
I have related to multiple arguments over ‘item songs’ that speak about objectification while also understanding the ones that speak about them in the context of liberation. But in that moment, when I met eyes with that aunty and lost myself into movement a little more than I did a couple of moments ago, they were all about liberation.
Here’s to Aunty Cool for redefining cringe and giving me a sweet lesson of self-love, all while simply loving herself.
(Here’s hoping that this little story becomes a small step in dancing through rough and smooth patches and blogging them well, all along the way.)
Vee Documents 
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