Kajra Re

"Kajra Re, Kajra Re, Tere kale kale naina...." I first heard this song at Bana's house. Her then 2 year old son reacts well to lively music - this was a guaranteed to distract away the tears kind of tune.

Now I must state up front that I have never been a fan of Bollywood, nor have I been particularly fond of dancing. My parents enrolled me in dance class when I was in the 2nd standard. 3 classes later, I informed them that I was done. I preferred reading and elocution. I was the classic wallflower at every party I ever went to.

So never in a zillion years did I think I'd be writing a blog carrying the same title as a popular Hindi song... then again I did not know what a blog is - so maybe this is also a limit of my imagination.

Now I have this cousin (actually that sounds like the name of another blog I've been thinking of) who is a very accomplished dancer. She trained with the Padma Shree Birju Maharaj and is rated as a Class 1 artist by Doordarshan.

Parul (the cousin) was part of the "Diwali at Hema's Space Station" event in 2005 essentially . I had recently acquired a new music system but I did not have very good music - and I had NO hindi music. So DD - who wanted to go to the mall more than she wanted to listen to music - volunteered to walk to the mall and pick up some music for us. In the stack she brought back was Kajra Re.

Parul danced to all of the music for us, encouraging us wallflowers to participate. She has a graceful flowing style, and there is nothing she enjoys more than sharing her art form with the people around her. The classical moves were well beyond my abilities, but this free form bollywood style - this I could do. Parul took it upon herself to teach me to dance. We danced all weekend long. And when our 1-year old grand-niece - Dhruvbhai's granddaughter Pia came to visit - we danced with her.

Kajra Re has now become my signature song - everytime I hear it I just have to get up and start dancing. On occasion I have also used it as a fairly effective threat - Listening to the song does become a little complicated when I am listening to it while sitting in the back of my car on my way to work... after all it would be very inappropriate to scare the chauffeur.

Seriously though - it is a great song with great visuals, great sound, beat, dance moves.. but I think I like it most because it reminds me of the wonderful time we had that Diwali, and all the wonderful times I continue to have since then.