Chapter 17: Ishan

# Chapter 17: Ishan

## The Seven Minutes

The walk.

The first forty-five seconds. The walk from opposite ends of the stage to the centre. The walk that was not dance but was the first impression — the impression that the judges would form in the time it took two people to cross twenty feet of wooden floor.

He walked. He walked and the walking was: the walking was different from the baithak. The baithak's marble had been cold and smooth and familiar. The stage's wood was warm and textured and unfamiliar. The wood under his bare feet (the jutti removed backstage, the removing — the Kathak's requirement), the wood was the surface of a stranger. The surface that he had not practised on. The surface that his feet did not know.

But the walking was the walking. The walking was the measured step, the level head, the arms at the sides, the body moving as a unit. The walking was the thing that Nandini had taught him to do and the teaching did not depend on the surface, the teaching was in the body, not in the floor, the body carrying the instruction the way a bottle carried the attar: inside.

She walked from the other side. She walked and, under the stage lights (the stage lights being the Mahotsav's illumination: four spotlights on stands, the stands positioned at the four corners of the stage, the positioning producing a white light that was brighter than any light the baithak had ever held, the brightness: stage's gift and the stage's cruelty: the gift of visibility, the cruelty of exposure) — under the stage lights, she was the amber dupatta. The dupatta catching the light and converting the light to glow, the glow that Banarasi silk produced, the glow that was not reflection but emission: the silk glowing from within.

They met in the centre. They assumed the frame, his right hand on her waist, her left hand on his shoulder. The frame assembling in one second. One second being; one second being the fastest they had ever assembled the frame, the fastest, product of the nervousness, the nervousness producing a speed that practice had not produced because practice was calm and the stage was not calm and the not-calm was its own teacher.

Her waist under his hand. The waist that he had held for seven days of pair work, the waist that his palm knew, the waist that his hand returned to the way a hand returned to a doorknob: by memory, without searching. The waist was the same. The waist was warm through the lehenga's fabric. The waist was the anchor, the anchor that said: I am here. She is here. The frame is here. The floor is different but the frame is the same.

Her hand on his shoulder. The hand that was firm — firmer than usual, the firmer that was stage's effect: on the stage, the grip tightened because on the stage the partner was the only thing that was known, the only thing that was familiar, and the familiar thing you held tighter because the unfamiliar surrounded you.

The tabla built. The tabla moving from the introduction to the acceleration: the acceleration that cued her solo.

She released the frame. She stepped back. She lifted her right foot.

She struck.

The first tat on the stage. The sound, the sound was not the baithak's sound. The baithak's marble had produced resonance, the resonance of stone, the amplification that the room's architecture added to the foot's strike. The stage's wood produced, the stage's wood produced warmth. A warmer sound. A rounder sound. The sound of skin on wood being different from the feel of skin on marble the way the press of tabla was different from the weight of dholak: related, recognizable, but distinct.

And the ghungroo. The fifty bells on each ankle — the hundred bells total — producing the jingle that accompanied the strike, the jingle that was the Kathak's secondary percussion, the percussion that Nani had worn and that Nandini now wore and that the audience now sensed: the jingle of metal that said this is Kathak. This is the dance that wears its own music.

She danced. She danced the solo tatkar. The building from slow to moderate to fast, the building that the baithak had rehearsed and that the stage now received. The building —: her feet on the wood, the wood receiving the feet, the feet producing the rhythm, the rhythm filling the stage, the stage amplified by the four microphones that the sound system included (floor microphones, positioned near the stage's front edge, the positioning capturing the footwork, the capturing transmitting the tatkar through the speakers to the audience, the audience hearing what the baithak had heard for twenty-one days: her feet speaking).

The audience was — the audience was quiet. The Indian audience that could not be truly silent was as close to silent as a thousand Indians could be: the coughing suppressed, the phone conversations ended, the children shushed, the attention focused on the woman in the amber dupatta whose feet were producing a sound that commanded the stillness. She extended her wrist. His fingers steadied it. The contact was brief, dry, precise.

She was fast. She was precise. She was. She was the dancer that Nani had trained, the dancer that fifteen years of not-dancing had preserved, the dancer whose body remembered everything and whose body was now releasing everything on a wooden stage in December under four spotlights in front of a thousand people. She was Nandini Tiwari, twenty-nine, data analyst, TCS Gomti Nagar, Prayagraj-born, Kathak-trained, fifteen-years-silent, now loud. Now louder than the tabla. Now louder than the speakers. Now louder than a thousand Indians trying to be quiet.

She stopped. Sama. The abrupt stillness. The ghungroo jingling once, the residual jingle, the jingle that happened after the body stopped because the bells had their own momentum, the momentum, bells' echo of the movement that had ended.

And then, the stillness. The silence that the choreography demanded. The moment when the audience expected the music to continue and the music did not continue and the audience registered the silence and the silence was the surprise.

The duo section.

He entered. He stepped forward from stage right, the step. Entry, the entry that the choreography required: the man entering the woman's space, the entering — the approach, the approach that the perfumer knew: approach the wrist. Approach the customer. Approach with care.

