A Time to Dance (10 page)
Authors: Padma Venkatraman
Walking almost noiselessly,
free
of the clomp of crutches,
walking on my fake leg,
arms free to swing,
I feel as happy
as a pinioned bird whose wings are finally growing.
But every night, before taking off my limb for sleep,
I need to keep my crutches within arm's reach.
I'll never be completely
crutch-free.
Longer
CENTER
Queuing up behind my classmates
the first day of exam week,
I realize no one's staring at me anymore.
Either because I blend in better without my noisy crutches
or because everyone's wrapped up in their own worries
about doing well.
A few of my classmates mutter prayers
as the doors of the long exam hall open.
“Good luck,” Chandra and I wish each other.
Chandra's so anxious about exams her voice shakes,
though, as I tell her, I'm sure she'll excel.
The exam supervisor assigns me a seat
beneath a whirring ceiling fan that does little to ease the heat.
My residual limb itches with sweat.
I click my leg off under the desk,
read the question paper, scribble nonstop.
Three hours later, the exam supervisors announce,
“Drop your pens. Now.”
Hungry for lunch, I spring halfway up on one leg,
forgetting the other's off.
Sway, clutch the desk to keep from falling,
sit down, and click my leg back on.
from the
ENVYING CIRCLE
Elated I'm nobody at school again,
eager to be somebody at dance class again,
I celebrate the end of exam week
by going to see my dance teacher
to prove to myself and to him
that I can keep on dancing.
“Shouldn't you wait for the better leg?” Paati asks.
I have waited
as patiently as a cactus waits for rain in the desert.
Jim will be pleasantly surprised when we meet next and I say,
“I'm dancing already.”
He might even be so happy
he hugs me.
Uday anna's front door is open,
and when I enter,
Uday anna whips around.
“She's walking!” Kamini says.
“Come in. Sit down.” Uday anna motions to a chair.
“We've missed you.”
Missed me so much you didn't visit?
I don't ask.
Insulting him won't get me what I want.
I need to use my anger to fuel my dance.
“I've missed dance,” I tell him. “But now I'm well
enough to start again.”
“You've lost your leg!” He shakes his head
as though I've lost my mind.
“Sir, haven't you heard of Sudha Chandran?
She danced with an old-style Jaipur foot.
And I'm getting a far better prosthesis than hers. Soon.”
“Veda, we must be practicalâ” Uday anna's reluctance
goads me on. I say,
“I
can
dance.
Even on
this
leg.”
Feeling Kamini's eyes on me,
I turn to glare at her.
To my surprise, she shows me the symbol for friendship,
Keelaka hasta mudra
:
the little fingers of her hands bent and locked together.
In her expression I see
no hint of envy.
She must be confident we'll never compete again.
Even the other girls stare at me
expectant,
not jealous.
I'll show them.
I assume the basic Bharatanatyam stance:
half-
mandi
.
Toes turned out sideways, heels slightly apart, I lower my hips, bend my knees,
shape my legs into the sides of a diamond.
I raise my right foot, bring it down,
raise my left foot, bring it down.
Thaiya thai, thaiya thai.
In slowest speed,
I can easily do
the first exercise every Bharatanatyam dancer learns.
Kamini says, “Very good.” The girls clap.
“Veda?” Uday anna says. “You forgot to salute the earth.”
Practice or performance, every Bharatanatyam dancer
must begin and end
every session by apologizing to the earth,
which dancers kick and stamp.
In my hurry to prove myself, I forgot to go through the motions.
“Sorry, Uday anna,” I mumble, “I'll do it now.”
My knees can bend enough to easily assume
the half-sitting posture.
I've never yet
forced them farther outâas far as they need to bend
for the full-sitting posture
the salutation requires.
What a fool I was not to test the limits of my flexibility
before I came.
Too late now.
I lower my torso, feet sideways, heels together.
I need to force my knees to bend out
with heels off the ground, balancing on tiptoe,
lowering my body down all the way
until my buttocks rest on my heels.
As I lower myself,
I lose my sense of center,
overbalance, tumble forward, and
crash-land on the ground.
“Veda!” Uday anna calls out. “Are you hurt?”
