From CBSE to Raves
Up until my university years, I was pretty staunch about my schedule — I studied most days and nights and worked the others, barely leaving room for much else. I had an amazing time doing just that but truly, I didn’t know what else life had in store for me. I got to know about raving from one of my close friends who frequented this place called Revolver in Melbourne. When I first stepped into this dark dungeon, my first impression was “How do people dance to music without lyrics? What do I sing to?” I did take a chance and visit the place again and that second time changed everything.
ENTER REVS —
I had started working on myself spiritually in parallel, so I completely surrendered to my environment this time. Before I knew it, I could feel every beat of the music and dance to a few of them. I learned to close my eyes and let the music truly sink into the depths of my body and I felt a tingly sensation every time I did that. It was then I was initiated. I had learned to feel the music and understand all it wanted from me was to surrender. Being a person who always wanted to have a plan and a thousand goals in life, music became my new teacher. It started teaching me to breathe into every beat, every moment and surrender to the beauty of life all around me. I shed off all parameters of judgements I had built for the past 24+ years and accepted every human being on the dance floor for their energies and that’s it (minus the pissed drunk guys). In this process, I went through times where I found myself questioning whether this was a “productive utilization” of my time or was I swiftly drifting away from all the goals I set out for myself but I was reaching a point in life where no matter how much I did, I always wanted to move on to the next thing. I didn’t wish to breathe. I just wanted to keep moving forward and it brings into light the question “What if you struck all your goals and you’re on the top of the world but you don’t feel satisfied because you’re programmed to move on to next thing. What then?” That terrified me so truly, my own self was terrifying.
The root of my being this way was the fact that growing up in India, particularly in my society, I had to shine academically to prove to others that I was worth their while. I had to have goals, I had to read a lot, I had to be aware so I wasn’t considered “marriage material”. I was surrounded by men who dominated arguments with glib statements, and I knew early on that to participate in these dialogues, I had to educate myself. It worked out well in hindsight because it got me to Australia — the place I call home now but I had to shed off my old skin to make room for new. I was a person who’d judge another for not having any goals in life or wearing too little clothes due to my conditioning and music gave me my light bulb moment. Once I peeled beneath the layers of societal judgements, I found the most beautiful people to share the dancefloor with. I connected with them through not our outwardly differences but our commonalities — our sorrows, our grief, our joys, our vulnerabilities.
I was such a shy dancer when I was first began to dance to music — I couldn’t open up thinking people would look and the fact I’ve never done that in my life, ever. Then I saw this girl flailing about in the air with her limbs dominated by the music completely and she just shinned in her utter disregard of people and their thoughts. It just takes that one beautiful woman to show you the immense possibilities of your own being and I took that energy on in stride. I opened myself up gradually and once I started dancing with my whole being, the happiness I felt overpowered the tugging of “What would people think of me?” until gradually it melted away with a good beat and I found myself dancing in all corners of Revs like it was home (which it very much is).
Revs will always remain the place of my metamorphosis. It took me in as a young girl who was shy, thoroughly conditioned to view the world with a lens of degrees of judgements, couldn’t breathe into the moment lest the goals run away from her and transformed me into a woman whose greatest joys come from dancing with the beautiful people of the world & celebrating life and all its vagaries. It gave me a community of people who understood the path I was on and supported me every step of the way, without even knowing it.
Dancing and raving are very close to my heart — for this is how I built myself anew and graciously turned my back on everything that my society taught me. It’s a form of spiritual rebellion and acceptance. It’s a manifestation of my true self.
To all the people I’ve met on the dancefloor and become friends with, I will forever be in debt for all the moments you’ve shared with me and continue to do so. You all have breathed in fresh life into me, without even knowing it. To the dancefloor, you will forever be my place of worship for my wild woman comes alive when she touches you. To my soulmate, Abhay, I fell in love with you more when we started raving together (please find yourselves a partner you can rave with — the only condition there should be when sifting through the bio datas). To all the beautiful women of the world, I hope you all find your dancing feet.
