New Shoes

So if you are a classical dancer I would assume that you know that to be able to do classical dancing you need to literally give your soul away to dancing. The irony lies in the fact that the time you pledge yourself to Classical dancing of any sort is the time when you actually begin to have a soul.

I can still feel the tension in the muscles of my neck & my legs when I think about my Kathak dancing days. Those were some beautiful days- when dancing was not a serious art but just an energy release; a daily practice; a thing that connected its pulchritude with it’s inner meaning with a rhythm too complicated for a 6 year old to learn/understand. But I danced…not because I understood the beat; or because I had any deep or philosophical thoughts related to it. I did it because I simply enjoyed it. I felt as if I would dissolving into motion in such a way that people will not be able to see my body… my arms or legs as separate entities…

My spine used to straighten itself in a subconscious gesture of getting ready; the mind would start syncing itself with a rhythm which was so well practiced that I didn’t bother to think where it’s coming from- my heart; the stamping of my feet or the tension of the thin sheet of stretched skin on the tabla. I had a feeling where I could not remember anything else because somehow the mind used to settle in and manage a rock solid focus on the notes. The outside world remained outside leaving just a fierce rush of energy gathered to be released.

That was then…Kathak…done barefooted. Now I have worn some new shoes and have changed- from intense stamping of feet to fragile movement on toes and heels- my style has changed from being earthy to dreamy. The motion has changed its face and I have started revolving, closing-in real tight, to move in circles- faster and faster till I become the focus myself as if… if I come to a stop it would be to release everything and fling it into the air- like sachets of colors tied to a wheel bursting when it comes to a screeching halt.

I have acquired a new soul…a new kind of motion…a new style of dancing- Jazz with a blend of Hip-Hop and I am loving it.

KaZam!!!

I don’t know if someone noticed or not but somewhere around 250 B.C. a man called Archimedes was born in the Greek city of Syracuse.

The same Archimedes who gave the world the fabulous principle of flotation-who devised several war machines that Greeks used during the Siege of Syracuse; proved several important formulae and was the first one to come up with an approximation of the value of pie…

The same Archimedes who lived alone; was/is laughed at for the myth that he ran out of bath-tub naked shouting “Eureka! Eureka!” and was called a crack-head…the same Archimedes…who once, while working on one of his unsolved problems, by the hands of an insignificant Roman soldier, died…alone…

A pot full of burnt coffee

Remorse is my muse. There are only few things that can make me write- loneliness; remorse & depression( mine or someone else’s) . Right now it’s remorse that’s generating these words that I just cannot prevent myself from writing. I have hurt someone terribly and I really don’t have any escape from it. I will have to live with it and there’s nothing that he or I can do about it. But even when I don’t feel like I deserve a whole lot at this point in life I do have a right to wade through some nostalgic moments between him & me…

October was going to come to an end and there was nothing unusual about it. Just that the weather had turned so beautiful; the leaves had started falling all over the place and all the side-walks and apartment complexes had acquired some fuzzy combination of greens; reds & yellows….

And it’s in this October, that one starry cold night, we had walked around my apartment complex- laughing; fighting; teasing & cracking jokes, when we realized that he had to leave for his flight back to Houston next morning. I didn’t want to think about it and that was the time when we started discussing about the library that I have always wanted to build in future. I was talking about my dream- the structure of the library; the activities; the library gazette; books etc. and he was talking about reality- investors; money; land; loans blah blah. That’s what we are when we come together- a hit at reality with a strong dash of dreams and both of us can get drunk on it until we fall in love with each other again. lol

Then there was that night at Austin when we had gone to a club and after a while, sitting on a small bench at 6th street, eating hot-dogs from a small street corner stall, had planned a classy bar/pub/restaurant of our own in India.

And then, a few days back, on his last trip to California, we both stood at the rim of the valley and could see the hustle bustle of the city- shimmering; silently hanging between the heaven & earth…we talked about its streets, it’s capacity to grow; give & take. He was telling me about his life 3 years ago – his life when he had had to get up at 6 in the freezing mornings of Chicago; attend school; clean floors & toilets; work at the lab and then finish homework till 3 a.m. He told me how on Saturdays he would race for money to pay his school fees and how he got over the period where he gave up a blindingly fast paced life to settle for a pace that would give him a solid future rather than some worthless fame in a small town. At that time I wish I could just get lost in his numerous stories and keep listening to them for ever.

I told him that he is the only man who has ever made me feel so alive- maybe because the times when I am completely myself are only those when I am around him. With him I am not scared to be who I am/was; I am not shy; my ideas are not crazy or impractical and I am this super confident girl who he loves so much that he would even swallow a real bitter gulp of my dishonesty and simply say:

“Things like these have been brilliant experiences for us to learn from and head stronger towards what we really want to be.”

I can’t believe that when I had first met him I had thought that he is nowhere close to what I had seen in my dreams and now as we are coming closer and closer to each other, I feel that by some miracle all of this exactly looks like my dream! I could call it my sixth sense…but this feels so much more powerful than that…something beyond a sixth sense…something more artistic; more omnipotent and something that’s definitely making the world tilt towards my side.