Chapter 8: Nandini

# Chapter 8: Nandini

## The Costume

Day twelve.

Ten days until the competition. Ten days being: the number sitting in her mind like a countdown on a digital clock, the clock ticking in the background of every tatkar and every tukda and every toda, the ticking saying: ten. Nine. Eight. The stage is coming. The audience is coming. The judges are coming. Are you ready?

They were not ready.

Ishan's dance was, his dance was a miracle of eleven days. Eleven days from zero to a man who could perform a recognizable tatkar at moderate tempo, a passable tukda, and a toda that was 60% correct on a good day and 45% correct on a bad day. The miracle that was: he had learned in eleven days what most students learned in eleven months. The learning — the product of his practice (four hours daily; two with her, two alone) and his body's unexpected aptitude (the clumsiness that she had feared was, she discovered, not a lack of coordination but a lack of context, in the shop, his body was fluid; on the street, his body was clumsy; on the marble, his body was finding a new context, a new fluidity, the fluidity of a man whose feet were discovering that they could do more than walk between glass shelves).

But miracle was not enough for the Lucknow Mahotsav. The Mahotsav was Lucknow's biggest cultural festival. Five days in December, in the grounds around the Residency, the Residency: the ruins of the British Residency that Lucknow had preserved as a monument to the 1857 rebellion and that the city now used as the backdrop for its annual celebration of Awadhi culture, the celebration, which was: music, dance, food, crafts, poetry, the celebration — Lucknow's declaration to the world: we are still here. We are still Lucknow. We still know how to throw a party.

The dance competition was one of the Mahotsav's main events. Couple dance. Open category, any form. The judges would be three: a Kathak guru from the Lucknow gharana (the Lucknow gharana being one of the three major Kathak schools, the school that emphasized abhinaya. Expression; over the Jaipur gharana's emphasis on footwork, the emphasis, the rivalry thatKathak's two major schools maintained the way cricket maintained the India-Pakistan rivalry: respectfully, competitively, eternally), a contemporary dance choreographer from Mumbai, and a Bollywood choreographer who had been responsible for six hit film songs. She pressed harder. The ink spread into the fibres.

The competition would have twelve to fifteen couples. The performance time: seven minutes. Seven minutes to prove that a perfumer who had been dancing for eleven days and a data analyst who had not danced for fifteen years could do something on a stage that was worth watching.

Today's session was not practice. Today's session was planning.

Nandini sat on the baithak's marble floor with her laptop, the laptop: planning tool, the tool that the data analyst deployed when the data analyst was doing what the data analyst did best: organizing information into actionable structures.

She had created a spreadsheet. The spreadsheet that was; of course it was a spreadsheet. The spreadsheet, which was the data analyst's native document the way the attar bottle was the perfumer's native object: the container in which the work lived.

The spreadsheet had columns:

| Element | Status | Days to Perfect | Priority | |———|——--|—————-|———-| | Tatkar (basic) | 80% | 2 | High | | Tukda | 65% | 4 | High | | Toda | 45% | 6 | Medium | | Chakkar (solo) | 0% | Not attempted | Low | | Pair work | 0% | Not attempted | Critical | | Music selection | Pending | 1 | High | | Costume | Pending | 3 | High |

Ishan looked at the spreadsheet. He looked at it the way a patient looked at a diagnosis, with that attention that bad news demanded, the bad news being: 0% on pair work. 0% on chakkar. 40% on choreography. The zeros and the forty: holes in their preparation, things they had not done because they had, the holes been doing the things they needed to do first: the foundations. Tatkar first. Tukda second. Toda third. The foundations; necessary and the foundations taking time and the time; finite and the finite time producing the zeros that the spreadsheet now displayed.

"Pair work se shuru karein?" he asked. Should we start with pair work?

"Nahi. Pehle costume. Costume se choreography decide hoti hai. Choreography se music decide hoti hai. Music se pair work decide hota hai. Reverse engineer karna padega."

No. First costume. Costume determines choreography. Choreography determines music. Music determines pair work. We need to reverse engineer.

The reverse engineering being the analyst's approach: start from the end, work backward to the beginning, the backward-working producing the plan that the forward-working could not produce because the forward-working was the plan of a person who did not know the end and the reverse engineering was the plan of a person who knew the end (the stage, the seven minutes, the judges) and who was building the path from end to beginning.

"Costume: main kuch suggest karoon?" he asked. Costume, should I suggest something?

"Haan."

He stood. He walked to the corner of the baithak where he had placed his jhola. From the jhola he removed; not an attar bottle, not a speaker, but a folded cloth. A cloth that he unfolded with the care that folded fabric required, the care of a man whose hands were trained for delicate objects, the delicate object being: a dupatta.

The dupatta was. The dupatta was not a regular dupatta. The dupatta was silk. Pure silk. The silk — Banarasi: from Varanasi, the city that produced the silk that Indian weddings demanded and that Indian celebrations required and that Indian women draped over their shoulders with a pride that Banarasi silk produced: the pride of wearing a cloth that had been woven on a handloom by a weaver whose family had been weaving for four hundred years.