Their tatkar together. Right, left, right, left. The synchrony, which was, the synchrony, better than rehearsal. Better than the 85% of the dress rehearsal. The synchrony was, the synchrony was the stage's gift. The stage's nervousness producing the heightened attention that the baithak's comfort had not produced, the heightened attention being: he was sensing her feet with his entire body, listening the way the perfumer listened to a new attar, with the total attention that the life's work demanded, the total attention producing: accuracy. His feet striking at the moment her feet struck. His tat landing with her tat. The landing, which was simultaneous, the simultaneous: pair work's goal and the pair work's miracle: two bodies, one rhythm.

The audience, he could not see the audience because the spotlights were in his eyes and the spotlights converted the audience from faces to darkness, the darkness, a wall of invisible watchers, the wall that he could feel (the breathing, the shifting in chairs) but could not see. The not-seeing being, the not-seeing that was gift. The gift that the stage lights gave to the nervous performer: you cannot see them. You can only feel them. The feeling is enough. Dance for the feeling.

The tukda. His tukda. The tukda that she had taught him on Day Five and that he had practised for sixteen days and that was now — the tukda was his. His feet spoke the tukda the way his mouth spoke Hindi: fluently, without translation, without the intermediate step of thinking, the thinking bypassed by muscle memory, the muscle memory, body's fluency.

The judges. Three faces at a table at stage front, the table covered with a white cloth, the three faces illuminated by a small desk lamp, judges' light the way the spotlights were, the desk lamp the performers' light, the judges were watching. The judges were watching with the assessment faces that judges wore: neutral, attentive, the faces that said neither this is good nor this is bad but *I am recording. I will assess later.

The contemporary section. The sitar replacing the tabla. Anoushka Shankar's sitar filling the stage. The sitar, bridge, the bridge from the classical to the modern, from the feet to the arms, from the tatkar to the extension.

He extended his arms. He extended. And the extension was the thing that the contemporary section was designed for: his height. His six-foot-one height claiming the stage's space, the claiming that Nandini had taught him: be tall. Do not shrink. The stage is yours because you are tall. His arms reaching to the width that his arms possessed — the width that the baithak had held and that the stage held more generously because the stage was wider than the baithak, the wider giving his arms more space, stage's accommodation of his body, the more space.

She moved with him. She moved in the contemporary vocabulary, the slow, deliberate movements that were not Kathak and that were not Bollywood and that were the fusion that the choreography proposed: the fusion of a data analyst's precision and a perfumer's care, the precision and the care producing a movement quality that was deliberate and unhurried and that said: we are not in a rush. We are not showing you speed. We are showing you attention.

The silence section. The sitar stopped. The tabla stopped. The speakers stopped.

Silence.

A thousand Indians. Silent.

Their feet. Only their feet. On the wood. In the silence.

Ta thei thei tat. Aa thei thei tat.

The sound of their feet on the wooden stage travelling through the floor microphones to the speakers and from the speakers to the audience and the audience hearing: four feet, one rhythm, no music. The rhythm: internal. The rhythm: between them. The rhythm that twenty-one days had built and that the stage was now revealing to a thousand people: this is what they made. This is what twenty-one days of marble and tabla and attar produced. This rhythm. This shared rhythm. This.

The ghungroo jingling with each strike, the jingle: only music, the only accompaniment, the only thing besides the feet, the feet and the bells; the instruments, the instruments, body.

He could hear her breathing. He could hear her breathing between the strikes. The breathing that was rhythm's partner, the breathing that kept the body oxygenated and the rhythm sustained, the breathing that was the invisible engine of the visible dance.

She could hear his breathing. She could hear, she told him later, she could hear his heartbeat. Not through his chest but through his feet. Through the wood. The wood transmitting his heartbeat from his feet to the floor to her feet, the transmission, the wood's gift: wood conducted. Wood transmitted. Wood connected. She pressed harder. The ink spread into the fibres.

The finale. The sitar's single note. Sustained. The note: the runway.

She spun.

One chakkar. The amber dupatta lifting, the silk catching the spotlights, the catching producing a golden arc in the air, the arc: the dupatta's flight path, the flight path that the audience saw: amber against the stage's black backdrop, amber spinning, amber flying.

Two chakkars. Faster. The bells jingling with each spin, the jingle becoming continuous, the continuous jingle being the chakkar's sound: not individual jingles but a single sustained shimmer, the shimmer, which was metal in motion, sound of a woman spinning: the shimmer.

Three. Four. Five chakkars. The audience, he heard the audience respond. He sensed the sound that audiences made when they saw something extraordinary: the collective intake of breath. The intake, the lungs' response to the eyes' stimulus: the eyes see something khoobsurat. The lungs respond. The response is: breath held. The held breath being the audience's compliment — the compliment that was involuntary and therefore honest.

She stopped. Sama. Stillness. The dupatta settling. The ghungroo delivering the final jingle. The echo, the residual, the last sound.

And then, the moment.

