At 23, Monica Sharma is a Rehabilitation Therapy Assistant at Calgary and has a full blown passion of dancing. One would imagine that dancing is her way of venting out; however that’s not the case at all. “I don’t find my job stressful at all, in fact I incorporate it in my work to have fun with people I work with,” she says passionately. Monica is part of a 14 member bhangra team at Calgary. The team is called Top Notch (read nach [dance]) Team.
Bold and beautiful, she has been born and raised in Regina, Saskatchewan, and moved to Calgary after graduating as she found a job. Her life has been pretty much non-stressful when it came to balancing between home life and society in general. “My parents evolved with time,” so there were compromises on arguments on sleepovers at friends’ and how late to stay out. She has grown up understanding and knowing about Indian cultural values and going to mandir every weekend; and celebrating Christmas and Halloween.
One would expect that Monica would be into Western rock music and dancing to the tunes of Canadian rock music, but she chose bhangra as her dance genre. It comes naturally to her and watching Monica dance at one of the events made me think that you have to understand lyrics and the beat of South Asian music to dance so amazingly.
So this is about culture.
How about politics?
Well she inherits her father’s view on politics who is a die-hard Liberal, and therefore, she too is Liberal. When she moved to Alberta, she heard that there would be some layoffs in Alberta Health department, however it never happened, and she hasn’t been affected by economic downturn.
But she has her youth’s perks to. She is very much into her blackberry and not so much into Facebook craze. She spends only an hour or two on her PC or goes online when she is bored.
Her conversations with her girl friends lean toward marriage and boys. Arranged marriages are seen as ‘forced’ in North American society. For her, however, it’s about who finds the right guy for her first: she or her parents. But “to keep culture and traditions alive, it has to be a South Asian guy.”
Nonetheless she is not a feminist. This talented young woman feels that there should be equality and that there are certain things that men can do better than women; and then there are certain things that women can do better than men.
Monica is looking into higher education in community rehabilitation because that’s what Monica wants to do herself and that is what her family wishes for too.
When it comes to dancing, though, there is a stigma attached to girls. Monica has never felt it. She believes it depends on “how you carry yourself.”
By: Harminder Kaur
