Chapter 18: Nandini

# Chapter 18: Nandini

## The Result

The results were announced at 9:47 PM.

Three hours after their performance. Three hours being the time that the remaining five couples took to perform (seven minutes each, plus the transitions, plus the judges' deliberation, plus the emcee's filler. The filler (emcee's job): fill the time between the performances and the results with banter and jokes and the familiar Lucknawi tehzeeb that emcees at Lucknow events were required to deploy, the tehzeeb being: wit, courtesy, the ability to make a crowd of a thousand people feel as though they were sitting in a drawing room having chai with a friend).

During the three hours, she sat in the shamiana with Ishan. The shamiana having emptied of most couples. The couples who had performed and who had left to join the audience, the leaving: performer's transition: from backstage to front-of-house, from the performed to the performed-for. She and Ishan had not left the shamiana. They had not left because leaving meant joining the audience and joining the audience meant sitting with their parents and sitting with their parents meant: sitting with their parents meant facing the questions that parents asked after watching their children perform on stage with a person of a different religion.

The questions could wait. The shamiana was safe. The shamiana was the deal's final territory, the last space where they were the deal (the perfumer and the dancer, the teacher and the student, the exchange) before the results transformed them into whatever they would become after the results.

She had stopped crying thirty minutes after the performance. The stopping, the body's natural regulation — the body that had released the fifteen years and the stage and the Nani and the ghungroo and the rose, the body that had cried until the crying was done and that had then stopped because the body knew when the crying was done the way the body knew when the tatkar was done: by feel.

They sat on plastic chairs. They sat with a Styrofoam cup of chai between them, the chai purchased from the Mahotsav's chai stall (₹20, the ₹20 being the festival markup: the same chai was ₹10 at the chai-wallah on the corner of Aminabad, festival's tax — the markup, the tax that festivals levied on everything because festivals were temporary and temporary things were expensive). The chai was mediocre, festival chai's nature. The mediocre: mass-produced, too sweet, too milky, the too-sweet and too-milky; chai-wallah's defence against complaint: nobody complained about chai that was too sweet because sweetness was the Indian default and the default was safe.

"Tumhe lagta hai hum jeetenge?" he asked. Do you think we'll win?

She considered. She considered the way she considered all questions that required assessment: with the analyst's method: gather data, process data, form conclusion.

The data was: their performance had been good. Not perfect. The duo tatkar had one missed beat in the third cycle (the missed beat being his right foot striking a fraction late, the fraction, which was small enough that the audience did not notice but large enough that she noticed because she was the teacher and the teacher noticed everything the way the perfumer noticed every note). The contemporary section had been strong. His arm extensions, his slow deliberate movements, the quality that she had identified as his gift: slow beauty. The chakkar had been her best, five spins, clean stops, the amber dupatta flying. The attar application had been, the attar application had been the moment. The moment that the audience had responded to with the held breath and the emptiness-before-applause that indicated: we have not seen this before. This is new. This is interesting.

But the data also included: couple number three had been excellent. Classical Kathak. A woman in a white saree: a trained dancer, probably Kathak since childhood, assessment that the movement quality sugg, the probablyested: the woman's tatkar was faster and more precise than Nandini's, the faster-and-more-precise: product of continuous training, the continuous training that Nandini had interrupted for fifteen years. And couple number eleven had been: couple number eleven had been the contemporary fusion that worked: a Bollywood-style routine with lifts and spins and the kind of crowd-pleasing choreography that Bollywood choreographers loved and that judges who were Bollywood choreographers might favour.

"Nahi pata," she said. I don't know. "Lekin. Lekin result se farak nahi padta."

I don't know. But, the result doesn't matter.

"Nahi padta?"

Doesn't matter?

"Nahi. Result: result ek number hai. Ek ranking. Pehla, doosra, teesra. Ranking se. Ranking se yeh nahi pata chalta ki kya hua stage pe. Ranking se yeh nahi pata chalta ki main pandrah saal baad naacha. Ranking se yeh nahi pata chalta ki tumne ikkees din mein Kathak seekhi. Ranking se yeh nahi pata chalta ki. Ki tumne meri kalaai pe gulab lagaya hazaar logon ke saamne. Ranking. Ranking measure nahi karti woh cheezein jo matter karti hain."