The girls cluster around me,
echoing Uday anna's concern.
Kamini helps me up.
“Thanks,” I mutter.
I try once more.
Fall, almost, except Kamini catches me in time.
“No more,” Uday anna says.
Kamini turns away
as though she can't bear to see me so clumsy.
Uday anna puts on his most gentle tone but
some words can't be softened.
“Veda, so many of us
blessed
with able bodies
can't meet the demands
of a professional dancer's life.
Maybe for you
it's time
for a new dream.”
My body hurts from my falls
but Uday anna's words
hurt more.
Kamini follows me out of the classroom,
tears gushing down her cheeks
like a tap turned on full force.
I don't need anyone's pity.
“Don't feel so sorry for me, Kamini.
I'm still your equal.
Even with one leg less.”
“No.” Her lip trembles. “We aren't equal.
You're a better person.”
“I'll be a better dancer again, too,” I say.
She doesn't seem to hear me.
She's sobbing too loudly.
I hate how she's making a scene
out of my misery.
I'm the one who should be crying.
Still, it feels cruel to do nothing but watch
tears wrack her body.
I reach out and pat her back
until she stops shuddering.
Looking at me, she twiddles the free end of her dance sari.
After all these years of ignoring me
she seems to want to start a conversation
though she doesn't know how.
The skin under my leg hurts so much
I'm scared I'll start crying.
I wait for her to say something.
Until I'm too tired to control my tears any longer.
Hoping she can't see them rolling down my cheeks,
I hobble away
as fast as my pain lets me.
I haul myself up the stairs of our apartment building,
nearly blind to Shobana's waving hand
nearly deaf to Mrs. Subramaniam's greetings.
Paati is asleep in her wicker chair, prayer book open on her lap.
Feeling older than Paati,
I walk into our room, take off my leg, towel my limb dry.
My smiley-mouth scar looks bright red
as though it's got lipstick on.
Chafed by my falls, the skin of my limb is raw.
I'll need to use crutches again until it's better.
Paati wakes up when I hobble back into the sitting room.
My voice hollow, I tell her,
“Uday anna doesn't want to teach me anymore.”
Paati doesn't say I told you so,
you should have waited for the new leg.
Not that I'd expect her to.
She says something I expect even less.
“Good.”
“Good?”
“Veda, that dance teacher of yours didn't visit your hospital once.
He's not the only Bharatanatyam teacher.
Not even the best.”
It's the first time I've heard Paati say something insulting
about another person.
I don't argue.
Art
DEFILED
Paati lays a hand on my curls.
“Maybe you should see if Dr. Dhanam has a school.”
“Dr. Dhanam?” Her name sounds vaguely familiar.
Paati has a faraway look in her eyes.
“Dr. Dhanam is a different kind of dancer.
Your
thatha
and I went to watch her once.
She focused on pure
abhinaya
âemotional expression.
A very unusual performance.
When she was done, the audience didn't clap.
Everyone was weeping. With joy.
It felt as though she'd given us a glimpse of heaven.
She danced only to devotional songs
expressing
Bhakthi rasa
, the love of God.
Onstage she becameâinvisibleâ”
“Invisible?” I'm not too sure what Paati means,
but maybe Dr. Dhanam
could teach me to improve my dance
in ways I've ignored.
If she doesn't turn me away.
“I'm not explaining well.” Paati sighs. “How can I?
I never was a dancer.”
The wistfulness in Paati's tone surprises me.
“Did you want to be a dancer, Paati?”
She never hinted at such a desire before.
Or maybe I wasn't listening.
“Dance was too much
for me to want.
It was forbidden to Brahmin girls like me.
Those days,
dance was practiced only by
devadasis
:
women who were supposed to dedicate their dances to God.
Bharatanatyam was meant to be a sacred art,
through which dancers could reach
a higher plane, carrying the audience with them.
They had a measure of freedom,
those women of the dancer caste.
Even wealth of their own.
But they paid a price, a terrible price.
They weren't allowed to marry.
And somehow, somewhere along the way,
society retracted
its promise to respect these women.
They were treated as prostitutes
and their sacred art degraded
into entertainment to please vile men.”