A Time to Dance

Also by Padma Venkatraman

Island's End

Climbing the Stairs

NANCY PAULSEN BOOKS

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Copyright © 2014 by Padma Venkatraman.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Venkatraman, Padma.

A time to dance / Padma Venkatraman.

pages cm

Summary: In India, a girl who excels at Bharatanatyam dance refuses to give up after losing a leg in an accident.

[1. Novels in verse. 2. Dance—Fiction. 3. Amputees—Fiction. 4. People with disabilities—Fiction. 5. India—Fiction.] I. Title.

PZ7.5.V46Ti 2014

[Fic]—dc23

2013024244

ISBN 978-0-698-15826-9

As this book neared completion, I was struck by the story of a dancer
—Adrianne Haslet-Davis—
who became a below-knee amputee as a result of the Boston Marathon bombing. This work is dedicated to the courageous people I've been privileged to meet and those whom I'll never be honored to know, whose spirit triumphs over terror and tragedy.

PROLOGUE

TEMPLE
of the
DANCING GOD

Clinging to the free end of Ma's sari,

I follow the tired shuffle of other pilgrims' feet

into the cool darkness of the temple,

where sweat-smell mingles with the fragrance of incense.

Pa's hand rests heavy on my curls.

The priest drops a pinch of sacred ash into Ma's palm

and she smears it on my forehead

above the red dot

she paints between my eyebrows each morning.

I push through the rustling curtain of women's saris

and men's white
veshtis
,

tiptoeing to see better.

A bronze statue of Shiva,

four-armed God of dance, glistens.

He balances on His right leg alone,

His left raised parallel to earth,

the crescent moon a sparkling jewel He wears

in His matted hair.

Carved high into the temple's granite walls

are other celestial dancers.

“Pa?” I tug at my father's shirt.

He lifts me onto his shoulders

but the sculptures are

too far away to touch.

After the crowd empties out

into the sunshine of the temple courtyard

I, alone,

slip back

into the soft blackness of the empty hall,

spot a stepladder propped against

my dancer-filled wall,

and climb. Up, up, up, to the very top.

Leaning forward, I trace

dancing feet

with my fingertips.

“What are you doing, little one?” A priest

steadies my ladder. “You don't have to climb ladders

to reach God.

He dances within all He creates.

Come down.”

I run my fingers

along the curve

of each stone heel.

The priest's laugh rumbles up into my ears.

“Place a hand on your chest.

Can you feel Shiva's feet moving inside you?”

I press on my chest. Feel bony ribs. Under them, thumping,

faint echoes of a dance rhythm:
thom thom thom.

Shiva outside me, gleaming in the temple sanctum.

Yet also leaping, hidden inside my body.

“God is everywhere. In every body. In everything.

He is born at different times, in different places,

with different names.

He dances in heaven as Shiva, creator of universes;

He lived on earth as Buddha,

human incarnation of compassion;

and as you can see, He moves within you.

Now, please, come down, little one.”

I'm halfway down the ladder when Pa and Ma rush back in.

Pa prostrates, laying his squat body flat on the stone floor, thanking God.

Ma thanks the priest,

words of gratitude bursting from her like sobs.

“Searched—the other four temples—couldn't find her—

so scared—what if she'd left the temple complex—

run outside the walls—into the city—”

As we leave, Ma's thin fingers pinch my shoulders

tight as tongs roasting rotis over an open flame.

Pa scolds, “You could have burst your head

climbing a ladder like that!”

My head is bursting

with images

of stone dancers come alive, the tips of their bare toes twirling,

with sounds

of the tiny bells on their anklets twinkling

with music.