Air Force Ones

At 7:00 the children start to trickle in the courtyard at the Air Force School just off of Lodi Road in Delhi. Dark-blue pants for the boys, skirts for the girls and azure-colored button-up shirts for all. Organic clusters of two to twenty form, fall apart and reform. From my vantage point on a neighboring roof it has the appearance of delicately flagellating pond life under the microscope. An imposing ten foot wall forms the front of the stage and is breached in four places by stairs leading up to the school or down to the courtyard depending on which way one is headed. Just before 7:30 the headmaster, dressed in freshly-pressed khaki pants and starched white oxford with blood-red tie, approaches the microphone for a sound check. "Yes? Yes? Okay? Yes? Hello? Hello?" Levels are adjusted until his voice is suitably imposing and then he starts barking orders. "Form up! Get into your lines! Hurry up, there! Hurry up! Into your lines! Hurry up!" The blue globules of students get drawn into wavy strings before tightening with parallel precision. A group of thirty uniformed girls take up position behind the headmaster who moves to the threshold of the stage to inspect his charges. This neatly arrayed chorus leads the other students in a patriotic number before the headmaster ominously retakes his position at the microphone.

"One of your classmates was feeling very smart and decided to violate school policy. He will not be joining you today. He will not be coming to classes tomorrow, the day after tomorrow, or next week. Those of you are feeling his fun was commendable will be advised that he has been expelled forever from the school. I want all of you to think about that long and hard. Your actions reflect on the good name of the school and we will allow our reputation to be tarnished by the foolish acts of a few. I want all of you to think about that today."

A synthesizer is brought onto the stage and set to straddle two impressive loud speakers. A senior male student approaches the keyboard with the solemn comportment of a concert pianist. I am expecting to hear another patriotic tune, but am flabbergasted to recognize the opening strains of the Final Countdown. Midway through the song the musician punches a button to activate a pulsating percussive accompaniment. He plays the song in its entirety with the passion of a robot while his classmates must remain frozen in formation. The comic effect is nonpareil.

After the song is complete the students are channeled into four lines of equal length and fed into the staircases leading to the school. The headmaster continues to harangue the rank and file with punctuated severity. "Stay in your assigned order. Keep your lines. Keep your lines! Heads up! You keep in mind what happens to rule breakers. Single file! Eyes forward!" In the gaps between his commands the clip-clop of thick-heeled shoes echo throughout the courtyard.

No more than five minutes elapses before a mop-topped man attired from head to toe in bleached-white prep wear sashays onto center stage with a portable cassette deck in hand. As he endeavors to connect his stereo to the amplifiers a trickle, then stream of pre-teens refill the courtyard, shepherded by three sari-clad staffers. Bright-white shorts for the boys, bright-white pleated skirts for the girls and black belts and white polo shirts for all. The children are redistributed between columns until all are of equal length and perfectly spaced at arm's length. Three consecutive lines are anchored by identically obese Sikh boys in blue turbans. Shorts pulled high over the waistline, they bear the telltale hallmark of the worldwide fraternity of nerds. Two girls ascend the steps to the stage and take up positions to either side of the instructor. I am prepared to watch a regimented drill in physical education befitting of a hard-nosed military school.

With Broadway-like flair, the instructor whirls away from his cassette deck to face the students and flicks his collar up a la Richard Simmons. The tape begins with an infectious maraca setting the rhythm to light raps on the snare drum. The beat is immediately familiar, but I am unable to place it. The instructor stands with one arm akimbo and the other raised skyward to snap out the beat as he bounces on the toes of his shoes. When the taped vocals start all present launch into choreographed routine. Simultaneously some three hundred students jump, twist, turn and gyrate to The Ketchup Song by Las Ketchup.

(To come anywhere close to appreciating the remainder of this narrative as much as I did in watching it unfold, you are encouraged to download The Ketchup Song mp3 from Limewire or a similar peer-to-peer file sharing system.)

Friday night it's party time
Feeling ready looking fine,
Viene diego rumbeando,
With the magic in his eyes
Checking every girl in sight,
Grooving like he does the mambo

The Sikh boys perform their steps one to two beats behind the rest of the group. They watch those in front and ape their moves with sluggish imprecision. As the body copies one body posture the eyes and brain are already registering another and the result is stumbling mayhem. The instructor himself executes the moves with a precious banality that is completely devoid of soul.

He's the man alli en la disco,
Playing sexy felling hotter,
He's the king bailando et ritmo ragatanga,
And the dj that he knows well,
On the spot always around twelve,
Plays the mix that diego mezcla con la salsa,
Y la baila and he dances y la canta

In stark contrast a comely girl in the second row is singular in her movements. How is it that one in three hundred identically dressed children can stand out like a turtledove among house pigeons? Most of us emerge from the womb kicking and flailing with bodies slightly tight around the hips or pinching at the shoulders. Others are fairly comfortable in their skin and may go on to excel in athletics or live to be one hundred three. But it is only one in three hundred thousand whose clay is cast so perfectly that her movements manifest something of the heavens in corporeality.

Asereje ja de je de jebe tu de jebere seibiunouva,
Majavi an de bugui an de buididipi,
Asereje ja de je de jebe tu de jebere seibiunouva,
Majavi an de bugui an de buididipi

I cast my gaze hither and thither among the students, but it is drawn back to the dancing prodigy time and time again. She has taken the ridiculous, vaguely calisthenic movements of the routine and woven them into effortless grace and seamless beauty. There are none of the slight hesitations that would betray self-consciousness – she has crossed the line where the dancer becomes the Dance. She dances for no one, but for the pleasure of the Universe herself.

Many think its brujeria,
How he comes and disappears,
Every move will hypnotize you,
Some will call it chuleria,
Others say that its the real,
Rastafari afrogitano

I am twelve again and hopelessly infatuated with the vision of physical perfection that is the eleven-year old boogie queen. She was born to dance and is as free as a bird on the wing.

Asereje ja de je de jebe tu de jebere seibiunouva,
Majavi an de bugui an de buididipi,
Asereje ja de je de jebe tu de jebere seibiunouva,
Majavi an de bugui an de buididipi