Chapter 16: Nandini

# Chapter 16: Nandini

## The Stage

The ghungroo bells were heavy around her ankles, the brass cold against her skin.

The backstage was a tent. A white shamiana erected behind the stage, the shamiana, which was the Indian event's universal structure: four poles, white cloth, rope, the construction that Indian weddings and Indian festivals and Indian political rallies shared, the sharing, which was shamiana's democracy: the shamiana did not distinguish between a wedding and a dance competition. The shamiana covered both with the same white cloth.

Inside the shamiana: twelve couples. Twelve couples being the competition's participants, twelve couples who had registered, paid the ₹2,000 entry fee, and who were now in various stages of preparation: stretching, practising, arguing, panicking, the various stages being the backstage's emotional weather, the weather ranging from the calm couple in the corner (experienced Kathak dancers, she could tell: the calm that was marker of experience: experienced dancers were calm because they had been here before, the before reducing the anxiety, the before (preparation that no amount of first-time p)ractice could replicate) to the frantic couple near the entrance (their music was on a pen drive and the pen drive was not working and the not-working was producing the familiar panic that technology failure produced in the moments before a live performance: everything is fine except the one thing that is not fine and the one thing that is not fine is the thing that the performance depends on).

She and Ishan were couple number seven. Seventh in the order. Seventh meaning: six couples before them, six performances to watch, six sets of seven minutes to wait through, the waiting — the waiting, which was particular torture of the performance queue: you knew your time was coming but you did not know what the time would bring and the not-knowing was the anxiety and the anxiety was the thing that sat in your stomach like undigested paratha.

She was dressed. The black lehenga. The amber Banarasi dupatta. The kajal. The high bun. The ghungroo, the fifty ankle bells on each foot, tied with the red thread that the Chowk shopkeeper had included, the red thread, the traditional tying, the traditional being: red for auspiciousness, red for performance, red for the colour that said this is important.

The ghungroo were. The ghungroo were the addition. The addition that she had not included in the original choreography. The addition that she had decided on three days ago. Three days ago being the day she had gone to Chowk and found the ghungroo shop and held the bells in her hand and heard them and the hearing had produced the decision: these will be on my feet on the stage.

The decision was Nani's decision. Nani had worn ghungroo for every performance; one hundred bells, fifty on each ankle, the hundred bells producing the sound that Nandini had grown up hearing: the jingle of metal that accompanied every tat, every tukda, every toda, every chakkar, the jingle — the Kathak's secondary percussion, the secondary —: tabla was primary, ghungroo was secondary, and the secondary was the dancer's own instrument, the instrument that the dancer wore, the instrument that was part of the body.

She had not worn ghungroo in fifteen years. The not-wearing being the same as the not-dancing: the absence that grief produced. But today — today the absence would end. Today the bells would be on her feet. Today the bells would ring.

Ishan was beside her. Ishan in the black sherwani, the silver buttons catching the shamiana's fluorescent light, the catching producing tiny sparks that moved when he moved, the moving, : nervous. He was nervous. He was nervous and the nervous was visible in his hands, his hands that were not holding attar bottles, his hands that were empty and that were doing the thing that empty hands did when the person was nervous: fidgeting. The fidgeting — the hands' attempt to find something to hold, the something that was usually a glass bottle and that was now: nothing.

She took his hand. She took his right hand, the hand that would be on her waist during the performance, the hand that would apply the rose attar during the finale, and she held it. The holding: the partner's steadying. The steadying that said: I am here. Your hand is in my hand. The nervousness is yours but the holding is ours.

His hand was cold. The cold; December's contribution and the nervousness's contribution, the cold of a December evening in Lucknow plus the cold of a man whose blood had retreated from his extremities because the nervous system had redirected the blood to the core, the core, which was body's emergency centre, the centre that the body prioritized when the body perceived threat, the threat: a stage. A thousand people. Three judges. Seven minutes.

"Tum theek ho?" she asked.

"Nahi," he said.