No. The result, the result is a number. A ranking. First, second, third. The ranking doesn't tell you what happened on stage. The ranking doesn't tell you that I danced after fifteen years. The ranking doesn't tell you that you learned Kathak in twenty-one days. The ranking doesn't tell you that, that you applied rose on my wrist in front of a thousand people. Rankings. Rankings don't measure the things that matter.

Rankings don't measure the things that matter. The sentence, the sentence that was data analyst's rebellion against data, the rebellion of a woman who had spent six years at TCS measuring everything (performance metrics, efficiency ratios, quarterly targets, the measurable, data analyst's domain) and who had just learned, on a wooden stage in December, that the things that mattered were the things that spreadsheets could not contain: the feel of a foot on marble, the smell of rose on a wrist, the press of a thousand people holding their breath.

He was quiet. The quiet, the six-second pause, the perfumer's processing time that she had learned to recognize and to wait for, the waiting: adab for his rhythm, the rhythm that was not her rhythm (her rhythm was fast. Ask, answer, process, move on) but that was his rhythm (ask, smell, think, speak), the two rhythms being different the way their heights were different and their religions were different and their professions were different, the different: not the obstacle but the complement.

"Tum sahi keh rahi ho," he said. You're right. "Lekin, lekin main prize money Ehsaas Foundation ko dena chahta hoon. Zoya ke Dadi ke naam se. Woh vaada maine kiya tha."

You're right. But: I want to give the prize money to Ehsaas Foundation. In Zoya's Dadi's name. I made that promise.

The promise. The promise that he had made to Zoya, the promise that he had maintained even after the rejection, the rejection: you're a good person. The promise: the man's honour — the honour that did not depend on the woman's reciprocation, the honour: I said I would do this. I will do this. The doing is not conditional on the loving.

"Agar hum jeetein, agar prize money aaye, toh Ehsaas Foundation ko jaayegi," she said. If we win; if there's prize money, it goes to Ehsaas Foundation. She extended her wrist. His fingers steadied it. The contact was brief, dry, precise.

"Shukriya."

The emcee's voice came through the shamiana's cloth walls, the voice, amplified by the festival's speakers, the speakers, which was medium through which all announcements were made, the medium that converted one man's voice into a thousand people's hearing.

"Ladies and gentlemen; Lucknow Mahotsav dance competition ke results!"

They stood. They walked out of the shamiana. They walked to the stage. Not onto the stage but to the stage's edge, to the place where the performers gathered to hear the results, the gathering, the cluster of twenty-four people (twelve couples) arranged in a semicircle at the stage's foot, the semicircle: geometry of anticipation: everyone facing the emcee, everyone waiting.

She found her parents in the audience. Third row, left. Sunita Tiwari was looking at her: looking at her with the look that mothers gave to daughters who had just done something that the mother had not expected and that the mother was proud of, the pride, which was visible in the face the way love was visible in the face: not in one feature but in all features, the all-features, face's total expression of: that is my daughter. She danced. I am proud.

She found his parents. Fourth row, right. Waseem and Rukhsana. Waseem's face was, Waseem's face was the face of a man who had watched his son dance on a stage and who had not known that his son could dance and who was processing the not-knowing, the processing —: *my son dances. I did not know this. I know my son's attar formulas and his shop inventory and his sleep schedule and I did not know this.

The emcee. The emcee in the Nehru jacket, the wireless microphone at his mouth, the emcee performing the emcee's ritual: the build-up. The build-up that delayed the result for the purpose of drama, the drama that was emcee's craft: make them wait. The waiting increases the value of the thing they're waiting for.

"Third place. Teesra sthan — Couple Number Three! Meghna Awasthi aur Rakesh Srivastava!"

