It has been nearly twenty years since I asked a girl to dance (been married a long time). Last Saturday I had the honour of taking the hand of a beautiful young girl on the dance floor. The fact that it was my three year old daughter made it even more special.
We were at my cousin’s wedding and little Meri had been chosen to be a flower girl. She performed her duties with real gusto with a little help from her mother. Both looked stunning in their outfits. Little Arun looked great too in a linen trousers and waistcoat.
However the real highlight of the day wasn’t the ceremony or even the meal, it was the promise of Daddy dancing. All week I had been building up her expectations of the majestic, Nureyev meets Travolta moves that her old man was going to pull. Meri was suitably expectant and perhaps even excited.
However excited she was, I was more. Dad dancing at weddings is a fine and long established tradition. Because we have performed our genetic duties and procreated, we have no further need to peacock in front of potential mates. Put simply we are happy enough in our own skin to enjoy making complete arses of ourselves: the more extravagant, exhausting and exuberant the better. And, as my wife will tell you I’m world class when it comes to making an arse of myself.
In years to come I know that my manic gyrations will embarrass my daughter to tears but at the tender age of three I still had a tiny chance that she might think I was cool.
So, as the first bars of Stevie Wonder’s Superstition peeled out (surely, the finest baseline of all time) I grabbed my three year old’s hand and headed out to the middle of the dance floor. I’d like to tell you that we cut a stride like Astaire and Rogers; that we funked-out like the Godfather James Brown; or that Baryshnikov would have watched in wide eyed envy. However, the fact was that we looked like a knackered 42 year old man and his bouncy three year old daughter.
Who cares, we both loved it.
And did she think I was cool?…………………….She may be three but she’s not stupid.
