A Time to Dance

by Padma Venkatraman

  until you’ve worn out your leg.”

  Then he walks us over to a large hall

  filled with his other patients

  who’ve gathered to say good-bye.

  I meet a girl who says she kicks the soccer ball

  better with Jim’s leg than her own.

  A middle-aged woman makes me laugh

  as she expounds the virtues of being one-legged:

  “Cuts pedicure bills in half.”

  At this party, celebrating the legs Jim will leave behind,

  two-legged people are in the minority.

  We amputees are the norm.

  Jim says, “When you’re on your first

  dance tour in America, kiddo,

  call me. I’ll be in the front row.”

  My throat feels

  as rough as his hands

  which hold mine

  for what might be the last time in this life.

  “Thanks, Jim.

  For everything.”

  FEAR

  of

  FALLING

  When I see Govinda, he says, “Sorry we fought.

  I agree you need to try and master

  whatever your leg doesn’t prevent you from doing.

  But I hope someday you’ll learn to move

  the mind and heart, not just your body.”

  We pick up where we left off:

  try to balance in the full-sit,

  try to lunge without stumbling.

  On the ground after my thirteenth fall of the day,

  I pummel the carpet in frustration.

  “You look like my kid sister

  throwing a temper tantrum,” Govinda says.

  Being Govinda’s kid sister is almost as bad

  as being Jim’s “kiddo.”

  “Veda? We’re going to play a game.”

  Now Govinda’s acting as if I am his kid sister.

  “I’m

  not

  a

  kid.”

  Or his sister, but I don’t add that.

  “I’m

  your

  teacher.” Govinda mimics my voice.

  “Listen to me for once.”

  He walks to a far corner of the study,

  sits in the chair by the writing desk,

  stretches his long legs out, and says, “Stand on my feet.”

  “Stand on your feet?”

  “Place your feet sideways over mine, Veda.

  Toes on the floor. Knees bent in the half-sitting pose.”

  “Why?”

  “Please?”

  I position myself the way he wants,

  my toes touching the earth,

  my feet crisscrossing over his,

  my knees bent out to the sides.

  He stretches out his hands and tells me to lay my palms on his.

  We’re touching.

  The entire length of both my palms

  on both of his.

  Music fills my ears—fast, high-pitched,

  like the buzz of a bee.

  We’re closer than I’ve been to any other boy my age.

  And Govinda looks gorgeous,

  loves dance,

  and is an amazing, generous teacher.

  He lifts

  his legs,

  his feet,

  and me

  into the air.

  I shriek like a delighted child.

  Govinda recites the words of a child’s game:

  “Mamarathilla yerade, mangaye parikade.”

  Don’t climb the mango tree, don’t pluck the mango fruit.

  I played this game with Pa, when I was little,

  my tiny feet planted entirely on his,

  his legs lifting me as high as they could,

  bouncing me up and down.

  I’d feel like I was flying.

  Govinda isn’t lifting me nearly as high as Pa did,

  isn’t keeping me in the air as long,

  but I’m older and heavier.

  He must be so strong

  to bear my weight.

  “Want you to enjoy

  feeling your body move,” Govinda says,

  “thought it might help your sense of balance, too.”

  “Again?” I feel my face flush

  with childish excitement.

  Govinda grins. “I thought you weren’t a kid?”

  I push my lips into an exaggerated pout.

  We laugh and he lifts me once more.

  His muscles tighten with strain.

  I shift from side to side,

  stretch,

  rock,

  reorient my body to my new sense of balance.

  Give in to the thrill of almost-falling,

  secure in the shelter of Govinda’s arms.

  DEMONS

  I stand up after falling from my lunge—

  and say, “Again.”

  Govinda shakes his head. “You dance like a demon, Veda.”

  Is he starting another fight?

  But he says, earnestly, “It’s a compliment.”

  “If that’s a compliment,” I say,

  “I’d hate to hear your insults.”

  “Your strength, and only your strength,”

  Govinda clarifies, looking worried,

  “reminds me of the demon

  whom Shiva fought,

  the demon whose strength doubled

  whenever he fell to the ground.”

  “You have to work a lot harder

  on your compliments.”

  “You inspire me to work harder,” he says,

  “on a lot of things.”

  “Such as what?”

  “Such as my life. What I want to accomplish,”

  Govinda explains. “My parents are engineers.

  They want me to take over their engineering firm.