He walked to her. He walked with the rose attar bottle in his right hand. The walk: the perfumer's walk. The approach. The measured, deliberate approach of a man who had approached ten thousand wrists and who was now approaching the wrist that mattered.

She extended her left wrist. The extending, the gesture that they had rehearsed twelve times and that was now, on the stage, the gesture that a thousand people watched: a woman offering her wrist to a man. The offering: the offering that was trust. The trust of a woman who extended her wrist to a man who would apply a substance to her skin, the applying: intimate. The intimacy that the audience recognized, the recognition, which was audience's intelligence: the audience knew what they were seeing. The audience saw a woman offer her wrist and a man receive the offering and the audience understood that the offering and the receiving were not just choreography.

He opened the bottle. He tilted. One drop. One drop of Nakhlau Itr's rose attar falling from the glass bottle to her skin, the drop visible under the spotlights, the spotlights catching the drop in mid-air, the drop, which was a golden sphere for the fraction of a second that it took to fall from bottle to wrist, the golden sphere that was attar in its purest form: a drop of Kannauj roses distilled in copper and carried to a stage by a man who loved a woman and who was saying the love with a drop because his mouth could not say it and his feet had said everything else.

The drop landed. The drop landed on her wrist and the wrist received the drop and the rose opened, the rose opening on her skin, the opening that was the attar's nature: top note first (bright, aldehydic, the fresh rose), then heart note (the deep rose, the rose's centre, the rose's truth), then base note (sandalwood, the carrier, the foundation, the thing that held).

She brought her wrist to her nose. On stage. In front of a thousand people. She smelled the rose attar that the perfumer had applied. The smelling, the completion, the completion of the gesture that was the performance's emotional centre: he gives. She receives. He applies. She smells. The giving and the receiving and the applying and the smelling — dance that they had been dancing for twenty-one days without knowing it was a dance.

Then. The final tatkar. Together. With rose attar on her wrist and the amber dupatta on her shoulder and the ghungroo on her feet and the sandalwood on his chest and the thousand people watching and the three judges assessing and the parents on opposite sides of the audience and Zoya in the second row with her healed wrist and Sultan not present because Sultan was a cat and cats did not attend festivals.

Ta thei thei tat. Aa thei thei tat. Ta thei tat. Aa thei tat. Taka dhimi taka dhimi. Tat tat. Thei thei. Dha.

The full tukda. Together. The final sixteen beats. The final conversation between four feet and one floor. The conversation that said: *we are here. We danced. We are done. This is us.

Sama.

Stillness.

End.

The speakers were silent. The stage was silent. The festival was silent.

And then — the audience. The audience that had been silent; as silent as a thousand Indians could be, the audience was not silent. The audience was the opposite of silent. The audience was the sound that a thousand Indians made when they had seen something that they had not expected to see and that they were glad to have seen: applause. Applause that was not the polite applause of the first six couples but the applause of recognition — the recognition that the seventh couple had done something different, something that the audience had not seen before, something that combined the feet and the scent and the amber and the rose and the wood and the bells into seven minutes that were worth the price of the plastic chair.

He stood on the stage. She stood beside him. The applause surrounding them the way attar surrounded the person who wore it: completely, from all directions, with a warmth that human approval produced.

She looked at him. She looked at him with the wet eyes: the eyes that were wet not from grief this time but from the thing that replaced grief when grief had been released: relief. The relief of a woman who had danced for the first time in fifteen years and who had danced on a stage and who had danced well and who had danced with the ghungroo that Nani had worn and who had felt, in the seven minutes of the performance, the presence of the woman who had taught her, the presence; not physical but rhythmic: Nani was in the tatkar. Nani was in the tukda. Nani was in the chakkar. Nani was in the sama. Nani was in the seven minutes. Nani was here.

They bowed. They bowed the Kathak bow, the pranam, the hands folded, the bow from the waist, the bow that acknowledged the audience and the judges and the stage and the tradition and the teacher and the teacher's teacher and the chain of teachers that stretched back to the beginning of Kathak, the beginning, which was: a foot. A floor. A rhythm. A story told with the body. She shifted her weight. The cold followed.

They left the stage. They descended the three steps from stage to ground, from performer to person, from the watched to the watcher.

In the shamiana, she cried. She cried the way she had not cried in the baithak: the baithak's tears having been controlled, the controlled tears that was analyst's tears: measured, brief, blinked away. The shamiana's tears were not controlled. The shamiana's tears were the release. The release of twenty-one days and fifteen years and the competition and the stage and the wood and the marble and the rose and the ghungroo and Nani.

He held her. He held her in the shamiana while the eighth couple performed on the stage and the audience applauded and the festival continued. He held her with both arms: not the frame, not the pair-work hold, not the choreographic hold, but the hold of a man holding a woman who was crying, the hold that required no instruction and no practice and no twenty-one days of learning: the hold that was the body's oldest dance.

"Nani ne dekha," she said through the tears. Nani saw.

"Haan," he said. "Nani ne dekha."

Yes. Nani saw.