Chapter 5: Ishan

# Chapter 5: Ishan

## The Tukda

Day five.

Five days of practice. Five days of right-foot-left-foot on Nawabi marble. Five days of Nandini counting and him striking and the grey cat, whom Junaid had named Sultan, the naming; ironic because the cat was neither royal nor commanding but was a stray from the Qaiserbagh lane who had adopted the haveli as his office, the office: marble floor near thebaithak doorway where Sultan sat and supervised the dancing with the imperial disinterest that cats deployed for all human activities that did not involve food.

The tukda was today's lesson.

Nandini stood in the centre of the baithak. She had tied her dupatta around her waist, dancer's preparation — the tying, the preparation that freed the arms and tightened the core and that transformed the dupatta from decorative garment to functional belt, the belt holding the body together the way a frame held a painting: structurally, invisibly.

"Tukda sunno pehle," she said. Listen to the tukda first.

She recited. She recited the tukda — the rhythmic composition that was Kathak's sentence, the sentence composed of syllables the way a Hindi sentence was composed of words: ta thei thei tat, aa thei thei tat, ta thei tat, aa thei tat, taka dhimi taka dhimi, tat tat, thei thei, dha.

The recitation was — the recitation was not speech. The recitation was music. Her voice producing the syllables with the precision that her Nani had taught her — each syllable landing at its appointed beat, each beat occupying its appointed space in the sixteen-beat cycle, the cycle that was container and the syllables, the contents, the contents filling the container exactly, with no space left over and no syllable left out.

He listened. He listened with his whole body: the whole-body listening that five days of practice had taught him, the teaching that was: Kathak was not heard with the ears alone. Kathak was heard with the feet (which anticipated the rhythm), the core (which prepared for the movement), the spine (which aligned for the strikes), ear. The entire body, the ear. Body.

"Ab; paanv se karo," she said. Now, do it with your feet.

"Poori tukda?"

The whole tukda?

"Nahi. Pehla hissa. Ta thei thei tat."

No. The first part. Ta thei thei tat.

He knew ta thei thei tat. He had practised it for five days. The four syllables being the four strikes that his feet had committed to muscle memory, not perfect muscle memory, not the automatic recall that fifteen years of practice produced, but the beginning of memory, the memory that required concentration to access but that was there, present, available.

He struck. Right, ta. Left, thei. Right; thei. Left; tat.

"Theek. Ab doosra hissa. Aa thei thei tat. Yeh pehle hisse jaisa hi hai, lekin aa pe: aa pe paanv ko slide karna hai. Strike nahi. Slide."

Good. Now the second part. Aa thei thei tat. This is the same as the first part, but on aa, on aa, you slide the foot. Not a strike. A slide.

Slide. The slide. A new vocabulary word, the word that expanded the foot's lexicon from one movement (strike) to two movements (strike and slide), the expansion: the Kathak's grammar: first you learn the word (strike), then you learn the second word (slide), then you combine the words into sentences (tukda), and the sentences into paragraphs (toda), and the paragraphs into chapters (the composition), and the chapters into the book (the performance).

He tried the slide. He tried the slide and, the slide was harder than the strike. The strike was vertical: foot up, foot down. The slide was horizontal: foot forward, foot dragging back. The horizontal movement requiring a different kind of balance, the balance of a body that was moving in a direction, the direction: forward, the forward. Territory that his centre of gravity didnot want to enter because forward meant the risk of falling and falling was the tall man's nightmare, the nightmare of six feet one inch of body toppling forward onto Nawabi marble.

"Girne se mat daro," she said. Don't be afraid of falling.

"Main dar nahi raha."

I'm not afraid.

"Tumhara body bol raha hai ki tum dar rahe ho. Tumhare kandhon mein tension hai. Tension girne ka sign hai. Jab aadmi girne se darta hai, toh pehle kandhon mein tension aata hai, kyunki body sochta hai, 'Agar main gira toh haathon ko aage karke girna padega, aur haathon ko aage karne ke liye kandhon ko tayyar rakhna padega.' Isliye kandhon mein tension hai."

