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He sat there as he watched the kids on the playground suddenly start dancing. It looked like one of the kids was able to get his mom’s phone to the area that day and he started playing some dance music. Kids started shouting in excitement as soon as they saw the phone and asked how the kid had got the phone. He said it was his mom’s. Once the music started, though, shouting stopped and dancing started. Now, all of them were dancing and laughing their heart out.

He sat there and watched them.

One of the kids accidentally looked towards his direction when he was dancing. He didn’t care at first. The kid did not either. He got back to dancing. But for some reason, he looked at him again. And then back to dancing. This went on for a while.

He sat there and watched them.

But he also got a bit curious. Why was the kid still looking at him? Oh no, now he was walking towards him. He didn’t like this so much. He thought he never enjoyed interaction with kids and always got a bit nervous. But if he walked away now, it would be weird. So,

He sat there and still watched the kids dancing, trying to avoid making eye contact with the kid walking towards him.

But the kid arrived and asked the question that he would never prefer to be asked:

‘Hey, do you want to come and dance with us?’

‘Hmm, maybe not.’

But the kid held his hand and forced him out of the bench he was sitting at. He did not show resistance to or shouted at the kid because he thought it would be weird in the midst of so many people. This kid would certainly make a scene if he did that. His teenage spirit could not handle that. So, he was now dancing with the kids.

That was when he was finally able to get rid of the effect of the humiliation he had felt as a kid when he danced in front of everyone. He was dancing funny and weird but that woman still did not have the right to humiliate him in front of everyone. He had felt his world shatter. Why had she done that to him?

Looking back at all these now, he wondered whether he would be as big a dancer as he is now if he had not been humiliated and stopped dancing for some years. If that had not happened, maybe dancing would just be an activity that you do in certain occasions, as it is for many people. Not something that he would develop passion for.

He did not know the answer. What he knew was that dancing was his life now. So he went on and turned on the music and let himself into its flow once again.