  They don’t understand

  how much I love teaching dance.

  How little I care about making money.”

  “My ma was that way,” I say. “Focused on me being an engineer.

  Until my accident, we fought a lot.

  Don’t know how it would have gone

  if I hadn’t lost my leg.”

  “I know how it would have gone.

  You’d have forced your ma to come around.

  You have no trouble fighting for what you love.

  I’m not a fighter like you are, Veda,

  but I’m hoping some of your spirit will rub off on me.”

  So Govinda does admire me.

  Thath thai thaam, dith thai thaam.

  I kick, sink down into full-mandi, lunge,

  and leap up.

  And land in the standing position.

  “Yes! Yes! Yes!” Govinda punches the air.

  I stand with both feet flat and sure on the floor,

  prepared to try some more,

  but Govinda says, “Maybe we should end with that today?

  You know we’ve started working

  on a dance drama about the Buddha’s life

  and I’m playing the lead?

  Akka wanted to start rehearsing earlier today.”

  “Can I come watch?” I ask.

  “I don’t dare say no to my demon.” Govinda’s tone is affectionate.

  And half teasing.

  His demon?

  This is the first time Govinda’s ever called me “his.”

  My heart skips.

  But maybe I’m making too much out of what Govinda said.

  Maybe a nickname means

  no more to Govinda than it did to Jim.

  A NEW CENTER

  Govinda and I walk


  toward the open-air stage beneath the banyan tree

  where the cast is assembled.

  Dhanam akka arrives.

  She says a small problem has come up.

  There’s a role vacant in the play.

  A student—Renuka—is moving away.

  “Tough role,” someone comments.

  “Wasn’t Renuka playing the old, sick woman Buddha sees

  who’s onstage for three whole minutes?”

  Laughter ripples through the rest of the cast.

  I say, “Please may I have that part?”

  Everyone’s gaze shifts to me.

  On Govinda’s face, I catch a look of admiration.

  I say, “If I keel over, it’ll only add a touch of realism.”

  “You may have that part, Veda.

  And the part of Gautami,” Dhanam akka adds.

  Govinda looks puzzled. “Gautami?”

  “We’ll add a short scene to the play,”

  akka says. “The story of Gautami.

  Veda will play her role as well.”

  A little girl runs up to us.

  “This is my kid sister, Leela,” Govinda says.

  “I’m not a kid,” Leela says,

  hands on hips. “I’m eight and a half.”

  “Namaskaram,” I say, as seriously as I’d greet any adult.

  “It’s very nice to meet you, Leela.”

  The entire cast surrounds us.

  A pretty girl who looks my age, though a lot shorter,

  with dimpled cheeks and large eyes,

  extends her hand in friendship.

  “I’m Radhika,” she says. “Govinda’s neighbor.”

  After years of being envied at my old dance class,

  after weeks of being whispered about at my school,

  I’m encircled

  by welcoming smiles.

  JUST AS WARM

  When I tell them I’ll be onstage soon

  (although with many others, playing just two tiny roles),

  Chandra whoops,

  Paati wraps me in her plush arms,

  Pa lifts me a foot off the ground,

  and

  Ma

  gives me a hug.

  Not nearly as soft as Paati’s

  but just as warm.

  NOT EVEN

  an

  OLD WOMAN

  My first part in the play should be easy.

  All I have to do is hobble onstage with a cane.

  But I don’t even play an old woman well enough

  to please Dhanam akka.

  “Buddha was born a prince,” she says. “It was prophesied

  He could rule the whole world.

  Yet when He saw your plight,

  He gave up His entire kingdom,

  His wealth, His power,

  His family.

  You made Him yearn to seek a way

  to end all human suffering.

  Your role in the play represents the pain of all humanity.

  The sight of you—poverty-stricken,

  overcome by age and illness—

  turned Buddha from a mere man

  into a reincarnation of God.”

  According to Paati’s story there were

  four sights that moved Buddha:

  one old person, one afflicted with illness, a corpse,

  a monk whose face glowed peace.

  But I don’t correct akka.

  My second role is even harder.

  In my second role, I am Gautami,

  a woman who came to the Buddha

  with her dead son in her arms,

  begging Him to bring her son back to life.

  Wiping the tears from her cheeks, Buddha asked her

  to bring Him a mustard seed from the home

  of a family that had never suffered.