Your body is saying you're afraid. There's tension in your shoulders. Tension is the sign of the fear of falling. When a person is afraid of falling, the tension comes to the shoulders first — because the body thinks, 'If I fall, I'll need to put my hands forward, and to put the hands forward I need to keep the shoulders ready.' That's why there's tension in the shoulders. She pressed harder. The ink spread into the fibres.

The analysis. The analysis, he recognized this, the data analyst's analysis of his body. She was reading his body the way she read spreadsheets: identifying the anomaly (shoulder tension), diagnosing the cause (fear of falling), prescribing the fix (release the tension). The analysis, clinical, precise, correct.

"Toh kya karoon?"

So what should I do?

"Kandhe neeche karo. Saaans lo. Bade saaans lo; naak se andar, muh se bahar. Teen baar."

Lower your shoulders. Breathe. Take a deep breath, in through the nose, out through the mouth. Three times.

He breathed. Three breaths. The three breaths being the reset, the reset that she was prescribing the way a programmer prescribed a restart: *the system is stuck. Restart. Clear the cache.

The shoulders dropped. The dropping, the breath's effect: the breath calming the nervous system, the nervous system releasing the shoulders, the shoulders releasing the arms, the arms hanging loose, the looseness, the state from which movement was possible— movement requiring looseness the way water required a channel: the loose body was the channel through which the dance flowed.

He tried the slide again. Right foot forward: aa; the foot sliding on the marble, the marble: smooth enough for the slide because the marble was the dancer's surface, the surface that allowed the foot to move without friction, the frictionlessness, the marble's gift to the Kathak dancer, the gift that vitrified tiles and wooden floors and concrete could not provide.

Better. The slide was, the slide was smoother than the first attempt. The smoothness, the product of the released shoulders, the released shoulders producing a released body, the released body producing a released foot, the released foot producing a slide that was closer to what Kathak required: a controlled movement, not a lurch.

"Phir se."

Again.

He did it again. And again. And again. The repetition building the movement into his body the way water built a channel into stone: slowly, persistently, the persistence — teacher's weapon and the student's burden, the burden that lightened with each repetition because each repetition brought the movement closer to automatic and automatic meant the burden was carried by the body, not the mind.

After thirty minutes of the slide, she combined the two parts: ta thei thei tat, aa thei thei tat. Eight syllables. Eight foot-movements. Four strikes and one slide and three more strikes, the combination, which was first sentence in theKathak language that his feet had ever spoken.

He spoke the sentence. He spoke it badly: the speaking; imperfect, the imperfection that was: the timing was uneven, the slide too long, the strikes too hard, the transition between slide and strike too abrupt. But he spoke it. His feet produced the eight syllables in sequence, and the sequence was recognizable as tukda, and the recognizable was the victory.

"Ab; baaki ka tukda," she said. Now, the rest of the tukda.

They worked through the rest. Ta thei tat, aa thei tat: the shortened versions, three syllables each, the shortening increasing the speed, the speed increasing the difficulty, the difficulty increasing the sweat on his forehead and the ache in his calves and the exact burning sensation in the balls of his feet that came from striking marble for ninety minutes without shoes.

By the end of the session, two hours: he could perform the entire tukda from beginning to end. Not well. Not smoothly. Not at performance tempo. But he could perform it, and the performing was the milestone, the milestone: *I have learned a sentence. The sentence is imperfect. But it exists. It is in my body.

"Attar ka waqt," Nandini said, sitting on the marble. Attar time.

He sat beside her. He opened today's bottle.

"Aaj. Mitti attar."

Today. Mitti attar.

"Mitti? Mitti ka bhi attar hota hai?"

Mitti? There's an attar of earth too?

"Haan. Yeh Nakhlau Itr ki sabse purani recipe hai. Mere Dada ne yeh 1971 mein banayi thi — jab unhone dukaan kholi thi. Yeh. Yeh Kannauj ki baked clay hai. Baked clay ko paani mein soak karte hain. Phir distil karte hain. Jo nikalta hai. Woh mitti attar hai."

