The Song and Dance Routine

Everyone I know has a childhood memory involving a living room full of guests, benignly smiling parents, and a polite “beta, uncle aunty ko gaana sunao”. I don’t think many of us get through ages 3-10 without having shown off our verbal/musical skills to anybody who happened to be passing through the house. It begins with A-B-C-D, moves onto Twinkle Twinkle Little Star (complete with actions) and then to random songs taught by a music-teacher. And if you happen to be the lucky (ha ha) few with some talent at a musical instrument or possess dance prowess, then there are the performance based shows.

I wonder why parents put the apples-of-their-eye through such extreme embarrassment. Or better yet, why they, who can out of the corner of their eye catch the poor child trying to sneak a toffee, are totally oblivious to the obvious reluctance and distress that is plastered all over the afore mentioned child’s face.

Luckily for me, I was an obstinate, pig-headed child with no obvious talents (the little I had, I hid under tantrums) so I wasn’t pushed into unwanted limelight very often.

The same, unfortunately, cannot be said for my sister. She was the traumatised child standing/sitting at every family/friends gathering there happened to be and singing the latest song her teacher had taught her. She was the one who was trying to plead with her eyes, while smiling politely (for the benefit of the aunties) to be let off the hook just this once. She was the one who, before getting to any party, would be instructed by the parents that she would have to sing, and to have songs ready in her head. She is the one who will probably need therapy for all of the above.

I always figured that once we grow out of frilly frocks and multicoloured doll shaped pins (the things that mothers put us in!) we also grow out of talent showcases. I was mistaken. Recent events have proven that parents (and parent-figures around us) apparently will forever for the duration of our lives (or at least hopefully only till we become parents ourselves) have that scary power of putting us in the spot in front of a bunch of uncles and aunties. And even now, after years of suffering through it, the experience is as (if not more) directly out of a horror show as it ever was.

Freud believed that our childhood experiences shape who we become as adults. I for one know that my childhood experiences (vicarious as they may be) have ensured that my children will never grow up to hear those dreaded words – “Beta uncle aunty ko gaana sunao…”