Aabha’s mother would later claim on stages across the world that her daughter fell in love with the rhythm. “Ever since she as a child,” she would say, “her body moved to the music, to the beat,”. Her mother loved telling this story, to her it was a story of destiny and fate. But the truth was that Aabha loved the order. She loved knowing one step after the other until a perfect picture was formed. She knew when she did something wrong, and she could follow the order until she got it right. Aabha loved the assurance that there was a way to someday, get it right. Her mother thought that like her, her daughter loved the art, the creativity, the freedom. But it was the opposite, the way it often is with mothers and daughters, if you agree on the result you disagree with the premise. Aabha loved the science of dancing, the mathematical precision of the steps, and her feet that make the equation complete. But Aabha never corrected her, she never stopped her mother’s speeches, there was no reason why except that good daughters knew when not to correct their mothers. 

*** 

At 17, you know nothing. But everyone knows you cannot tell this to any 17-year-old because they will never believe you. If you’re a wise mother you’ll also know that in 3 years when they turn 20 they will turn around and accuse you of not warning you enough. “Why,” they’ll ask a million times over, “Why didn’t you tell me I was an idiot?” Aabha’s mother was the wisest mother you could get, her father knew this which is why he never got involved in their fights. Which was what he was doing that rainy day in the car when his daughter wanted to give up the one thing she had never wanted to give up before. 

“I can do other things, Ballet is not the only good thing I’m good at,” Of course this was true to an extent. Her mother was growing impatient, “You have spent hours on it. We have spent so much money on the classes. The time and effort you have put it will all go to waste only because you want more free time after school,” Aabha replied with a non-rememberable bratty thing because she thought she knew it all. Yes, she had spent hours on ballet and she enjoyed it a considerable amount but she could never be good enough to surpass the greats. She has reached the level of just above mediocrity, but you had to have something special to go beyond it, and Aabha, like most 17-year olds was convinced she did not have it. So why waste anymore time? When she could be out doing fun things that she would remember fondly in later years when life became more complicated. Her mom knew the truth, “No, you will regret it. Everyone needs a focal centre in life. And ballet is yours, you cannot let that go,” 

Her mother was a dancer too. A different kind, bharatnatyam. She had dreamed of having a daughter who would share her dance but Aabha saw one princess movie on ballerinas and her heart was set. Her mother always held that disappointment in her heart but at least she could see her daughter perform. Parents have grand ideas on what they want their children to be but in the end children will be what they are destined to, or whatever path their reckless teenage brain puts them on. “Please god,” both parents were thinking in that car, “do not let it me about a boy.” 

*** 

Of course it was not, because it was the 21st century and Aabha was a feminist. But of course, it was about a boy because centuries can turn but some girls are just built to fall in love in disastrous ways. She did not even know when he crept into her life. But now every free moment was spent with him. Unfortunately, ballet was eating quite a bit into it. So what was she to do? Loneliness was stitched into her skin for no particular reason when she was a child, and so she was crawling into spaces to cure it, even if it meant changing her shape to do it. 

In the boy’s defence he was simply enamoured with Aabha. He did not know she was changing shape only that he could never stop looking at her. He was glad to have any time she gave, any space she gave, he did not care. Loneliness was stitched into his skin too but he believed he had found a cure. 

She invited him to a performance. A performance that she had decided would be the last one. She was done dancing, standing on tip toes for applause. She did not need an audience to love her, not anymore. So she danced, the only was she knew how, with perfection. Her parents were fidgety, barely able to focus since they kept side eying the stranger in their aisle. But perhaps they also knew what they would see. Because Aabha had never gotten her steps wrong, not at 5, not at 10, never at 13. She held herself to an impossible standard, it made her mother proud, it made her father worry. It made her boyfriend turn red from admiration. 

Her father greeted her with flowers, secretly proud of having them next to the empty handed teenage boy. But when she walked out the boy was the first to praise her, the first to say he’s proud, and she gleamed like she had never before. Her father believed that the flowers wilted sooner than they were supposed to. 

The words echoed in all three of their minds, “You can never ever stop Aabha. You have gift, for real. That was the most insane thing I’ve witnessed.” The father complained that the kids never learnt how to talk in proper sentences. And Aabha, she kept dancing. 

Years later Aabha wondered if she would have kept dancing if she had never met that one kind-hearted boy. If she had met a man who demanded her time, she would have simply handed it over and thrown away her ballet shoes. How fortunate, that she somehow met a boy who knew more than a man that she needed to dance, and she needed to do it forever. 

***

Once as a little girl, Aabha had been stretching in her dance class when she had the strangest sensation that she was made of dust. She felt as though in that moment if anyone were to place a hand on her shoulder she would collapse into a pilt of dirt. She returned to her senses just a moment later, she felt her body become corpeal again. But she wondered what that feeling was, of feeling so delicate. Later she felt it was the feeling of being in love. When in love, we know that if these specific people become strangers, we will be left not standing but as layers of dust settled on forgotten memories. Unknowingly, we give this power to people. We clink glasses and we say “forever”, solidifying the possibility of turning to dust. We pour this power carelessly at first into the hands of our parents and the girl who sat next to you in pre-K. And later, we give it carefully, recklessly to lovers. 

 

*** 

But boys will be boys will be boys. Soon Aabha was on the bathroom floor with her mother holding her head and her father fuming next door. Aabha wondered what she had done to deserve  this pain that was in every part of her body somehow. The pain made her unfocused, she sped through all her daily routines. And then she put on her shoes. 

The steps were meticulous, deliberate. For the first time Aabha was not looking for order. She had realised that doing one thing over and over was not always the way to get it right, sometimes it was insanity (like someone famous had said, but who could know, she read it on instagram). She was creative, she was light footed, and at the end, she just kept spinning. She did pirouette after pirouette, the way a little girl might imagine doing ballet in her living room. She played with her own feet, her own music as if she could play game with it. 

She just kept going, until she slowed down, until her body ached with satisfaction, and then she finally collapsed gently onto the wooden floor. The room had darkened without her knowing, the windows were letting in a cool breeze. She felt the world stop around her, just to allow her to breathe. And as she gathered her breath, she knew that she had just given her best performance to nobody. No one was around to see her, especially not the one person she craved. But in her mind she knew, she could not have done this if she had not been alone. There is freedom in performing only for yourself. Perhaps like writing poetry in a locked note in your phone. Then maybe all she had to do, was pretend.