Yes. This is Nakhlau Itr's oldest recipe. My grandfather created this in 1971, when he opened the dukaan. This, this is Kannauj's baked clay. Baked clay is soaked in water. Then distilled. What comes out, that's mitti attar.

He applied a drop to her left wrist. The left wrist: wrist that yesterday's rose had occupiedand that today would receive the earth, the earth that was beginning, the beginning because mitti attar was Nakhlau Itr's first attar, the first: foundation the waytat was Kathak's first movement: start with the earth. Start with the floor. Start with the thing that holds everything else up.

She smelled. She brought her wrist to her nose and smelled and, her eyes closed. Her eyes closed the way eyes closed when the nose encountered something that demanded the brain's full attention, the full attention being achieved by shutting down the competing sense, the competing sense being sight, the sight: shut down so that the nose could receive without interference. She shifted her weight. The cold followed.

"Yeh, yeh woh smell hai," she whispered. "Yeh baarish ke pehle ki smell hai. Jab badal aate hain, jab hawa badal jaati hai: jab zameen ko pata chal jaata hai ki paani aane wala hai — tab zameen se yeh smell aati hai. Yeh wahi hai."

This. This is that smell. This is the smell before rain. When clouds come: when the wind changes: when the earth knows the water is coming, the earth releases this smell. This is the same.

He watched her face. He watched her face and the watching was. The watching was the moment. The moment that the perfumer lived for and that the teacher lived for: the moment when the student understood. The moment when the transmission happened. When the knowledge left the teacher and entered the student and the student's face showed the receiving, the receiving (recognition), the recognition: I know this. I have always known this. I just didn't have the name for it until now.

"Haan," he said. "Yeh wahi hai. Zameen ka intezaar. Paani ka vaada. Baarish se pehle zameen ko pata hota hai ki baarish aa rahi hai. Zameen tayyar hoti hai. Zameen khulti hai.

Yes. That's it. The earth's waiting. The water's promise. Before rain, the earth knows the rain is coming. The earth prepares. The earth opens. This is the smell of opening.

The smell of opening. She held the phrase. She held it and she felt it on her wrist: the mitti attar opening on her skin the way the earth opened before rain, the opening, which was gradual, the gradual opening revealing layers: first the clay, then the dampness, then the green note (the green note that was plants that grew in the clay, the plants' ghost present in the attar the way the earth's ghost was present in the rose), then the base: sandalwood, the sandalwood: carrier, the carrier that held all attars together the way the earth held all plants together.

"Gulab mohabbat hai," she said, repeating yesterday's lesson. "Khus ghar hai. Mitti — mitti kya hai?"

Rose is love. Khus is home. Mitti; what is mitti?

He thought. He thought for six seconds: the six seconds (time it took for the perfumer's mind to s e)arch its vocabulary for the word that matched the scent, the matching that was translation from nose to tongue, from smell to language, from the thing itself to the word for the thing.

"Mitti intezaar hai," he said. Mitti is waiting.

Mitti is waiting. Earth is waiting.

She looked at him. She looked at him and the look was, the look was the look of a woman who had spent fifteen years waiting for something she could not name and who had just been told the name by a man who named things for a living.

"Intezaar," she repeated.

The word settled between them the way mitti attar settled on skin: slowly, deeply, with that patience that only earth possessed.

---

His fingers on the attar bottle were precise, the glass smooth and cool under his touch.

After the lesson, she did not leave immediately. This was different from the previous four days, the previous four days, she had left promptly after the attar lesson, the leaving (analyst's efficiency): session complete, data collected, exit. Today she stayed.

She stayed and she walked through the haveli with Ishan. The walking: the tour. The tour that he gave her because she asked, the asking: "Yeh haveli dikhao mujhe." Show me this haveli.

