By Usha Wagle Gautam

Prabin Rai, who goes by his popular name Jerry Rai, has been a dance instructor at Nepalese Cultural Center (NCC) for years now.
Also serving as NCC’s vice-president, Rai instructs deeply-rooted Nepalese folk steps to a Friday morning class. Fifteen female students listen intently to his instructions, trying to emulate his moves. Holding a degree in Dane and Music, and a specialist in a range of ethnic and modern dances, Rai is a great admirer of Nepalese arts and culture.
Before coming to Qatar as a sales executive, Rai was a dance teacher at a middle school in Nepal and ran the Mirmire Dance Institute in Kathmandu. His love for dance was evident from an early age, as he copied steps from music videos and films. At 16, he attended a training school.
Even though his work in Kathmandu was widely appreciated, it did not yield a sufficient monetary return. As the eldest son who had to pay his poor family’s bills, Rai was forced to abandon his dream and come to Doha on a visa sent by his uncle.
He remembers some of his students crying when he told them he was leaving. The first few months in Doha were hard — he would miss his students and his former job. His schedule here was unchanging and mundane.
Then he was introduced to NCC by an acquaintance. NCC saw his dancing skills and took him on as a dance instructor. He has been teaching dance to students at the NCC since 2011.
“When students learn once a week, they often forget and have to make revisions every time,” Rai says. To minimise this, Rai turned to recording his students while they practice. “Students see themselves dancing and can practice at home.”
His students have a wide variety of tastes, ranging from classical to contemporary dancing. Many of his students have performed at various Nepalese cultural events all over Qatar — he is the first one to be contacted whenever someone needs to plan entertainment for an event. And he does not charge a penny for his services.
Rai says he has travelled to almost every nook and cranny of Nepal — he has been to all of the country’s 75 districts to perform and teach dancing. He has also served as a judge for multiple dance competitions and reality shows, including the Non-Resident Nepalese Association (Qatar) Dancing Star 2013.
His wife, Kanchan, who landed Qatar in 2013 is also actively involved in NCC and has learnt dancing from him. She frequently performs at various cultural programmes too and gets to meet him once a week, on Fridays as both live separately in Doha, in their company accommodations. They come together at NCC on Friday, teaching students about the various forms of dancing.
Rai is also the general secretary of International Artists’ Forum (IAF), an umbrella organisation of Nepalese artists across the globe. The two plan to stay in Qatar for another five years — saving up enough to send their nine-year-old daughter to a medical school — after which they will go back to Nepal and open a music and dance company in Kathmandu. Because, in the end, it is all about dance for Rai: “I can forget everything but dance.”