THE DANCERS ARE BACK !

Yes, you guessed it, another random post. Tonight, though, I’m writing (pen and paper) rather than typing. It’s 11:45 at night, and I’m sitting alone in the living room, with my pen and paper. As I write this, I experiment, can I write like a doctor? Wow, I can. Stairway to Heaven is on, the music system in my living room rocks. Just got introduced to the song, I love the way it starts. I refrain from writing the way the music sounds, not knowing whether I should use “na na” or “ting ting”. Ooh, makes me wonder. Yeah, typing the lyrics makes much more sense. Maybe I should start making some sense now.

Going up and down in the lift has always fascinated me. When I first moved to Tarangan [DD’s residence] in my 5th standard, I was awestruck by the mechanical brilliance of the elevator of my building. It was the first time I’d seen ‘automatic doors’ and I was instantly captivated by it. Not being Newton, to think about reason-behind-falling-apples and what not, I just began using it. The two liftmen became my best buddies.
[LOL. The ow-ow-ow-ow-woah-woah part in the song is so funny! Led is brilliant!]
In all probability, I used the lift more than them. Pressing all fourteen buttons to piss the liftman off, to see him stop at each and every floor was bliss. Ah, those days.
[Wow. The guitar solo. Oh bloody hell. This is bloody brilliant. Wow, eyes closed. Now the song has gained pace, gets DD’s head to rock with the beat.]
Those days, I say with a huge melancholic sigh, have long gone. Today, when I get into the elevator, it’s one formal hello to the other passengers, a “Ram Ram” and a pat on the back to the liftman, and then looking at the thingy [for want of the scientific word] where the current floor through which the lift is travelling is displayed. Everyone does it, I’ve found it bizarre, but I do it too. Filling awkward silent seconds usually involves suddenly finding your shoes or your nails interesting. But in the lift, it’s always staring at the thingy, freakishly. The liftman, strangely, also does it, though the way he stares is different, he stares from the corner of the eye, as if he’s eyeing some beautiful chick.
[OYE IT’S SATURDAY!]
The lift is the only place where you get lots of free time, and you don’t feel guilty about wasting it, since you have nothing else to do. Since the 5th standard itself, whenever I’m alone in the lift, I look in the mirror, and I make my scariest expression. Then I laugh at the sight for the rest of the journey, which makes it a tedious task to straighten my expression as the thingy reads “0”[since I do my silly things usually while getting down from the 9th floor to the ground floor]. On other occasions, when my bully-like expressions become too monotonous, I punch the wooden walls around with the mutant knuckles. When I’m bored of that, and this might cause some amount of denigration, but I don’t care, I DANCE. I have two left feet and two left hands; hence you might argue that calling it “dance” is wrong. I do it to make myself laugh, and I succeed. As thingy reads “1”, I stop, making a straight face.

Ha, cannot believe I made you read all that. Now let’s back on topic REALLY. In my 8th standard, when I was going home after school, a plump kid got in, who was in the 5th standard then (I knew because I had played cricket with him), with his mother. What struck me most about this great man was the fact that he was the ONLY person I saw, who refused to go through the usual ophthalmic duty of staring at the thingy.
Innocence of youth? Not quite.
Kid with extraordinary thoughts and self confidence? Nail. Head. Bang.

The next time I saw the lad was at 8 pm. (when the liftman would be at home, bitching about the weird passengers of ‘his’ elevator.) The fact that he was fascinated by the journeys through this mysterious cuboid was palpable due to the cheeky, and somewhat weird, glint in his eye. For the first time, we spoke to each other. I go, “Kaisa hai?”, and he replies “sahi!!” I look in the mirror, and I madke a semi-weird expression. I turn back, apprehensively. His face is a question mark. I begin to laugh. He laughs too. He makes his own weird expression, looking in the mirror, next. I take the forcible cue, and I start laughing hysterically. Respect.
Next time we met, we exchanged mischievous smiles, and then looked away, so as to prevent the woman present from thinking that we had gone bonkers.
We met ALONE after a long time, and this is one of my crystal clear memories, but we hadn’t forgotten. He said, “main lift mein akela hota hoon tabhi bahot faltugiri karta hoon”. (When I’m alone in the lift, I mess around a lot.) I said I do the same. And in a flash of madness, we began to dance. We danced, like nuts, we looked in the mirror. We both laughed like we’d lost it. It was the first time, may I add, that the watchman sitting near the lift on the ground floor might have had an idea of the lunacy going on in the crazy cuboid, because we got out unable to control ourselves. This went on, EVERY SINGLE OCCASION I met him alone in the lift. In the tenth standard, we saw less of each other, or in other words, I saw less of the world, and if we did run into each other alone in the lift, it was usually when I was abosorbed in my book, being a firm believer of my own principle, “The reading during the last 30 minutes before the exam gets DD 30% of whatever he’s scored.” Even after tenth std, if we met alone, we had a little chat about this and that, but we never mentioned our old lunacy.

Yesterday, I met him again, alone. I looked him straight in the eye, he mirrored my action. We stared at each other for five whole seconds, and then we both began to dance. It was SO funny, I cannot believe I’m laughing even now, as I pen down the incident. He had some new moves, I had some myself, and we danced with frequent “Aha” shouts from the man. There were 4 left feet and 4 legs flapping about madly, in the elevator. We are back baby!!

One might argue here, that this is surely too stupid to be true, and that the DD with his trademark blank expression is not capable of such things. What do I say? Well, the lift brings out another side of DD [who has so many sides, it’s difficult to decipher what-agon he is, taking cognizance {yes, I love the word} of the fact that he cannot count more than decagon.] This is the side only the mirror of the lift gets to see, and of course, the dancer mate.

<< That is me, making one of the expressions I make in front of the mirror. I'm kind of looking like one of those middle eastern tough blokes. I cannot believe I'm pasting that pic in my blog, but it goes with the random spirit of this post, so bleh..

Thus, when you’re alone in the lift next time, make the most of it!
Anyway, I won’t reveal the name of the guy, because it’s our little secret!



The dancers are back, and they’re here to stay!!