Chapter 9: Ishan

# Chapter 9: Ishan

## The First Touch

The first touch was the waist.

Not the wrist, the wrist was the attar's territory, the territory that he had claimed for the exchange, the wrist (surface on which he applied the rose and t)he khus and the mitti and the mogra, the applying; professional touch, the professional touch being safe. The waist was different. The waist was the dance's territory. The dance's territory being the place where his hand would go during the pair work, the pair work being today's lesson, today being Day Thirteen.

Nandini stood in the sama. She stood in the centre of the baithak wearing the black churidar that she wore to every session and the grey kurta that she alternated with a blue kurta and the white dupatta that she had replaced today with the amber Banarasi silk: the replacement, the practice, the practice of wearing the performance dupatta before the performance so that the body learned the dupatta's weight and the dupatta's movement and the recognisable way that Banarasi silk behaved when the body moved: the silk did not follow the body, the silk flowed alongside the body, the flowing: silk's independence, the independence that made Banarasi silk the dancer's partner-fabric — a fabric that moved with you but not like you, a fabric that had its own choreography.

"Pair work mein, pair work mein tumhara right hand meri waist pe hoga," she said. Her voice was the instructor's voice. The voice that she used when she was teaching, the voice that was clear and direct and that did not contain the softness that her voice contained when they sat on the marble and talked about attar and grandparents. The instructor's voice being the boundary's voice: this is teaching. This is professional. This is the deal.

"Meri waist pe, kahan?"

On my waist: where?

She took his right hand. She took it the way she took it on the first day: the day she had placed his hand on his own hip to demonstrate the stillness that tatkar required. But today she did not place it on his body. Today she placed it on hers.

His right hand on her left waist. The placement. The placement, geography lesson, the geography of a body that he had been in proximity to for thirteen days but that he had not touched, the not-touching, deal's rule and the rule: broken now by the deal's own requirement: pair work required touch. The touch was the deal's permission.

Her waist was: her waist under his palm was the thing that the word waist did not contain. The word waist was anatomical: the narrowing of the torso between the ribs and the hips. The waist under his palm was not anatomical. The waist under his palm was warm. The warmth coming through the cotton of her kurta, the cotton; thin, the November session having warmed her body through the practice, the practice generating the heat that exercise generated, the heat, the body's evidence of effort.

The waist was firm. The firmness, which was the core's presence, the core that Kathak had built in her body over fourteen years, the core that fifteen years of not-dancing had maintained because the core, once built, did not fully atrophy, the atrophy: partial, the partial atrophy leaving a firmness that typing at TCS for nine hours a day could not produce. This firmness was the dancer's architecture: the internal scaffolding that held the spine and the hips and the ribs in the alignment that Kathak required.

"Yahan," she said. Here. "Zyaada neeche nahi. Zyaada upar nahi. Yahan.

Not lower. Not higher. Here. The narrowest point of the waist.

He held. He held and his hand was, his hand was the hand of a man holding something fragile, the fragile-holding, perfumer's default: hold delicately. Hold the way you hold a glass bottle that contains sixty hours of distillation. Hold the way you hold the thing that would break if you gripped too hard.

"Zyaada halka mat pakdo," she said. Don't hold too lightly.

"Zyaada tight bhi nahi?"

Not too tight either?

"Nahi. Beech mein. Firm. Jaise: jaise tum counter pe bottle rakhte ho. Tum bottle nahi dabaaate. Lekin bottle chhodte bhi nahi. Tum bottle ko jagah pe rakhte ho. Waise."

No. In between. Firm. Like. Like you place a bottle on the counter. You don't squeeze the bottle. But you don't let go either. You place the bottle in its spot. Like that.

The bottle metaphor. Her translation: the translation that she had perfected over thirteen days, the translation of Kathak into perfume, the translation that allowed his body to understand the instruction through the language it already spoke. He adjusted. He adjusted the pressure — the pressure moving from the delicate to the firm, the firm: the in-between, the in-between: hold that said: *I am here. I am not gripping. I am not releasing.

"Ab. Mera left hand tumhare right shoulder pe hoga."

Now — my left hand will be on your right shoulder.

She placed her hand on his shoulder. The placement, the placement producing the frame. The couple-dance frame: his right hand on her waist, her left hand on his shoulder, the frame; architecture that contained the dance, the architecture that held the two bodies in proximity and in relation, the relation: facing each other, arms connected, the connection (circuit through which the dance would tra v)el: from his hand to her waist to her spine to her shoulder to her hand to his shoulder to his spine to his hand: the circuit, which was complete, the completeness: pair work's electrical system: current flowing through the frame, the frame conducting the dance from one body to the other.

"Ab; other hands."

His left hand free. Her right hand free. The free hands being the Kathak's expression hands — the hands that would move independently of the frame, the hands that would tell the story while the feet kept the rhythm and the frame kept the bodies together.

"Free hands. Woh baad mein. Pehle, pehle frame ke saath chalna seekho."

Free hands, those come later. First: learn to walk with the frame.

"Chalna?"

Walk?