The colour was: the colour was the colour of attar. Amber. Not yellow, not orange, but amber — the in-between colour, the colour that existed between gold and honey, the colour that sandalwood was and that old perfume bottles were and that the baithak's faded walls were approaching: amber. The colour of things that had been beautiful for a long time.

"Yeh: yeh mere Dada ki thi. Dada ne yeh apni wife ke liye, meri Dadi ke liye, banwaya tha. Banaras se. 1978 mein. Dadi isse ek baar pehni thi: sirf ek baar: apni beti ki shaadi mein. Meri phuphi ki shaadi. Uske baad: uske baad yeh sandook mein rahi. Chaalis saal."

This — this was my grandfather's. Grandfather had this made for his wife. My Dadi, from Banaras. In 1978. Dadi wore it once: only once, at her daughter's wedding. My aunt's wedding. After that, it stayed in the trunk. Forty years.

She looked at the dupatta. She looked at it and her hands reached for it, the reaching — involuntary, the way hands reached for beautiful fabric: without permission, the fingers wanting to touch before the mind decided whether touching was appropriate.

She touched it. The silk under her fingers was, the silk was the silk that only age and storage produced: soft beyond the softness of new silk, the softness, forty years of rest in a sandalwood trunk, the trunk's darkness and coolness and the sandalwood's scent having worked on the silk the way time worked on wine: deepening, mellowing, the mellowing producing a texture that new silk could not achieve because new silk had not yet been patient. She shifted her weight. The cold followed.

"Yeh — yeh tum mujhe de rahe ho?" she asked. You're; giving this to me?

"Competition ke liye. Agar tum chahogi toh."

For the competition. If you want.

She held the dupatta to the light. The light, the baithak's afternoon light, filtered through the arched windows, the light carrying the dust motes that the room contained, the dust motes (room's permanent residents): the light passing through the silk and producing the glow that Banarasi silk was famous for: the glow that was not shine (shine was surface) but luminescence (luminescence was depth), the silk glowing from within the way a lamp glowed from within, the within, the weave, the weave (gold)zari threads that the Banarasi weaver had woven into the silk in 1978 on a handloom in Varanasi.

"Yeh competition ke liye nahi hai," she said quietly. "Yeh, yeh kisi ke liye hai."

This isn't for the competition. This is: this is for someone.

"Tumhare liye hai."

It's for you.

The sentence. The sentence landing in the baithak the way a final note of a ghazal landed in a mehfil: with finality, with resonance, with the exact weight that words acquired when they were said in a room built for words.

She looked at him. She looked at him and the looking was: the looking was the look of a woman receiving a gift that she understood. The gift; not the dupatta, the dupatta was the medium. The gift: *I thought of you when I was not with you. I went to my grandfather's trunk. I opened the trunk. I found the dupatta. I brought it here. The bringing was the thinking made physical.

"Shukriya," she said. And the word. The word was insufficient, the insufficiency, which was limitation of language when confronted with gesture, the gesture exceeding the word the way the attar exceeded the bottle: the container could not hold the content.

She folded the dupatta. She folded it with the care that silk demanded: the care of a woman who had watched her Nani fold silk sarees for thirty years and who had learned that silk was folded, not creased, the folding, the act that preserved the fabric and the creasing, the act that damaged it, the damage, which was permanent because silk remembered creases the way skin remembered scars: forever.

"Mere liye. Mere costume ke liye: yeh dupatta hoga," she said. For me. For my costume, this dupatta.

"Aur baaki?"

And the rest?

"Lehenga. Black. Simple. Yeh dupatta star hai. Baaki sab background."

Lehenga. Black. Simple. This dupatta is the star, everything else is background.

"Aur mera?"

And mine?

"Tumhara. Tumhara sherwani. Black. Simple. Same; tum bhi background ho. Dupatta star hai."

Yours, a sherwani. Black. Simple. Same; you're also background. The dupatta is the star.

He laughed. The laugh, she had noticed this about his laugh, the laugh was rare. The laugh was not the easy laugh of men who laughed frequently and whose laughter was currency, spent freely. His laugh was the saved laugh, the laugh that appeared when something genuinely amused him, rarity that made the laugh valuable, the genuine amusement, the value, opposite of currency: the less you spent, the more it was worth.

"Main background hoon."

I'm the background.

"Kathak mein: Kathak mein dancer star hota hai. Stage background hai. Costume background hai. Music background hai. Sirf dancer star hai.

In Kathak. The dancer is the star. The stage is background. The costume is background. The music is background. Only the dancer is the star. And in the dancer, the feet are the star.

"Mere paanv, mere paanv star ban payenge?" he asked, and the question was not self-deprecating but genuine, the genuine: can my feet; these feet that have been walking between glass shelves for fifteen years. Can these feet be the star of anything?

"Das din hain," she said. Ten days.

