Iodex anyone?

Ooooh... Aaah... Ouch…. The Iodex mantra is the single line that has been coming out my mouth throughout the day, today. Before my mom starts worrying, I have to say that it has been a nice weekend so far, a nice mix of sobriety mixed with wild behavior. I should add that it was a clean weekend, lest she gets the mental picture of me cavorting around with, well never mind. It is better that she stays off that mental image. Let me keep the good boy image for some more time in my life. But then, who am I kidding?

Anyways, the highlight of the weekend was a charity dinner / DJ nite organized by the local Indo-American group here. I don’t know much about the dinner, but the music was foot-tapping, and tap we did for a couple of hours into the night. It was a night full of fun, solely because of a few friends who are as footloose as me. The songs were sort of fresh with the dj playing none of the usual suspects.

When I was in Ohio, any dance night organized by the local ISA (which was whenever we had a Indian festival in the calendar, like Holi and Diwali, not to mention Aug 15) featured some songs that have been around for almost 5 years or more now. Among there are/were Chaiyya Chaiyya, Koi Kahe (from DCH), some bhangra numbers (Gori Nalon etc.) and a couple of classic Amitabh numbers like Mere Angne mein.

Last night there were none of these numbers and it was like a breath of fresh air. The ten of us had the most fun, being probably the youngest set of dancers on the floor, if you discount the ankle biters that we had to step over carefully from time to time. The dj played some nice numbers from recent movies like Dhoom, some remixed Bhangra numbers that I haven’t heard at all and some other bhangra numbers that seemed vaguely familiar. During a break for all those people (read US and a few more) who had taken the floor without dinner, the dj decided to try some karaoke. He walked around singing and thrust the mic at anyone he deemed fit. He mistook me for my friend who had caught his attention earlier and thrust the mic at me during the final antra of Jadoo Teri Nazar and yours truly managed to impress one and all around him. Thank you very much!

Back on the dance floor after dinner, I was invited to try a minute or two of salsa, which I did, trying to match my partner’s foot steps. She sort of gave up on me within 30 seconds, but I think I’d have caught on soon enough. Then we had the whale of a time doing a mock qawwali for the pseudo Qawwali from Main Hoon Na - Tumse Milke Dil Ka Jo Haal. Now, that was a first, even for me. I felt every eye on the dance floor on us, what, with the ten of us on our knees, gyrating like we were high on something or the other.

Got out close to midnight and went over to a friends place. The whole group sat and settled down to watch a movie, halfway through which I started getting SOS signals from places in my body that I never knew the existence of. The movie ended close to 4, after which I came back home and hit the bed groaning like nobody’s business.

I managed to get up at 10 am, rather early considering my late departure to dream land. I hit the books for some time before embarking on a drive down I95 to a temple in Maryland. Two different temples in a single weekend (had made the short drive to the local temple here in Newark) would have been a first even if I was in India. But, isn’t it true that people mellow with age?

But the dance night certainly did add to my irritation that DJs at Indian events here in the USA don’t look southward (with respect to Indian geography) when it comes to playing songs for people to dance. More on that in the next post.