He showed her. He showed her the courtyard with the dry fountain and the neem tree and Sultan the cat. He showed her the kitchen, the kitchen; massive, built for the Nawabi household's forty servants, the forty that was minimum staff that aNawab required, the minimum including: the cook (the bawarchi), the cook's assistant, the water-carrier, the spice-grinder, the meat-handler, the sweet-maker, the tea-maker, the table-setter, the dish-washer, the floor-sweeper, the laundry man, and the rest, the rest, which was army that ran theNawabi household the way a corporation ran an office: with hierarchy, specialization, and the permanent expectation that everything would be done perfectly.

The kitchen was empty now. Empty except for Junaid's steel gas stove (a two-burner Prestige, ₹2,100) and a small refrigerator (Godrej, 200 litres) and the ghosts of forty servants who had cooked for a Nawab who had been dead for seventy years.

He showed her the zenana, the women's quarters, the quarters, which was on the upper floor, accessible by a narrow staircase that was designed to be defended (the defence: the Nawabi anxiety: protect the women's quarters, the protection: architectural, the architecture itself: bodyguard, the bodyguard that was narrow staircase that only one person could climb at a time, the one-person-at-a-time, the defensive advantage: one defender at the top could hold off many attackers at the bottom). She extended her wrist. His fingers steadied it. The contact was brief, dry, precise.

The zenana was empty. The zenana had been empty for decades, the decades of emptiness, haveli's mourning for the women who had once filled it, the women whose dupattas had hung from the wooden pegs on the walls and whose silver payal; anklets, had made the sound on the marble that Kathak ghungroo; ankle bells; now made: the texture of metal on stone, the feel of adornment on earth.

She stood in the zenana and she looked at the windows, the windows: jharokha, the projecting enclosed balconies that Nawabi houses used, the jharokha allowing the women to look out without being seen, the looking-without-being-seen being the purdah. The veil: translated into architecture: you could see the world but the world could not see you.

"Yahan se Qaiserbagh ka poora maidan dikhta hai," she said. You can see the whole Qaiserbagh ground from here.

"Haan. Nawab sahab ki begum yahan se mehfil dekhti thi. Neeche baithak mein ghazal hoti thi. Yahan se sunaai deta tha, aur dikhta bhi tha.

Yes. The Nawab's wife watched the mehfil from here. The ghazal would happen in the baithak below. You could hear it from here: and see it too. But nobody saw the wife.

The wife watched the ghazal from behind the jharokha. The watching, historical fact that — the watchingNandini the data analyst filed as she filed all facts: storing it, not judging it, the not-judging (analyst's discipline). The fact was the fact. The jharokha was the jharokha. The purdah was the purdah. History was history.

But the fact also produced a feeling, the feeling of standing where women had stood for a hundred years and looking out through the same carved stone screen and seeing the same courtyard (minus the fountain's water, minus the servants, minus the Nawab) and hearing, if you listened with the ears that history required, the ghost of a ghazal that had been sung a hundred years ago in the baithak below.

"Nani ko yeh jagah bohot pasand aati," she said, and the sentence surprised her — surprised her because she had not planned to say it, the sentence emerging without the analyst's permission, filter that she applied to all statements: the permission before they left her mouth: *is this statement relevant? Is this statement necessary?

This statement was none of those things. This statement was: this statement was emotion. The emotion of standing in a Nawabi zenana in Qaiserbagh and feeling the presence of women who had danced and sung and watched ghazals from behind carved stone and who had been invisible and who had been powerful in their invisibility, the power, the zenana's paradox: the hidden woman was the woman who saw everything.

Nani would have loved this.

"Tumhari Nani. Savitri Devi ji: woh kaisi thi?" he asked. Your Nani, Savitri Devi ji — what was she like?

She leaned on the jharokha's stone ledge. She leaned and the leaning was the relaxation that the question required, the relaxation of a woman preparing to talk about the person she loved most, the preparation, loosening of the jaw and the chest and the walls that she had built around the memory of Nani, the walls; fifteen years old and built of the same material as the not-dancing: grief.

"Woh chhoti thi. Paanch foot do inch. Lekin jab woh naachti thi, jab woh chakkar karti thi: toh lagta tha ki woh ceiling ko chhoo rahi hai. Woh badi ho jaati thi.

