Bhangra to salsa

Bhangra to salsa
Mixing dances freely


My lightness-of-being is so much fun... You attract people when you smile. An Egyptian woman left the scent of her shoulderblades on my fingertips. We figured out the teacher is not Latina but Lebanese, and she kept staring at my partner trying to figure out her ethnicity. The desi woman, usually insecure, turned out a serious dancer, part of a bhangra troupe and sister of a friend.

We four took over a corner of the salsa floor, late, when not so many were there, and did bhangra in a circular rueda-style pattern, the East Asian guy, a good sport, asking, ‘So what are we dancing again?’ The Indians had arrived, we’d planted our flag firmly in the corner, and these girls were serious dancers.

You trust such people more when you connect instantly; I leaned back, way back, and she supported me, all five feet four of pint-sized her, though we’d just met—her sister is my buddy’s fiancee, the Punjabi connection, the bhangra connection, the dance connection, instant trust. The Egyptian danced all night with another Asian. Cultures mixed freely, I’m not Europeo... Arabic trance is stunning, Cheb Faudel did one with a salsa backbone and an Arabic heart, an odd song but it works. The Shakira-lookalike bar waitress smiled at me for the first time, there was a fabulous mambo show where half the troupe was white...

Salsa has, hands down, consistently, the most attractive women in the Bay Area. Not to mention that my office features burnt sienna walls and fresh cut flowers, and I eat walnut-raisin-chaat masala salads and chocolate-banana-coconut crepes every day. Life was so aseptic before Italy

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