The honesty. The honesty that she had learned to expect from him: the honesty of a man who said I don't know when he didn't know and no when the answer was no and yes when the answer was yes.

"Theek hai," she said. "Main bhi theek nahi hoon."

That's fine. I'm not fine either.

"Sach?"

Really?

"Haan. Mere pet mein, mere pet mein woh feeling hai jo exam se pehle hoti thi. Tenth class mein. Jab paper ke pehle — jab paper ke pehle pata nahi hota tha ki paper kaisa hoga. Wahi feeling."

Yes. In my stomach. There's the feeling I used to get before exams. In tenth class. When before the paper, when you didn't know what the paper would be like. That feeling.

"Toh tum bhi nervous ho."

So you're also nervous.

"Haan. Lekin, lekin meri Nani kehti thi, Nani kehti thi ki nervous hona achha hai. Nervous hona matlab body tayyar hai. Body ko pata hai ki kuch important hone wala hai. Body tayyar ho rahi hai. Nervous hona. Nervous hona body ka taiyyari ka tareeqa hai."

Yes. But, my Nani used to say; Nani said being nervous is good. Being nervous means the body is ready. The body knows something important is about to happen. The body is preparing. Being nervous, being nervous is the body's way of preparing. She pressed harder. The ink spread into the fibres.

Nervous is the body's way of preparing. The sentence, Nani's sentence, reaching across fifteen years from a veranda in Allahabad to a shamiana behind the Lucknow Mahotsav stage, the reaching that was the inheritance, the inheritance that she was now passing to her student: your body is not broken. Your body is working. The nervousness is the working. The nervousness is the preparation.

He squeezed her hand. The squeeze: the squeeze, the response that words could not provide, the response that the body provided when the mouth could not: I hear you. I believe you. The nervousness is preparation. I am prepared.

A volunteer: a young man in a Mahotsav t-shirt, Lucknow University written on his lanyard; came to the shamiana.

"Couple number seven? Aap next hain. Five minutes."

Couple number seven? You're next. Five minutes.

Five minutes. The five minutes being the final countdown. The countdown that had started at twenty-two days and that had ticked through the marble and the tabla and the attar and the confessions and the Zoya visit and the Abbu's theology and the mother's phone call and the dress rehearsal and the night before and the morning of and that had now arrived at: five minutes.

She stood. He stood. They stood together in the shamiana, the perfumer in the black sherwani and the data analyst in the black lehenga with the amber dupatta and the ghungroo on her feet and the rose attar in his jhola.

She looked at him. She looked at him with the look that she had been wanting to give him for twenty-one days, the look that was not the teacher's look and not the partner's look and not the analyst's look but the look of a woman who had spent twenty-one days with a man and who had arrived at the thing that twenty-one days of proximity and practice and attar and marble had produced: the certainty. The certainty that this man, this clumsy, gentle, sandalwood-scented man who named emotions after perfumes and who had given her his grandmother's dupatta and his grandfather's rose, this man was the person she wanted to be on a stage with. The person she wanted to be nervous with. The person whose hand she wanted to hold in the five minutes before the thing that frightened them both.

"Ishan."

"Haan?"

"Stage pe — stage pe jab hum jaayenge: toh ek baat yaad rakhna."

On stage, when we go on stage, remember one thing.

"Kya?"

"Stage marble nahi hai. Stage lakdi hai. Awaaz alag hogi. Paanv ka feel alag hoga. Lekin, lekin rhythm wahi hai. Rhythm change nahi hogi. Rhythm yahan hai," she placed her hand on his chest, over his heart: "yahan hai. Floor se nahi aati. Yahan se aati hai."

The stage isn't marble. The stage is wood. The sound will be different. The feel of the feet will be different. But, the rhythm is the same. The rhythm won't change. The rhythm is here: here. It doesn't come from the floor. It comes from here.

The rhythm comes from here. Her hand on his chest. His heart under her hand. The heart that was beating fast, the fast: nervousness and the nervousness — the preparation and the preparation, which was: the body ready, the heart ready, the rhythm ready.