She was small. Five foot two. But when she danced — when she did chakkar. It felt like she was touching the ceiling. She grew. Dance made her bigger.

"Aur: aur woh strict thi. Maine tumhe bataya tha. Lekin strict ka matlab; strict ka matlab yeh nahi ki woh daanti thi ya marti thi. Strict ka matlab; woh accept nahi karti thi less than perfect. Agar mera tat sahi nahi tha toh woh mujhse do sau baar karwaati thi. Do sau baar. Aur do sau baar ke baad bhi agar sahi nahi hua toh woh kehti thi, 'kal karenge.' 'Kal karenge' ka matlab tha, 'tujhe aur waqt chahiye. Waqt lena theek hai. Lekin less than perfect; less than perfect theek nahi hai.'"

And, she was strict. I told you. But strict didn't mean — strict didn't mean she scolded or hit. Strict meant, she didn't accept less than perfect. If my tat wasn't right, she'd make me do it two hundred times. Two hundred times. And even after two hundred times if it wasn't right, she'd say, 'we'll do it tomorrow.' 'We'll do it tomorrow' meant; 'you need more time. Taking time is fine. But less than perfect; less than perfect is not fine.'

Less than perfect is not fine. The sentence, the sentence, the inheritance, the thing that Nani had passed to Nandini, the thing that Nandini had applied to data analysis the way Nani had applied it to Kathak: *the dataset must be clean. The foot must be flat. The number must be correct. The strike must be precise. She pressed harder. The ink spread into the fibres.

"Tumhari Nani aur mere Dada, milte julte hain," Ishan said. Your Nani and my Dada, they're similar.

"Kaise?"

"Dada bhi less than perfect accept nahi karte the. Agar attar mein ek note galat hota. Ek note, toh Dada poora batch phenk dete. Poora batch. Bees kilo gulab attar. Phenk dete. Kyunki ek note galat tha. Log kehte — 'Haji sahab, kisiko pata nahi chalega.' Dada kehte, 'Mujhe pata chalega. Mujhe pata chalega, aur isse zyaada aur kuch matter nahi karta.'"

My grandfather also didn't accept less than perfect. If one note in the attar was wrong: one note, he'd throw out the entire batch. The entire batch. Twenty kilos of rose attar. Thrown out. Because one note was wrong. People would say, 'Haji sahab, nobody will know.' Grandfather would say — 'I will know. I will know, and nothing else matters more than that.'

I will know. The sentence: the sentence of a craftsman. The sentence that connected the perfumer's grandfather to the dancer's grandmother across the divide of gender and religion and profession and century. The connecting thread being: *excellence is not for the audience. Excellence is for the self. The self knows when the work is less than perfect. The self is the judge.

They stood in the zenana, the perfumer and the data analyst, and they looked through the jharokha at Qaiserbagh's lane and the neem trees and the distant dome of the Hussainabad Imambara, the dome, visible from the zenana's upper floor, the dome, which was landmark that orientedLucknow the way the Eiffel Tower oriented Paris: you always knew where you were if you could see the dome.

"Waqt ho gaya," she said. It's time.

He nodded. The nodding, the agreement. The agreement that sessions had endings and endings were necessary and structure that the deal required. The necessity: begin, practice, learn, end. The structure holding the relationship the way the taal held the Kathak: in sixteen beats, no more, no less.

They descended the narrow staircase, the staircase that had been built for defence and that now served as the exit from a conversation about grandparents, the exit, the descent from the upper floor to the courtyard, from the zenana to the gate, from the conversation to the parting.

At the gate, Sultan was waiting. Sultan was sitting on the stone step with the unmistakable patience that cats and gatekeepers shared: the patience of creatures who understood that gates opened and closed and that the opening and closing was the rhythm of the day and that the rhythm was reliable and that reliability was the only thing worth trusting.

"Kal," she said. Tomorrow.

"Kal."

She walked down the lane. He watched. Sultan watched. The two of them at the gate, watching the data analyst walk away with mitti attar on her wrist and a tukda in her feet and the memory of her Nani in her voice.

Seventeen days to go.