Authors: Padma Venkatraman
A Time to Dance (4 page)
Pa said,
after our pilgrimage to the temple of the dancing God,
I tried balancing one-leggedâimitating Shiva's poseâ
over and over until my bruised skin
was as green as Goddess Meenakshi's.
So he took me to Uday anna.
Uday anna drummed his hairy fingers on his desk,
worrying I was too young.
Pa said, “Test her.
See how well
she keeps time.”
Intrigued, Uday anna sat cross-legged on the floor.
Tapped out the simplest beat:
thaiya thai, thaiya thai,
one two, one two,
right foot, left foot, right foot, left foot.
My feet followed his rhythm.
He set more complex steps.
My feet matched his tempo.
To Pa, he whispered,
“Yes.”
As a child,
the rhythmic syllables of Bharatanatyam beats
spoke a magical language that let me
slip back
into the awe I first felt
when I touched the celestial dancers' carved feet
on our pilgrimage to the temple of the dancing God.
Maybe my dance lost depth
as I gained height.
Then
as I danced
the world grew big, wondrous, beautiful.
Time melted.
I disappeared.
Now
I twirl so fast
the world vanishes.
Only I exist.
Then
everywhere, in everything, I heard music.
Music I could dance to.
Now
is the music I long for most
the music of applause?
Our van rampages down the potholed road
like a runaway temple elephant.
The driver presses the red rubber horn, trumpeting it nonstop,
like every other insane driver in Chennai city
always in a hurry.
Usually it drives me crazy, the useless sound of horns,
the unnecessary speed.
Tonight, the roller-coaster ride provides the exhilaration I need
to stop brooding.
Strangers showered me with praise.
Boys craved
my attention.
Who cares what Kamini says?
I clutch the seat in front of me,
pretend I'm a kid on the giant wheel at the Chennai city fair,
pretend I'm flying
every time the van hits a pothole and throws me into the air.
The driver
swerves.
Monstrous headlights from another vehicle
glare at us.
Brakes screech. Metal grinds against metal.
My body careens sideways.
I see the trunk of a pipul tree looming.
A gray giant
coming closer.
Closer.
“Shiva! Shiva!” someone screams.
A man's voice
rasps out a swearword.
“Stop! Brake!” Uday anna shouts.
I hear Kamini's terrified wail. “Aiyo! Aiyo!”
Shattered shards of glass
scatter moonlight.
Pain
sears through me
as though elephants are spearing my skin with sharp tusks
and trampling over my right leg.
The seat in front, torn and twisted,
pins my body down.
Uday anna struggles to lift the crumpled wreckage
of the mud-spattered seat.
The drummer tries to wrench
my trapped body free.
Kamini stares
down at me, shudders,
turns away, retching.
I smell
vomit.
“Don't look,” Uday anna cries, laying a hand across my eyes.
Through his fingers I see
shredded skin, misshapen muscles. Mine.
Feel sticky blood pooling
below my right knee.
Pain swings me away.
The stench of burnt rubber.
Flashing lights. The hysterical wail of an ambulance.
Garbled voices.
Cold. Mangled sounds made by masked figures.
Darkness.
Each breath is an effort.
Every part of my body aches.
The air stinks of ammonia.
I push my heavy eyelids open.
Above me
patches of paint peel off the ceiling.
Bandages scratch at my skin.
An IV tube sticks into my left arm.
I struggle to sit up.
“Let me do that for you. Lie back.”
A nurse
starts cranking up the back of my
hospital bed.
Against the wall, Ma sits dozing.
Beyond Ma, a glint of steelâ
a wheelchair.
Fear slices through my dull brain.
No. The wheelchair
cannot be mine.
I see an ugly bulge under the sheet covering my legs.
Yank off the sheet with what's left
of my strength.
My right leg ends
in a bandage.
Foot, ankle, and nearly half of my calf,
gone.
Chopped
right off.
“No!” The nurse pulls my sheet
back over the leftover
bit of my right leg.