"Kya hoga das din mein?"

What will happen in ten days?

"Das din mein, main tumhare paanv ko stage pe le jaaoongi. Stage pe: stage pe tumhare paanv baat karenge. Stage pe tumhare paanv woh sab bolenge jo tum nahi bol sakte."

In ten days, I'll take your feet to the stage. On stage — your feet will speak. On stage, your feet will say everything you can't say. She extended her wrist. His fingers steadied it. The contact was brief, dry, precise.

Your feet will say everything you can't say. The sentence. The sentence — promise. The promise of a teacher to a student, the promise that every Kathak guru made to every student: I will give you a language. The language is not words. The language is feet on earth. The language will say the things that your mouth cannot.

He was quiet. The quiet: . She was learning his quiets the way he was learning her smells, this quiet was the grateful quiet. The quiet of a man who had been given something he had not asked for: a language. The language of feet. The language that his mouth, his mouth that could describe rose attar and mitti and the difference between top notes and base notes: his mouth could not say the thing that his feet would learn to say.

"Chalo," she said. "Choreography banate hain."

Let's make the choreography.

She opened the laptop. She opened a new document; not a spreadsheet this time but a timeline. The timeline, the seven minutes of the performance, the seven minutes broken into segments:

0:00 - 0:45, Entrance. Slow. The two of them walking onto the stage from opposite sides. No dance. Just walking. The walking: the first impression, the first impression that the judges would form, the forming, which was instant: *these two people are either interesting or boring.

0:45 - 2:00. Solo tatkar. Nandini. Her tatkar establishing the rhythm, establishing the Kathak base, establishing to the judges that this couple had training, had skill, had the foundation that Kathak required.

2:00 - 3:30: Duo tatkar. Both of them. Together. The together, which was the pair work that they had not yet practised, the 0% on the spreadsheet, the zero that needed to become something in ten days.

3:30 - 5:00; Tukda and toda. Combined. The composition that she would choreograph to showcase his strengths (his sense of rhythm, discovered in Day Six, the discovery that was : he could hear the beat. His body was slow to respond but his ears were fast. His ears were a perfumer's ears: ears that listened to the world with the attention that his nose listened to the attar) and hide his weaknesses (transitions, speed, the familiar wobble that appeared when he attempted anything above moderate tempo).

5:00 - 6:15; Contemporary fusion. The element that she had proposed on Day One: Kathak base with contemporary movement. The contemporary, which was the bridge between his limitations and the stage's requirements, the bridge being: contemporary dance allowed pauses, allowed stillness, allowed the kind of slow deliberate movement that his body excelled at. Contemporary was the attar-application of dance: gentle, deliberate, intentional.

6:15 - 7:00; Finale. Chakkar. Her spin. His stillness. The contrast — the choreography's climax: she spins, he stands. She moves, he is still. The movement and the stillness, which was conversation that the dupatta— the amber Banarasi dupatta, flying during the spin: would make visible.

"Yeh plan hai," she said. This is the plan.

He read the timeline. He read it with the attention that he gave to attar formulas, reading each ingredient, each proportion, each step, the reading, perfumer's reading: thorough, careful, because in perfume as in dance, one wrong proportion ruined the whole.

"Pair work. Pair work kal se shuru karein?"

Pair work — should we start pair work tomorrow?

"Haan. Kal se. Pair work ka matlab hai ki. Pair work ka matlab hai ki hum ek doosre ko touch karenge."

Yes. From tomorrow. Pair work means: pair work means we'll touch each other.

The sentence. The sentence: the statement of fact that was also the crossing of another boundary — the physical boundary, the boundary that twelve days of dance lessons had maintained: the instructional touch (her hand on his hip, her hand correcting his posture, the functional touch that teaching required) being different from the dance touch (his hand on her waist, her hand on his shoulder, the partnered touch that pair work required), difference between fixing a machine and d, the differentancing with a person, the difference: intimacy.

"Theek hai," he said. The theek hai being the acceptance, the quiet acceptance of a man who understood that the boundary was about to shift and who was ready for the shift because the shift was the competition's requirement and the competition was the deal's structure and the structure was the safe space.

But the safe space was shrinking. The safe space had been large at the beginning. The space of two strangers exchanging skills. The safe space was now smaller: the space of two people who had acknowledged wanting to be here and who had exchanged a forty-year-old Banarasi silk dupatta and who were about to put their hands on each other's bodies in the name of a dance that was also the name of something else.

The something else did not yet have a name. The something else was like an attar that had been applied but that had not yet opened — the top note silent, the heart note waiting, the base note developing. The something else needed time. The something else needed the ten days.

"Kal ek baje," she said. Tomorrow, one o'clock.

"Kal ek baje."

She picked up the amber dupatta. She held it against her chest, the holding (gesture of a woman holding something prec i)ous, the precious being: his grandfather's gift to his grandmother, now his gift to her, the gift that said nothing and everything. She pressed harder. The ink spread into the fibres.

Nine days to go.