Jitesh Jaggi - B-Boys of Bombay

 

The first time my mother saw me breakdancing, she almost threw up. [audience laughter] To make it less humiliating, I will narrate this incident in reverse. My mother runs into my room. There's a left foot shaped hole in my glass window. My body is upside down. I say to myself, this should be easy. I watch a hip-hop dance video. [audience laughter] She did not see a pretty sight. This was in 2009 in India, where there was no breakdancing. This modern American art was practiced there by puberty hit early adopters of internet. 

 

I remember staying up late in the night to chat with dancers in America to learn some techniques. Then back to practicing in my living room amidst a small audience of broken furniture and a horrified mother. [audience laughter] This soon led me to connect with other eccentric losers in my city. [audience laughter] And together, we started making a fool of ourselves in full public view, [audience laughter] contorting our bodies and suffering juvenile bald patches from head spins. [audience laughter] True to tradition, we would practice on the sidewalks, startling morning joggers with James Brown screaming, “Get up off of that thing,” on the boombox. But I lacked the deep cultural understanding that American breakdancers had. I wanted to swim and all that was given to me was a petri dish. 

 

A friend suggested that the best way to learn something new is to teach it to someone else. So, I landed volunteer work at this obscure little village called Baiganwadi. The little village was Mumbai's largest dumping ground. I did not expect to even smile for the rest of the day. But 30 children were waiting eagerly to impress their new dance instructor. In the class, there was laughter, and tumbling and flip flops flying across the room. It was like, I was witnessing the world congealing. Here are kids from the streets of Mumbai emulating kids from the streets of Brooklyn. They would tilt their hats to the side and ask me if they were hip hop enough. And I told them, “You have more street cred than my middle-class ass could ever dream of achieving.” [audience laughter] 

 

I stayed on. And after two years decided to organize a dance show, choreographed on a nice rap song. And a week before the show, 12-year-old Sameer came up to me and said, “Teacher, we are memorizing the dance sequence not on the words of the song, but the sound of the words.” I thought, of course, you are. See, the kids understood some English, but rap was too much for them. They couldn't distinguish one word from another. And then, he made a suggestion that blew me away. He said, “How about we breakdance on a Bollywood song?” [audience laughter] 

 

[cheers and applause] 

 

The purist in me said, “No, that is disrespectful.” [audience laughter] But the pragmatic choreographer in me, who had six days left for the show, said, “Why didn't I think of that?” We changed everything. And that was the most under pressure fun we have ever had. 

 

Day of the performance, the audience has no clue that what they're about to witness has simply never existed before. [audience laughter] Breakdance on Bollywood music, also in Bollywood costumes. [audience laughter] The crowd was stunned. They whistled, and clapped and sang along. In the audience, I thought to myself, this is either blasphemy or the genius of children. They took what was given to them. And instead of adapting to the art, we made the art adapt to our existing lifestyle, and in doing so made it our own. This is what was missing in my own practice, and the kids put it neatly in perspective for me. 

 

From then on, we had regular practices on Bollywood songs. We wore whatever were comfortable in. Today, here in America, when I see kids breakdance, I think of the connection that they have with children across the world in the slums of Mumbai and invisible solidarity through street art. Thank you.