But I still see the
nothingness
below my right knee.
Ma jerks
awake,
leaps up from her chair,
runs toward me.
Her eyes scared as a child's,
she clutches the metal rail
of my hospital bed.
“I'm so sorry,” she says.
“About
everything.”
I turn my face away from Ma,
away from the cold metal gleam of the wheelchair
in this puke-green hospital ward.
Outside the window, I see the gnarled trunk
of a huge banyan tree.
Its thick branches sprout roots that hang down
shaggy as Shiva's hair.
Wish I could slide out like a cobra.
Hide amid those unkempt roots.
“You were in a van,” the nurse says. “The driver was speeding.
A truck crashed into the van and ran it off the road.
Your driver hit a tree. He died.
Remember any of that?”
A pipul tree's pale trunk
coming closer and closer.
Screaming.
The smell of vomit and blood.
“Your surgeon, Dr. Murali,
did all he could to save your foot.
He is a great surgeon.
He tried to save it but
he had to amputate.
Your foot was
too far gone.”
My hands thrash at the sheets.
I feel the nurse's vise-grip around my wrists.
“Calm down. No need
to panic. You're young. You'll recover in no time.
Dr. Murali even had a physiatrist advise him during the surgery
on making the best cut
so an artificial leg would easily fit.
You're lucky to have Dr. Murali for a surgeon.”
Lucky?
Ma reaches for my hand, whispering my name.
I squeeze my eyelids tight. Shut out everything.
No no no no no.
I need to get away.
Can't.
Trapped.
FILLS
Pa comes in. Holds my hand.
His fingers are wilted stalks.
Drooping.
Tell me it's a bad dream, Pa,
please.
“Just stepped out for a cup of coffee. Didn't mean to leave you.
Didn't want you to find out this wayâwe
âtheyâtriedâ” he chokes.
He moves his lips.
No words come.
My eyes are dry sockets in a skull.
Pa and I share
emptiness.
in
EVERYTHING
Everywhere, in everything, I used to hear music.
On sunny days when I was little, after Ma and Pa left for work,
we'd walk to the fruit stall down the road, Paati and I.
There was music
in the drone of horseflies
alighting on mangoes ripening in the heat.
Each day of the monsoon season
the rhythm of rain filled me.
Rain on the roof, rain drizzling
into rainbows of motor oil spilled by scooters and rickshaws,
silver sparks of rain skipping
across waxy banana leaves.
Every morning I'd wake to the
krr-krr-krrk
of Paati
helping Ma make breakfast in the kitchen,
grating slivers of coconut for a tangy chutney.
I'd dance
thakka thakka thai
,
into scents of cumin, coriander, and red chili.
Wrap my arms around Paati's plush body.
At night I'd hear music
in the buzz of hungry mosquitoes
swarming outside my mosquito net,
in the whir of the overhead fan
swaying from the ceiling.
In the gray-green hospital room
silence
stretches.
Light fades. Night falls.
But darkness doesn't shroud the sight
of my half leg
from my mind's unblinking eye.
Under the sheets my hands reach
like a tongue that can't stop playing with a loose tooth.
Over and over the rough bandages my fingers run,
trying to smooth over
reality.
In the morning I feel Paati's hands kneading my temples.
Not even her touch soothes me.
Murmuring a prayer,
she places the bronze idol of Shiva I won at the competition
on my bedside table.
“Mukam karothi vachalam; pangum langayathe girim.”
God's grace moves the mute to eloquence
and inspires the lame to climb mountains.
I glance at my dancing Shiva,
His left leg raised parallel to the earth,
His right leg crushing the demon of ignorance,
His inner hands juxtaposed, palms flat,
His outer hands
holding aloft the fire of creation and destruction,
and a drum
keeping time to the music of His eternal dance.
I try to repeat Paati's prayer. I strain my ears to hear
His music.
It feels like Shiva destroyed my universes of possibility,
like He's dancing
on the ashes
of my snatched-away dreams.