"Haan. Kathak pair work ka pehla step walking hai. Doosre ke saath chalna. Same direction. Same speed. Same rhythm. Chalna: chalna pair work ka tatkar hai. Chalna sab kuch ka base hai."

Yes. The first step of Kathak pair work is walking. Walking with the other person. Same direction. Same speed. Same rhythm. Walking, walking is the tatkar of pair work. Walking is the base of everything. She shifted her weight. The cold followed.

Walking together. The simple instruction that was not simple — the not-simpleness being: two people who had spent thirteen days in the same room but who had moved independently, the independent movement, the solo practice, the solo practice being each body in its own orbit. Now the instruction was: share the orbit. Move together. Walk as one.

She stepped forward. He stepped forward. The steps were. The steps were not synchronized. His step was longer (the long step of a six-foot-one man) and her step was shorter (the shorter step of a five-foot-five woman) and the difference in step length produced a difference in rhythm. His body arriving at the next position before her body arrived, the arriving-before, the tall man's problem: his legs covered more ground, his legs outpaced her legs, the outpacing breaking the synchrony that pair work demanded.

"Chhote kadam," she said. Smaller steps.

He shortened. He shortened his step and the shortening was, the shortening was the adjustment that the partnership demanded: I am larger. You are smaller. I must become smaller to match you. The becoming-smaller being the compromise that pair work required and that life required and that he was learning on the marble floor of a Nawabi baithak because a data analyst had told him to take smaller steps.

They walked. They walked across the baithak. From the doorway to the window, twelve paces; with his hand on her waist and her hand on his shoulder and their steps synchronized, the synchronization, approximate, not perfect, the approximate, which was the first day's standard: *close enough. Getting closer.

"Phir se. Doosri taraf."

Again. Other direction.

They turned. The turning, the turning was the moment where the frame was tested, the testing, which was: could two bodies connected by hands turn without losing the connection, without the hands slipping, without the bodies colliding? The answer was: barely. The turn was clumsy. His left foot catching her right foot, the catching producing the stumble that he had feared, the stumble that confirmed his body's default mode: clumsy.

"Maaf karo," he said. Sorry.

"Mat bolo maaf karo. Dance mein sorry nahi bolte. Dance mein, galti hoti hai, phir se karte hain. Sorry nahi. Phir se."

Don't say sorry. In dance, you don't say sorry. In dance. A mistake happens, you do it again. Not sorry. Again.

Not sorry. Again. The instruction. The instruction, which was replacement of apology with action, the replacement that his Dada had taught him about attar: if the batch is wrong, don't apologize. Make another batch. The apology is the next batch. The same philosophy. The apology was the repetition. The repetition was the correction.

They turned again. This time: this time the turn was smoother. Not smooth, not fluid, but smoother, the comparative: progress, the progress measured in the absence of the stumble, the absence —: his left foot cleared her right foot by half an inch, the half inch being the difference between falling and not-falling, the difference that was margin that practice would widen.

They walked for forty-five minutes. Forty-five minutes of walking with the frame, forward, backward, turning left, turning right, the directions, which was vocabulary of pair movement, the vocabulary —: I go where you go. You go where I go. We are connected. The connection dictates the direction.

By the end of the forty-five minutes, the walking was — the walking was passable. Passable being: two people connected by hands moving across a marble floor in approximate synchrony, the synchrony, 70% accurate and 30% off, the 30% being the gap that eight more days of practice would narrow.

They released the frame. The releasing: the releasing was the moment. The moment when his hand left her waist and her hand left his shoulder and the connection broke and the breaking produced the absence, the absence of warmth, the absence of pressure, the absence of the circuit, the circuit having been running for forty-five minutes and the running having become the norm and the norm: interrupted by the release, the interruption producing the feeling that the release was wrong, the wrong: *my hand should still be there. The warmth should still be here.

He flexed his right hand. He flexed the hand that had held her waist for forty-five minutes and the hand remembered, the hand remembered the shape of the waist, the shape — curve, the curve, which was geography that his palm had mapped over forty-five minutes: the narrowest point, the firmness of the core, the warmth through the cotton, the distinctive way her body shifted when she turned, the shifting producing a tiny increase in pressure against his palm, the increase that was turn's announcement: I am about to change direction. Feel the change. Follow the change.

His hand remembered. His hand, which spent its days holding glass bottles and applying attar, his hand had added a new memory: the waist. The memory filing itself alongside the memories of ten thousand bottles and ten thousand wrists, the filing. Hand's library, the library that his brain accessed without thinking.

"Attar?" she asked.

He sat. He sat on the marble and he opened today's bottle.

"Aaj, hina," he said. Today: henna.

"Hina ka attar hota hai?"

There's a henna attar?

"Haan. Hina. Mehndi: uske patte ka attar hota hai. Bahut unique smell hai. Yeh, yeh woh smell hai jo shaadi ke din mehndi lagane ke baad aati hai. Haathon pe. Raat bhar mehndi lagi rehti hai. Subah dhoote hain. Aur phir — phir haathon mein woh smell rehti hai. Hafte bhar."

