A Time to Dance (22 page)

FINDING
MY WAY

Every time the phone rings, I hope it's Govinda.

It never is.

Every time I enter dance school,

my eyes search for some sign of him.

He's nowhere to be seen.

So I find Radhika,

and ask her to come to the concert with me and Chandra.

Radhika tucks an arm through mine and she

tugs me toward the empty stage under the banyan tree.

“Veda? I've known Govinda all my life.

He's crazy about you.”

“He doesn't act like he cares, Radhika.

I asked him out to the concert

and he turned me down.

He hasn't called since.

Has he given up dance altogether? Is he avoiding me?”

I cross my arms over my chest

like that will help me

hold myself together.

Radhika gives me a quick hug.

“Veda, I think it was good for Govinda that you two fought.

He's sorting out his life right now.

I can't tell you a whole lot—but, yes,

he's in touch with akka still.

He's not given up dance altogether.

And trust me—he really likes you.

So if you like him, too, you'll surely get back together.

Wait and see.”

A GIFT

The smell of semolina and cardamom and melting butter

surprises me when I return home.

Ma is back early, making hot sojji

like Paati used to.

“Thanks, Ma.”

My voice falters.

The spicy-sweet scent

makes me miss Paati.

“Not as good as your grandmother's.”

Ma piles some on a plate.

I taste a spoonful.

“Different.

But also very good.”

Ma gazes at the steam

rising from the cooling mass of semolina.

“I wish your pa and I had been able to work less.

Spend more time with Paati and you.

Your paati was a pillar at the center of our household.

I never saw her death coming.

I let her do too much.

I never saw her age.”

“She wouldn't acknowledge her age either,” I say.

“She never enjoyed people fussing over her.

She would have hated it if you'd tried to make her rest.

She wouldn't have wanted it any other way.”

Ma's eyes are tearful

but she smiles as if I've given her a gift.

SHARING

Ma's made so much sojji there's a huge mound left.

I decide to take some to our neighbors downstairs.

Ringing their doorbell

—after ignoring them all my life—

feels strange.

But Mrs. Subramaniam

welcomes me in

with nothing but friendliness in her tone.

Mr. Subramaniam says, “So nice you're here, Veda.”

And Shobana's eyes light up.

In one corner of the room, inside a glass-fronted cupboard,

I see a beautiful old veena, its seven strings

glinting as though someone just oiled them.

“Do you play the veena?” I ask Shobana.

“Yes, want to listen?” Shobana unrolls a straw mat,

places her veena on the ground,

and sits cross-legged in front of it, caressing the strings.

She loves music as I love dance.

“Shobana, perhaps you can practice what you plan to play

for the boy's family this weekend,” her mother suggests.

She tells me a nice boy

is coming with his family to “see” Shobana

to decide whether she's a good match,

in as old-fashioned a way as in Paati's day.

Even Chandra's family, though traditional enough

to set up a meeting for her sister with a boy they approve of,

will at least give the couple

the freedom to meet alone for some time

and choose whether to marry.

I glance at Shobana's face.

I don't know her enough to tell if she's upset.

From her veena's strings, she plucks

the pensive notes of a sad but hopeful key:

Raagam Hamsaanandi.

Listening to the mood of her music shivering in the room,

I pray that Shobana's husband will be a good, kind man.

And that he'll share her love of music.

SILENCE
SOUNDS

Roshan prances from the classroom, the last child to leave.

As I follow him out, I hear

Govinda say,

“How are you, Veda? How is everything?”

He looks more beautiful

and sounds more caring than ever.

I feel like I've stepped into a strong current of water,

pulling me toward him.

I wonder if Govinda was teased about dance, too.

He probably had to learn to stand up to other boys,

just as Roshan must.

Govinda must have a strength

I never recognized.

I want to voice my thoughts but they stay trapped in my mind.

Chained feet that can't escape.

We fall into that unhappy place

where words are snatched away

and silence feels loud.

“See you later?”

Govinda leaves me

wishing I'd said, “Let's meet.

Soon.”

FROM DANCER
to
DANCE

Radhika and Chandra come with me

to the evening of “transcendental dance”

for which Dhanam akka's given us tickets

in the very front row.

On an open-air stage,

I see a dancer—a very old woman.

She wears long, loose, saffron-colored robes. No jewelry.

White locks wave wildly all about her face.

Her eyes look

at us

at me

at something beyond.

I see nothing but the darkness of the evening.

She sings, “What Your name is, I do not know or care.

Because I feel You everywhere I dance.”

Her notes rise into the air.

She follows her voice with her body,

turning slowly, her arms outstretched like beams of light

reaching upward from the earth.

Her palms carve a staircase into the sky.

I watch her skirts swirling around her ankles,

her hair flying around her face,

whirling faster than the rest of her.

She is the edge of a spinning circle.

She is the stillness at its center.

She is light as a petal rising in a spiraling breeze.

She is a petal dissolving into flower-dust.

Disappearing.

On the stage,

there is no dancer.

There is

only dance.

MY WAY TO PRAY

At home, bowing to my dancing Shiva,

I say silently

the words of the prayer Govinda taught me.

My hands are lips.

My body is voice.

As I shape the words

“the entire universe is His body”

an invisible hand flicks on the switch I've been fumbling with.

In my mind's eye, I see my students.

See the strength, the weakness, the curve of each back,

the slope of each shoulder.

Elbows with a natural bend.

Upper bodies that jut out too far forward

as though they're trying to race ahead of the feet.

No body perfect.

No two children the same size or shape.

But every dancing child a manifestation

of Shiva in human form.

LETTING GO

The morning of my birthday,

I ask Pa to come to the temple with me,

where I've gone with Paati every birthday morning

before this one.

In the vacant lot where the beggar lived,

I see a scrawny boy dressed in a filthy T-shirt.

He tears a thin roti in half,

holds the bread out

to feed a stray dog.

“Pa,” I say, “I don't need to go to the temple.

I want to give something to that child.”

Pa looks at the boy sharing his meager meal.

At home Pa helps me pack a bag

with chappatis, mangoes, bananas.

From under her bed,

I take out Paati's trunk,

still full with all her things.

We give the food and the trunk to the scrawny child.

“Shiva,” I say. “This is for you.”

The child looks puzzled.

“My name isn't Shiva, but thanks for the food.”

He opens the trunk and nuzzles his cheek against a sari.

“I can use this as a sheet,” he says.

Above, I see a silver-gray cloud—

the same shade as Paati's hair.

I let her image go.

And I watch the cloud drift

like incense smoke

rising up

high.