Forever Yours, Vrinda

Part 12

"I really loved dancing, didn't I? I hope someday I will dance once again like I used to."

A whimsical smile danced on her lips, but it failed to reach her eyes, whose frantic flutter strove to mask the sense of loss brought upon by the narration. Embarrassment and powerlessness had mocked over each of her drooped shoulders when she called out for help to attend the nature's calls. Sucheta's kind smile when she rushed to her side could not erase her awkwardness hidden by the veil of a smile.

She wanted to fly like a bird, bend like a bow, and jump like a deer as she danced her heart away, and the diminishing optimism offered no shelter to the extinguishing conflagration of hope in the recesses of her mind which had drowned in darkness of despair.

Vivaan placed his warm hand over her twitching fingers and she puffed an exasperated sigh before a tiny smile dawned over her visage. "You will. Your determination and your passion did not let dancing remain as an unfulfilled dream in the past, and I don't think this time it will be any different."

"I don't understand. Why was my father against dancing?" she asked with an incredulous stare directed at Vivaan.

"Most of our beliefs do not actually have a basis, Radha. We just embrace them as we are supposed to. Your father respected culture and tradition more than anything, but he was averse to everything that was associated with love. Lasya - Tandaav, Raas-Lila, you name it, dance is one of the most surreal expression of love. How would he accept it? It's just something he had learned from his forefathers and embraced it."

"Why do we have to hide from Paa? It's just a dance. It's not like I'm training with the lions like that man from the circus last week."

The eight-year-old Vrinda settled on the porch and placed her bag against the pillar, unlike her friend Vivaan, who had resorted to testing his aim with his bag. Vrinda rolled her eyes and scoffed at him as he shrugged his shoulders.

"Why do you dislike Puri? It's not like it is mixed with poison instead of water," asked Vivaan, prying inside the living room of his house through the window. The rumbling of his tiny stomach did not go unheard by Vrinda, whose eyes narrowed before she shook her head at him.

"Well, I-I don't like it because it is, uh, too oily?" she said, averting her eyes from his and straightening the starched and prim hem of her navy blue skirt.

Vivaan's lips thinned out as he shot her an astounded stare before scoffing at her.

"Maybe your father has a similar lame excuse for disliking dance. Something told by his parents," he said, continuing to look for something that could ease the hunger pangs wreaking havoc in his tummy.

The bridge of her nose crinkled and her nostrils flared. "Aye! Don't call his reasons as lame excuses, okay? He's my father, and he always has a reason, okay?"

His lips stretched on their own accord with the surge of memories of the times he had answered the same of hers. So much had changed, and yet so much remained unchanged.

"Some instances in his life had strengthened his beliefs. Struggle begins when we question the basis, and often people do not have enough strength or patience to do it."

"You have an answer to every question of mine, don't you?" she asked, eying him with a glint of admiration.

Her enamored gaze suggested a sense of intense ardor as though everything else faded away in his company and, like the sight of him, soothed her very soul.

Vivaan could not help but let his smile stretch further. The swirling pools of affection and passion in her eyes added a healthy dose of optimism to stop the flame of hope from extinguishing in his ravaged heart. Her cheeks, with warm hues dancing across her high cheekbones, grew prominent in the wake of a warm smile stretching upon her chapped lips.