Yes. Henna — mehndi — there's an attar from its leaves. Very unique smell. This, this is the smell that comes after applying mehndi on the wedding day. On the hands. The mehndi stays on all night. You wash it off in the morning. And then, the hands carry that smell. For a week. She extended her wrist. His fingers steadied it. The contact was brief, dry, precise.

He applied the hina to her wrist, the left wrist, the wrist that had become the attar's canvas, the canvas on which he had applied rose and khus and mitti and mogra and now hina, the five attars being the five lessons, the five lessons, which was curriculum, the curriculum that paralleled the dance curriculum: the dance building from tat to tatkar to tukda to toda to pair work, the attar building from rose to khus to mitti to mogra to hina.

She smelled. She brought her wrist to her nose and — her eyes widened.

"Yeh: yeh Nani ki smell hai."

This, this is Nani's smell.

"Nani ki?"

"Haan. Nani, Nani hamesha mehndi lagaati thi. Har Teej pe. Har Karva Chauth pe. Har shaadi mein. Nani ke haath, Nani ke haath hamesha aise mehakte the."

Yes. Nani. Nani always applied mehndi. Every Teej. Every Karva Chauth. Every wedding. Nani's hands. Nani's hands always smelled like this.

She was quiet. The quiet, the quiet was not the analyst's processing quiet and not the comfortable quiet and not the six-second perfumer's pause. The quiet was the grief's quiet, the quiet that grief produced when something unexpected activated the memory of the dead, the activation, which was sudden and involuntary, the involuntary activation being: a smell. A smell on the wrist. The smell of mehndi. The smell of Nani's hands.

Her eyes were wet. Not crying; not the crying that involved tears falling. But wet, the wetness (eyes' first response to grief), the first response that could be blinked away or that could be allowed to fall, the allowing; choice, the choice, which was: control or release.

She blinked. She blinked and the wetness receded and the control held, the control of a woman who had spent fifteen years controlling the grief, the control, the not-dancing, the not-dancing, which was wall that she had built between herself and the grief, the wall now having a door (the baithak) and the door now having a smell (hina) and the smell bypassing the wall the way smells bypassed all walls: through the air, through the nose, directly into the brain's limbic system where the memories lived, the memories, : Nani's hands, mehndi-stained, holding her hands, guiding her feet, counting the tat, the tat that she had rediscovered on a marble floor in Qaiserbagh thirteen days ago.

"Tum theek ho?" he asked. Are you okay?

"Haan. Main theek hoon. Yeh, yeh achhi smell hai. Yeh: yeh ghar ki smell hai."

Yes. I'm okay. This, this is a good smell. This, this is the smell of home.

Ghar ki smell. Home's smell. The sentence connecting to the vocabulary he had built: rose was love, khus was home, mitti was waiting. And now hina; hina was also home. But a different home. Khus was home-the-place. Hina was home-the-person. The person; : Nani. The person whose hands smelled of mehndi and whose feet knew the tatkar and whose voice said ta thei thei tat in a veranda in Allahabad with neem berries on the floor.

"Gulab mohabbat hai," he said, continuing the vocabulary. "Khus ghar hai. Mitti intezaar hai. Mogra, mogra tez hai.

Rose is love. Khus is home. Mitti is waiting. Mogra. Mogra is strong. And hina—

"Hina yaad hai," she said. Hina is memory.

Hina is memory. The definition that she gave, the definition; hers, not his, the definition, which was the student's definition, the student having learned enough of the perfumer's vocabulary to contribute her own word, the word, the sign that the learning had moved from passive (receiving) to active (creating), the active: she was not just learning to smell. She was learning to name.

"Haan," he said. "Hina yaad hai."

They sat on the marble. They sat with hina on her wrist and the memory of Nani in the air and the memory of the waist on his palm and Sultan asleep near the doorway, the sleep: cat's editorial comment: the humans have had their moment. I will rest.

"Kal, kal pair work mein naachenge. Sirf chalna nahi. Naachna."

Tomorrow. We'll dance in pair work. Not just walking. Dancing.

"Main tayyar hoon?"

Am I ready?

"Nahi. Lekin waqt nahi hai tayyar hone ka. Toh hum naachenge. Tayyar nahi ho kar bhi naachenge. Yahi Kathak hai. Stage pe tayyar hona zaroori nahi hai.

No. But there's no time to be ready. So we'll dance. We'll dance even though you're not ready. That's Kathak. You don't need to be ready on stage. You need to be on stage.

You don't need to be ready. You need to be there. The sentence — the sentence that she had not known she would say and that she knew, the moment she said it, was Nani's sentence: Nani's sentence from the veranda in Allahabad, the sentence that Nani had said when the six-year-old Nandini had said main tayyar nahi hoon before her first recital and Nani had said tayyar hona zaroori nahi hai. Wahan hona zaroori hai.

The inheritance. The inheritance passing through her: from Nani to Nandini to the baithak to Ishan, the inheritance; not the dance itself but the philosophy of the dance: be there. Be present. Be on the floor. The rest will follow.

Eight days to go.