Ghungroo - The Siren Call of Lovers (#1 - Completed)

Chapter 12 - I am Me

Chapter 12

I can never get enough of the smell of fresh oils on stretched linen. I'll never regret choosing the arts as my vocation. It is what I live for.

Dad, you'd be so proud of me. I know you looking down on me right now and smiling. This moment is yours, as much as it is mine.

I, more than anyone, knows what it is like to be considered as 'the other'. My subject matter for this exam cut deeper than the surface.

I came from a loving home. My parents had been madly in love with one another. But I never quite ticked any of the boxes that society imposed on me.

My father was a Hindu. My mother, a Muslim. In a country so obsessed with labeling people and placing them into boxes, I had struggled to find my identity.

Guess, it's like that no matter where you go. There's no escaping it.

Rejected by both sides of my parent's families due to religious differences, Rahul and I had felt like freaks of nature.

We had unconditional love from both our parents, but in the later years of their marriage, just before my father died, I could see that the strain of being isolated from their nuclear families took a toll on them.

At the very end, you always want to go home, to that place of your childhood and innocence. I get that now.

Rahul and I never knew the unconditional love of grandparents, we were always pained by the absence of uncles and aunties, and on the rare occasion that we did meet our cousins, we could not identify with them, because we looked and acted differently.

I was tall like the women in my father's family. I also had olive skin like my mother's. I inherited my long black hair and dusky features from her Persian gene pool. My light brown eyes were neither the color of my father's or mother's, but my mother says that they were just like the colour of my maternal grandmother. A woman I've never met. It pains me to know that she's never wanted to know me.

People are always telling me how pretty I am. Yet, I am mistrustful of this statement. Do they say this because I look different to others? That I am not the norm? That I am a muddled mix of a pairing that should never have happened?

When I look into the mirror all I see is a person who is neither Hindu, nor Muslim. Where does that leave me?

I guess our common differences is another reason why Rahul and I are so close. We found comfort in knowing we felt the same pain from the same kind of rejection.

My parents had made every attempt while we were growing up to instill a sense of cultural identity in us.

My mother went to great lengths to find an Indian dance school which she enrolled me in at the age of five. It was in this school that I found my love for classical indian dance. It was my foundation, the keystone to my identity.

My dance instructor, Kumari Devi is a beautiful soul who encouraged and unlocked in me a deep love for one of the oldest forms of classical dance.

Bharatanatyam is a beautiful art form and I took to it like a duck takes to water. I am a natural. Kumari Devi told my mother as much. I saw how this pleased my mother and that in a sense encouraged me even more. When I danced I became someone else.

Generally, I hate being the centre of attention, but when I'm in costume, my make-up applied and my hair plaited into a thick black rope, I transform into someone else.

The crowds melt into the background and I feel only the rhythm of the karnartic music, and I dance.

Kumari Devi says that it is my Kundalini awakening at the base of my spine. The sleeping serpent that is awakened by the melody of Shiva Nataraja, the creator and destroyer, the Lord of dance and the universe.

It is through my love for dance and my painting that I feel alive and complete. It is only through these two things that I am whole.

I am a Kumari myself now, having graduated at the age of seventeen. Once a week I still go to Kumari Devi's studio where I help do a community class. I don't get paid for it but Kumari Devi is grateful for the help, so she lets me use her studio at my leisure.

I make use of the dance studio at least thrice a week. It is how I manage to keep my body toned like that of a seasoned ballerina. Well, almost. If it wasn't for my love of food, especially cake (yeah cake is my weakness, what can I say) I'd be a lot leaner.

I'm not a gym person so this works well for me as a way of enjoying myself while getting a workout.

Barathanatyam is not for the faint-hearted. It is a grueling discipline that required strength and stamina. But I'm a sucker for pain. I'm a true believer in the pleasure-in-pain principle. Things never came easy for me. I take pleasure in pushing myself to the limits as a reminder of how far I've come, and still need to go.

I open my eyes and see in that instant all my hard work coming together in this exhibition. My paintings, my dancing, the music, the lights the images- all melting together to bare my soul.

I just hope it will be well received.

"Dad, I miss you."

My voice echoes in the large hall, an eerie sound that sends a shiver through me.

I bring my knees up to my chest and hug myself.

"Wish you were still here."

The tears flow then. Warm wet, tears, uninhibited and soothing.

Every girl's got to let go sometimes.

A short-ish chapter but it's so Layla! It had to be added...

Be sure to catch the next update on Friday...x

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