In 2001, I performed my final university dance at the University of California, Riverside (UCR), not knowing it would be the last time I would step on stage for the next 20 years. Dance had always been a part of me, but life slowly began to move me in different directions. Looking back now, this journey across the UCR stage holds a deeper meaning than I ever understood at the time.
My journey on the UCR stage did not begin in college. It began earlier.
In 1993, while I was still in high school, I performed a solo dance and a duet with my sister at a Baisakhi night. That same year, we performed our duet “Miran Ne Aj Billo Nachna” at UCR, where my sister was in her junior year. I was only a junior in high school, but stepping onto that stage felt like something bigger had begun.
I never had any formal training, and neither did my sister. We self-choreographed all our dances, learning from Bollywood films and gradually making the movements, expressions, and emotions our own.
In my senior year of high school, we returned to the UCR stage to perform the duet “Doven Jaaniyaan.” I later performed that same piece as a solo at my high school. I still remember bringing a carpet from home so I could dance properly on the pavement. That moment has stayed with me.
When I began university, my journey on the UCR stage continued to grow. This part of my journey came after my high school years, which I’ve shared here.
In my first year, I performed two dances in a group of three, “Maayen Ni Maayen” and “Athraan Baras Ki.” My sister led one piece, and I led the other. For the first time, I fully felt the stage. The combination of acting, dancing, and expression felt like being part of a film, and I loved it.
In my second year, my sister and I returned once again to perform together, this time to the Punjabi song “London Patola Ek Aayeya.” Soon after, she moved on to medical school, and I continued performing on my own.
In my junior year, I performed a Punjabi solo to the classical “Mera Long Gawacha,” which remains one of my most memorable performances.
In my final year of university, I performed a solo to “Chudiyan Khanak Gayeen.” I still remember lip-syncing during that performance. It was one of the first times I fully connected dance with expression in a solo. I did not realize then how meaningful that moment would become later in my life.
Two years later, while attending the Anderson Graduate School of Management at UCR for my MBA, I returned to the same stage. Not many return to perform on an undergraduate stage during a master’s program, but for me, it felt like home. I performed “Chudiyan Khanak Gayeen” again during my first year of my MBA.
That performance became a quiet closing to a chapter that had begun years earlier on the same stage.
I recently shared this performance again on my social media, not just as a memory, but as a reminder of a journey that would one day find its way back to me.
You can watch the full performance on YouTube, and shorter versions across my social platforms below.
Full Dances:
Social Platforms: