It was a total failure. Everyone laughed watching me making weird forms with my hands and legs. I was rejected. I came home and kept thinking about what happened that day in front of the mirror. Mirrors never lie. Watching myself in the mirror on the wall triggered my egotistical attitude because I felt ashamed and embarrassed. It was my ego that made me go to the Bhangra coach after rehearsing for hours. He laughed and welcomed me into the team not because I became a good dancer in one day, but because of my "never give up" attitude. This was the beginning of my journey on exploring my literacy: the art of dance.

As time went on, I connected myself to Bhangra and I started to feel like that I was part of something bigger than me. I felt those fast-energetic musical beats. I was improving my literacy by learning new moves, which included not only moving my hands and legs, but moving my hand with a certain leg at a specific beat for a certain amount of time. This is an art of dance because an audience sees a product, but it requires all different kinds of techniques to make a simple dance move into a smooth and impressive motion. Bhangra helped me psychologically, as it relieved all the stress of the day by disconnecting myself from everything that had happened in a day and made me express how I was feeling. If I felt anger, then I would aggressively emphasize moves; if I felt happy, then I would smoothly dance with moves in which I am good at. Bhangra affected my attitude towards daily life, as it made me calmer and a better listener. I spent years competing at different levels. Traveling across the town in an old bus along with all my friends was the best part of competing. It gave me a sense of team spirit and made me understand my team strengths or weaknesses in dancing. I faced both failures and successes. I learnt that life is not always about winning, but it is about standing again after failing. Life is all about the next step. I gained team work skills, which is the most fundamental skill required as a dancer. As a team, we grew into professional dancers, but after spending years in my high school Bhangra team, everything was about to end.

My family and I moved to the USA three years ago and we were sheltered by my aunt before we had enough money to buy our own home. I was enrolled in high school with no experience in speaking English. As I was trying to settle into this foreign country, I was moving far away from Bhangra. I wanted to be part of a talented group again so that I could keep developing my abilities in dancing. One day, my mom was in the kitchen and I told her about my feelings in a very low voice,

"That's it! I am no longer going to continue dancing Bhangra."

She told me, "You can always dance by yourself in your room."

I disappointedly replied, "That is not the same as being part of a group!"

I was randomly going through letters when I saw a brochure that said, "Cincinnati Bhangra Team." My mom looked at me and smiled. It was a spark that went through my whole my body. The next day, I went to practice in an empty suite to know more about the group. They started practice and we went through warmup. The coach of that team asked me if I had ever done Bhangra before. I replied that I had danced Bhangra for 7 years. He suggested that I join the UC Bearcat Bhangra Team. That was the first time I was introduced to a professional Bhangra team. He must have seen something in me. We continued practice and the coach of the team taught me different moves that I was not familiar with. After some time, I found out that team was not very supportive of me because I was the only one who didn’t speak English. I took that moment to motivate myself to dance better than anyone in the room. The one thing that I learned from all these experiences in that local team is that I must adjust myself into their traditions. Even if I am a great dancer, if I can't get people to talk to me then I can't dance with them. I knew that all these experiences were helping me to be a better dancer for something bigger than this local group. After spending two years in that group of Bhangra, I was ready to level up my game in dancing.

I accepted a college offer from the University of Cincinnati so that I can be part of the UC Bearcat Bhangra Team. I was continuing my training in that local group as usual. Everything seemed very calm and normal, but it was the quiet before the storm. I found out that I have a pilonidal cyst on my back. We went to the doctor and he told me that I must go through surgery. It was a very disappointing and depressing moment of my life. That surgery took away 4 months of my life because I couldn't run or even lay down or sit straight on my back. I had to stop dancing. I knew that tryouts for the UC Bhangra Team would begin within the first week of school so I had to get ready for it. During the first month of my healing period, my wounds got infected two times and got opened three times. Surgeons had to reclose my wounds and I had to go through another surgery. It was depressing and I used to cry all night. When my family went to their work, I was the only one at home and loneliness started killing me from the inside. This period of my life was affecting my attitude in a negative way because I was getting far away from the literacy that I had worked on for almost a decade. Every time I saw blood from my back on tissue paper, it made me think: "How I am going to get healed and start dancing again?"