Third place to the couple in white. The classical Kathak couple. The couple whose tatkar had been faster and more precise than theirs. Third place meaning: skill was not the only criterion. The judges had valued something else, something beyond precision, beyond speed, beyond the technical excellence that Couple Three had displayed. The something else being, the something else being: originality. The judges had valued the new. The judges had valued the thing they had not seen before.

The applause. Couple Three ascending the stage to receive the trophy. A small brass trophy and a certificate and ₹10,000, the ₹10,000 being the third-place prize, the prize that Couple Three accepted with the grace of trained performers: bow, smile, wave.

"Second place; doosra sthan—"

Her heart. Her heart in her chest doing the thing that hearts did when the thing you wanted was about to be given or withheld: beating fast. The fast beating being the body's response to the possibility, the possibility of winning or not-winning, the not-winning being: nothing lost. The winning —: Ehsaas Foundation. Zoya's Dadi. The promise.

";Couple Number Eleven! Saumya Kapoor aur Nishant Dubey!"

Second place to the contemporary fusion couple. The Bollywood-style couple. Second. Not first.

The subtraction. The subtraction: third place taken. Second place taken. First place remaining. First place being, first place being either them or one of the other nine couples, unknown. The other nine, variable that the data could not predict, the unknown.

"Aur. Aur pehla sthan — Lucknow Mahotsav dance competition ka winner—"

And. First place. The Lucknow Mahotsav dance competition winner;

The emcee paused. The pause, the emcee's weapon, the weapon that converted a result into a moment, the moment; the gap between the question and the answer, the gap that contained all the possibilities and all the anxieties and all the hopes.

"—Couple Number Seven! Ishan Farooqui aur Nandini Tiwari!"

The names. Their names. In the air. In the speaker. In a thousand ears.

First place.

The audience, the audience erupted. The erupting, the sound of a thousand Indians who had watched the rose-attar application and who had held their breath during the silence section and who had seen the amber dupatta fly during the chakkar and who now released the held breath in the form of applause and cheers and that whistle that Indian audiences produced — the two-finger whistle, the seeiti, the whistle that Indian men deployed at cricket matches and film screenings and dance competitions as the expression of approval that exceeded the clap.

She looked at Ishan. Ishan looked at her. The look: the look: look of two people who had won the thingthey had worked for and who discovered, in the moment of winning, that the winning was secondary to the having-worked-for, twenty-one days and the marble and the ta, the having-worked-forbla and the attar and the confessions and the touches and the conversations and the silence and the rose.

"Humne jeeta," she said. We won.

"Haan," he said. And then: "Nani ne jeeta."

Yes. And then: Nani won.

They climbed the stage. They climbed the three steps, the three steps that they had climbed an hour ago for the performance and that they now climbed for the result, the two climbings being connected: the first climbing had produced the second climbing, the performance having produced the prize.

The emcee handed them the trophy. She pressed harder. The ink spread into the fibres.

And the cheque. The cheque for ₹50,000. ₹50,000 written on a large ceremonial cheque — the large ceremonial cheque (festival's tradition): the oversized cheque that was not cashable but that was photographed and that appeared in the next day's Amar Ujala alongside the photograph of the winners.

₹50,000. For Ehsaas Foundation. For Zoya's Dadi. For the Alzheimer's patients. For the promise.

She held the trophy. He held the cheque. They stood on the stage, the wooden stage that was not marble but that had received their feet and that had held their dance and that had carried the sound of their tatkar to a thousand ears.

The photographer: a young man with a Canon DSLR and a press badge that said Dainik Jagran; took the photograph. The photograph that would appear in the next day's paper: a tall man in a black sherwani and a woman in a black lehenga with an amber dupatta, holding a trophy and a cheque, on a wooden stage at the Lucknow Mahotsav.

In the photograph, you could not see the rose attar on her wrist. In the photograph, you could not smell the sandalwood on his chest. In the photograph, you could not hear the ghungroo's jingle or the audience's held breath or the sound of four feet on wood in silence.

But they knew. They knew what the photograph could not show. They knew what the seven minutes had contained. They knew what the twenty-one days had built.

And they knew that the building was not over.