Easy, Effortless And Enjoyable - Things Should Be, Really!

We had a Diwali Dance Party at our office last year. Diwali is an Indian festival that celebrates the return of a famous king (also a God). For me, it is time to dress up, eat good food, and hang out with friends and family. My friends and I did a Bollywood Dance routine for the party. We practised a lot and had fun choreographing, and it is a medley of five Indian movie songs - all in different languages.

After the performance, many people—including those who did not know me—came up to me and mentioned how much they loved the performance. For weeks after, I had people stop me in the office corridors or team meetings to say how much they enjoyed the dance. My manager also said, ‘When you are dancing, you are happy. Not that you are not happy otherwise, but this is a different kind and throughout the entire performance as well.’  

My responses usually say, ‘I love dancing.’ or ‘When I am dancing, I do not exist, and that is so freeing.’ I do say Thank You, but knowing that, I cannot take credit for it. Dancing, or any creative act for that matter, is an act of grace. It happens through me; I am just the vehicle for that to manifest. For something to touch people in a way where they are compelled to express their feelings is truly Grace! How can I take credit and get an ego boost for that? And such acts are usually easy, effortless and enjoyable. Don’t get me wrong - we practised A LOT. I taught a dance class every Monday for five years, so I did put in the work, but even then, there was an underlying ease to it.

So, I have always wanted to dance, even as a child. I cannot tell you where I got that, but it has been integral to who I am. In Indian society, any dance form other than classical is not encouraged - and my parents wanted me to focus on my studies, so participating in any dance performance required a lot of permission-taking, etc. In short, it wasn’t easy to just go and dance growing up. When I moved to the US - I was lonely and joined a Bhangra dance group - where we did shows, etc. My parents were happy I had found a group to hang out with. And from then on, since I was on my own, it was easy to find dance groups. So, when I moved to London, I danced on all the occasions at the London Business School. In fact, my dad even asked me once if I was doing MBA to dance or to study :). London has a lot of Bollywood classes, so I joined one of them. When we moved to Columbus, I started my own dance class (Thanks to Julia Cameron’s Artist Way).

I remember when I started choreographing steps - it was rusty, like when you run the first mile in spurts. But, over the years, it has gotten easier, so much so that the song and music tell me what steps are needed. How cool is that? And how can I take credit for that - the song is telling me what steps it needs. All I had to do was open myself up to listen to it - that is hard work and needs to be continuously worked on. If I could stay in that space where I am the vehicle for the universe all the time - life would definitely be EEE: Easy, Effortless and Enjoyable. Alas! I am a human who thinks that I ‘Do’ things and have control, not just the illusion of control. And there is some fun in pretending that I have the power - even if the pretend sometimes takes a serious turn. I digress - but the point of this blog was to express my gratitude for all things EEE that the universe has graced me with.

What are some of the EEE things that you can think of?