"Couple number seven! Stage pe aayiye!"

Couple number seven! Please come to the stage!

She removed her hand from his chest. She straightened the amber dupatta. She adjusted the ghungroo. She checked the high bun. Secure. She checked the kajal. Intact. She looked at the shamiana's exit, the exit that led to the stage, the stage that led to the audience, the audience that included her parents and his parents and Zoya and Junaid and a thousand strangers and three judges and the distinctive weight of all of them watching.

"Chalo," she said. Let's go.

They walked to the stage. They walked through the shamiana's exit into the December evening, the evening that was cold and that was lit with string lights and that smelled of chaat and cotton candy and diesel generators and the smell of an Indian festival: the smell of a thousand people and their food and their excitement and the cold air holding all of it.

The stage was ahead. The wooden stage. The stage that was not marble. The stage that she had warned him about. The stage that would receive their feet. Not with the marble's resonance but with the wood's warmth, the warmth that was: wood was warm where marble was cold, wood absorbed where marble reflected, wood was alive where marble was stone.

They climbed the three steps to the stage. Three steps, the three steps, which was transition from ground to stage, from audience to performer, from the people who watched to the people who were watched.

The audience was, the audience was a wall. A wall of faces. A thousand faces in plastic chairs arranged in semicircles around the stage, festival's seating arrangement, the semicircles, the arrangement placing the audience on three sides of the stage — three sides meaning: no hiding. Three sides meaning: the audience saw everything. Three sides meaning: the performance was not for one direction but for all directions, the all-directions, exposure that the stage demanded.

She found her parents. Third row, left side. Sunita Tiwari in a maroon saree, the maroon — the colour that her mother wore for important occasions, the wearing (mother's declaration): this is important. My daughter is dancing. This is important enough for the maroon saree. Sudhir Tiwari beside her: her father, in a grey jacket over a white kurta, the grey jacket (retired government schoolteacher's formal) wear, the formal wear that said I am here. I am important. My daughter is on the stage.

She found his parents. Fourth row, right side. Waseem Farooqui in the cream achkan. Rukhsana in the green silk. The two parents. Farooqui and Tiwari; on opposite sides of the audience, the opposite sides (geometry of the audience and not a statem e)nt about the families, the geometry that was : they had arrived separately and sat where seats were available and the availability had placed them on opposite sides. She shifted her weight. The cold followed.

Zoya was; Zoya was in the second row, centre. Zoya in a red kurta, the red: colour thatZoya had worn on the day of their first meeting, the first meeting in the attar shop, the first meeting that had started everything. Zoya's cast was gone. The cast removed, the wrist free, the wrist that had been broken and that had produced the notice and the notice had produced the letter and the letter had produced the bench and the bench had produced the baithak and the baithak had produced this: two people on a wooden stage in December, about to dance.

The emcee's voice. The emcee, a man in a Nehru jacket with a wireless microphone — announcing: "Couple number seven. Ishan Farooqui aur Nandini Tiwari. Lucknow. Kathak fusion."

The names. Their names in the air. Their names spoken to a thousand people. Their names; Farooqui and Tiwari — spoken together, the together: announcement thatIndia made every day in its festivals and its workplaces and its trains and its markets: we are different. We are together. The together does not erase the different. The different does not prevent the together.

They took their positions. Opposite ends of the stage. Him at stage right. Her at stage left. Twenty feet of wooden floor between them.

The JBL speaker, the festival's sound system, much larger than the baithak's JBL — producing the emptiness before the music. The silence that was not silence. The emptiness that contained the audience's coughing and the chairs' creaking and the distant generator's hum and a child's cry from somewhere in the crowd. The silence that was the Indian audience's silence, which was never silence but was the noise that a thousand Indians made when they were trying to be quiet: a noise that was quieter than their normal noise but that was still noise because a thousand Indians could not be truly silent any more than a thousand birds could be truly silent.

The music began.

Dha dhin dhin dha.

Seven minutes.

Now.