  Gautami left her son’s body at His feet

  and went from house to house,

  searching for a family that had not known pain.

  No family could give her a mustard seed

  because every family had seen sorrow.

  Instead, they gave her comfort and shared tales of loss.

  Speaking and listening to stranger after suffering stranger,

  Gautami saw that death came to everyone

  and she accepted the tragedy that had struck her life.

  Returning to where her son’s body rested,

  she felt embraced by the compassion in His eyes.

  Knowing that her son’s soul lived on,

  Gautami cremated her son’s body.

  To play Gautami’s role, I must show

  not only pain but also acceptance and peace.

  After rehearsal,

  Radhika, who plays the Buddha’s kind stepmother,

  pulls me aside.

  “Akka’s hard on all of us

  during rehearsals.

  Once, she yelled at me ten minutes straight,” she says.

  Radhika is sweet to try comforting me.

  But though I sincerely thank her,

  I still feel frustrated at myself

  as I trudge down the drive.

  Govinda catches up with me.

  “Veda, are you all right?”

  “I don’t know what akka wants of me.

  I can’t tell what I’m doing wrong.”

  “Akka thinks of dance as a way to help our souls progress

  through our many incarnations.

  She wants us to use dance to engage

  with our deepest emotions,

  not to escape ourselves and the world.

  She says we can learn

  about Karma and acting rightly in this life

  through the characters we become in a dance-drama.”

  Govinda’s feet keep pace with my mismatched pair

  all the way to the bus stop.

  More than his words, I’m comforted by the sight

  of his feet, waiting alongside mine,

  until my bus arrives.

  THE PAIN

  of

  LOSING

  At home, I find Paati in her wicker chair, rubbing her temples,

  looking as though she has a headache.

  I fetch the sesame oil to massage away her pains,

  the way she’d do mine.

  “Akka says I need to show the pain of humanity better,

  though I’m only onstage for a few minutes in the first role.

  And she cast me as Gautami—I don’t know why,

  given she isn’t pleased

  with how I play the first role.”

  Paati says, “Losing someone you love

  probably isn’t so different from losing a part of your body.

  I doubt many other students

  know pain as well as you do.”

  THE THIRD EYE

  Dhanam akka says she

  wants me to work on my part.

  With her. Alone.

  Akka leads me to the hall where we first met

  and motions me to a chair.

  She touches the red dot at the center of her forehead.

  “Veda, do you know why we wear a potu?”

  Her tone is gentle.

  And the last thing I expected

  was for her to ask me a question.

  I’m too surprised to answer.

  “The dot symbolizes your third eye,” she says.

  “We wear it to remind ourselves

  to look with knowledge and compassion,

  as a true guru would.

  When we use our inner eye,

  we see with our minds and our hearts.

  We see truth; we see beauty; we see
Shiva.

  Inside you, Veda, I sense the flame of extraordinary courage,

  but not enough compassion.

  If you must dance, the way I want my students to,

  you must learn to be compassionate.

  To yourself

  and to others.

  Acknowledge your pain.

  Allow yourself to feel your loss.”

  I don’t mind pushing my body to test my balance.

  I don’t want to push my mind

  back into that cold pit where the accident led me.

  But if that’s what it takes to dance again,

  I’ll make myself relive

  the tree coming closer

  the smells of burnt rubber, of vomit, of blood.

  Screaming

  silence.

  Shivering, almost doubled over, I take a step

  down into the space where light is an enemy

  but not even darkness shrouds my terror.

  Another step

  into hospital corridors

  winding like snakes.

  I enter my writhing mass of fear, horror, desperation.

  And stay there.

  Tears streak down my cheeks.

  Seen through tears my new foot seems softer,

  my five stiff toes blurred at the edges.

  Akka stretches her arms out toward me.

  And I realize

  she’s showing me I’m strong enough to reenter the pit of despair

  because she wants to help me

  climb all the way out.

  DRAGONS

  and

  GECKOS

  Govinda is waiting for me

  on the empty stage under the banyan tree.

  He asks, “How did your session with akka go?”

  “Draining and strengthening. Both.

  Thanks for waiting for me, but I know it’s late, Govinda.

  I understand if you don’t have time to work with me today.”

  “You understand?” His voice

  sounds as rich and deep when he teases

  as it does when he’s serious. “Miracles do happen.

  My demon is softening. She’s understanding.”

  “I thought I was your little sister. Not your demon.”