These four months were the biggest obstacle between me and my dream of getting into a professional dance team. I used this time to learn English so that I can better communicate with others once I got into college. I remember watching several Bhangra videos on my bed laying upside down and trying to observe the patterns in which dancers moved. For Malcom X, "prison enabled me to study far more intensively than I would have if my life had gone differently" (X 2). I felt the same way in those four-month period because I couldn’t do anything except laying down in bed, so I taught myself English. I was afraid that I would lose my dancing body because I couldn’t workout. As the first day of college came closer, I was praying to get healed, but my mom knew that I wouldn’t be healed by that time because the wound was still big. After four months, I got an email from the Bearcat Bhangra team for tryouts. I wanted to go, but my mom stopped me from even thinking about Bhangra until I was healed. I missed the chance to be part of the team my freshmen year. After one college semester, I started my training again, but this time it felt like I was beginning from scratch. I thought that my mind had forgotten about my dancing literacy and I had to rebuild it. I increased my stamina to the point where I could dance for fifteen minutes. I remember what my coach told me, that if I can run three miles in thirty minutes, then I can do eight minutes of Bhangra without getting tired. I added more veggies, proteins, and dairy products in my diet to help me get into shape. I lost twenty-five pounds in a couple of months after intense cardio and dance training. I worked on my dancing moves to make them clearer and smoother. I converted the basement of my house into a place where I could practice for hours. I added mirrors on the wall and a speaker system on the ceiling. It was the place where I spent hours developing my dancing techniques just like Stephen King says in "What Writing Is", "So I read where I can, but I have a favorite place and probably you do, too-a place where the light is good and the vibe is usually strong. For me it's the blue chair in my study" (King 2). Dancing in my cold-quiet basement with loud music was not the only part of my training. Creating mixes for the music was another part of my routine. Bhangra is a fast dance for the most part, so I created mixes by adding different music together and speeding up their pace. "Dhol", an Indian musical instrument, is a vital part of the Bhangra music. "Dhol" sounds like a drum, but at a very high pitch. I had my Beats headphones the whole time with me and I just started dancing whenever I got the chance. This period of training made me feel like I was a phoenix, rising from the ashes. After 4 months of self-training, I was ready to join the team.

It was tryout day for the BCB. I had two eggs, some veggies, and milk for breakfast to have enough energy to perform. All the applicants were told to pick any music and dance moves to perform while trying out. I prepared my two-minute choreography with very energetic music because it would pump me up to perform more aggressively. I made very tough choreography because I wanted to convey the message that I could've made an easier choreography, but I wanted to challenge myself and come up with moves that were unique. Audiences like dances which look impressive and easy to understand. I took a risk with performing the moves, which were only impressive to those who know the Bhangra, because it requires perfect timing to execute those hard moves. Even a slight delay in execution could ruin the whole choreography. I went into middle of the big hall and faced the judges. The coach of the team shouted, "5,6,7,8…!".

Everybody was stunned by looking at my performance because it was unique. My plan worked out for choosing hard moves to perform. I was selected as a front row dancer. I began my training and learned to dance with more techniques. My coach told me to never dance flatfooted because it can cause some major injuries to my feet. He also told me that there are two different types of dancers: 1) those who perform to impress, and, 2) those who perform to express. Dancing should express inner soul. If a dancer is dancing to impress then he is not being true with his audience about how he feels. These words from my coach touched my heart.

After spending years of competing in different states with different teams for BCB, it was time for someone to step up as a new captain because our coach was leaving the team. The executive board of the team picked me to be captain. They picked me because of my passion towards dancing and my growing knowledge in Bhangra. I am now responsible for not only learning Bhangra, but also teaching Bhangra to my team and preparing them for competitive dancing. Literacy should always be passed on and spread among others so that it can help others to build their own.

The knowledge must be constructed over time and a dancer must keep practicing their dance until they give up. It takes patience, determination, passion, commitment, and will power to come closer to the perfection of dancing. It took me ten years to become a captain or coach of the professional dancing team, and I have a clear vision for my team and where I want to see them in the next 5 years. Going out of my comfort zone always helped me to become better in dancing throughout my dancing career and I will keep doing it. The moment in the middle of dancing, when I am sweating all over my body and breathing fast, is the most pleasurable moment for me every time. Dancing is meditation for me, where I cut myself from the world and go into the peaceful-quite environment where I let myself express the true emotions inside me. Before I start dancing, I take a moment and think about the time when I was not able to even sit properly during my four-month healing period. I tell myself how grateful I am to dance. Everything happens for a reason because if my dad never forced me to join the Bhangra team, then I would not have been able to experience the pleasure of dancing. All the challenges that I faced during my dancing career made me tougher and a better human being.