The Dancer

Extravagant make up. Detailed intricate mehndi and decorative clothes. That’s me. I dance for a living.

As I climb the steps to the stage. Each step I take perturbs the ghungroo on my feet, who in turn declare without a delay, my arrival. With each step the audiences become more eager. I can sense that. I can feel their eyes focused.  Each cell of my body can feel it. Big lid-less eyes. Anxiously moving, anxiously waiting, expecting a performance.

I position myself on the stage and limelight is about to fall on me. I should tell you though I become a different person under the lights. You see I have been dancing for years now. Initially it was a way to let off steam. I felt relaxed. The more I delved into it the more I hated the reality and the more relaxed I felt while dancing. Real life however cannot be undone and thus started the consequences. I was torn between two worlds. One I wanted to own and the one I could not disown. The tougher my life got the more I started to relate to the stories in the songs. I was Krishna one day, Sita the other, a Yogi another and an Apsara another. Anything but ME. Such a devout condemnation of reality scares people away and the only thing you are left with are your shadows. I know shadows have this dark creepy image but in the dungeons of destitute they are your best friends. They are your ONLY friends. When alone, I would love to be in darkness, in the company of my friends. Shrouding around me like a cloak. Letting me know they are around. The only problem was I was still a dancer and that involved standing under the lights, in wide open gaze. As the lights would come up I could feel the screeching of shadows. The sense of abandonment they felt. At night I was their Caesar and in light their Brutus. This transition from dark to light is, as you might have guessed, the tricky part. To overcome which my experience comes in handy. You cannot be led astray by your screeching shadows. You cannot be led astray by being you. You are not you any more. You are for the purposes of this dance a mother searching for her son. Lights come up. My lips involuntarily smile. My eyes unknowingly glow and I dance.

This time is feeling a little different. It’s strange. Every time I have fended off the temptation of being me and moulded into the character. This time however my being in the character seems to be the problem. I carry on dancing perfecting each move as if it were part of my real life with these thought rushing in my mind. I focus. I am a mother looking for her child. My remnant shadows from the halogen lamps start talking to each other. I show them my angry eyes telling them this is not the time for a rebellion. I know I am out in the light now. I know I have abandoned them momentarily but this is not the time. I am a mother searching for her child.

“Mother” they whisper.

 “Child” they murmur.

Oh! I have delved into the virtual world and opened a gate straight into reality! I had a child once. I was a mother once. The child had passed away. I had hidden this so deep down that I had even forgotten it ever happened. I had taken the lie as a reality and kept on with my virtual life as if nothing had ever occurred and now here I am out in the open dancing it away.

My feet started becoming heavy, I felt like a slave to the music, slave to this stage, chained by my ghungroo. I could not tell whether I was dancing by the script or portraying my real emotions. I broke in tears searching corners of the stage, perplexed asking my child to return. Telling him his mother goes weary.

The music eventually stops. He does not return. Lights go dim. My friends start to surround me. The audience claps away.