Pirouette

Daily Journal Entry - Another exhausting day!

Wake up at 5:00 am, meditate, dance, shower and open the cafe. I work all day long, take orders, brew tea or coffee till 6:00 pm, clean up afterwards. And finally, sit down with mint tea to journal before bed.

One girl shouted at me today because the cookies were on her plate's right side and not left. It is not the customers' rudeness that bothers me but the gnawing feeling in my heart that I will never dance like my granny. Every year I put up posters for dance auditions to the grandest show in Opera House. Every year I hope for a miracle to get $20,000 to enrol in the audition. Every year I tear down the poster knowing that it is an impossible dream.

How many people in this town can boast of being taught by Srimati Radha Devi herself - who held the record of solo performance twenty-five years in a row. I know it is not fair, but I am angry at mom for getting sick. If she wasn't ill, then granny wouldn't have spent all her money on hospitals, doctors. If granny had not spent all her money, I would be famous like her.

Be grateful for what you have - that's what granny always said. Sometimes it just so hard. I wonder how granny remained so peaceful despite everything.

I will never become a dancer like my granny. I feel like a nobody. Maybe it is my destiny to fade away into nothingness. Life feels like drudgery. Will this ever change? Is life supposed to be so incomplete and unsatisfying? There has to be something else.

Enough of this rant. I have finished my cup of tea, and now its time to go and work on the kitchen floor - hopefully, it will be the last of the repairs.

Arya closed the small black notebook with a bang. This was the last of her journals - she could not spare money to buy another one. Typing on a laptop was not the same as writing in a journal. With a sigh, she pushed her chair and got up.

#

Arya glanced around at the cafe, her home since childhood. The oak doors with dancers carved in the panels, the wooden tables with different dance postures, the small kitchen brewing, espresso machine, a three-compartment sink and cash register next to it. And most importantly, her granny's photograph on the wall behind the counter. Today the gaze seemed to scold her for her pessimistic view on life. But it had become harder and harder to be upbeat about her life.

She tied her long black hair in a bun, put on her working gloves and opened the cabinet under the sink. The floor beneath the sink was destroyed when the sink had sprung a leak. Thankfully she had found some spare wooden slats as a replacement. She had to bend to get inside the cabinet, pry the wooden slats and replace them with new ones. She tore down the last one just as the clock struck midnight when she saw a hole in the floor. There was an old white cloth yellowed with age wrapped around what looked like a wooden box.

She took off her gloves, wiped the sweat off her brow and leaned against the cabinet door. She gingerly opened the cloth to reveal a small wooden chest. Her granny used to hide candies in this box. The box creaked as she opened it and found an envelope with her grandmother's handwriting, a small black notebook.

The notebook was a daily journal with a handwritten quote from her grandmother for each day. She kept the diary reverently aside - the saying for the day was 'When the teacher is ready - the student appears.' She opened the envelope and found four bundles of dollar bills. Her fingers trembled as she opened one bundle to count the money, and it had fifty crisp hundred dollar bills. Her granny had left her twenty thousand dollars. Tears rolled down her eyes even as a smile broke on her face bringing out the dimples in her cheeks.

#

A Week Later.

"While washing dishes, one should only be washing dishes, which means that while washing the dishes, one should be completely aware of the fact that one is washing the dishes" - Thich Nhat Hanh.

Arya reminded herself of the daily quote from her granny as she tried to calm herself before the audition. Only five students out of ten thousand will make it to the finals. And only one of the five would do a solo performance in the new year ceremony in Opera House - where her grandmother had performed for twenty-five years. She tried her best not to think about the fifteen thousand dollars she would lose if she did not win. She focused on her breath to calm her mind, which was busy building stories around her win or loss.

She was number three in the last batch of ten students. The sequence she had chosen was one of her favourites - one she could do in her sleep. She heard her name and took five deep breathes before gliding into the stage. Her mind was free. She was a leaf in the wind letting the wind pull and push her as needed. For those brief but long three minutes, nothing existed - she was the dancer and the dance. When the music stopped, she broke out of her reverie to see the judges standing and clapping. One of them was wiping tears from her face. She heard statements like, 'That was a beauty - reminded me of Radha Devi.' 'Who is this girl?' Somebody rushed out to the stage to hug her and tell her that she was selected. All the judges congratulated her as she walked to the waiting room.

There were fruits, coffee, juices in front of her. Everything felt like a blur. She nodded as people gave compliments. After some time, other people left. It finally dawned on her that she had won. She took out her diary and wrote down - "I have arrived", and wiped the smudge of tear that had dropped on the page.

#

Three Months Later.

"We all want to be famous, but the moment we want something, we are not free." - Jiddu Krishnamurthy.

She read the quote while using her hand to stop the foot-tapping - a habit she had picked up during training. The mint teabag was seeping in hot water. She could sympathise with tea constrained in the bag. Her fresh mint teas in the cafe were far better. She looked at herself in the mirror in the makeup room. A stranger stared back at her - same black eyes, pointed nose, but she did not know the person in the mirror. She unclenched her hands and started writing in her journal.

Daily Journal Entry - Something Is Missing...

Today is the final selection day. At first, it was all right, it felt like a dream, and slowly cracks began to appear. I know its not the hard-work that bugs me - I had worked harder when I ran the cafe. I can also tolerate the snide remarks about my selection based on charity and not talent. What is getting to me is the readiness to dance even when I do not feel like it. I feel like I wear a mask always and have lost touch with who I really am. Dance to win is not sitting well with me. I have been telling myself that this will pass every day, but it is getting difficult to breathe. My dance practice has been deteriorating since my audition. I know for sure I will fail the competition.

I feel like a nobody. I will never become a dancer like my granny. Maybe it is my destiny to fade away into nothingness. Life feels like drudgery. Will this ever change? Is life supposed to be so incomplete and unsatisfying? There has to be something else.

The five-minute timer shrilled, and in her hurry to take the teabag out of the cup, she spilt the tea. As she brushed the tea from her journal, her fingers landed on a page from the old journal. It was the same paragraph she had written the day she had discovered the cash unexpectedly. Suddenly there was a gap between her thoughts as she became still. And the knots in her heart loosened, and she laughed out aloud. The other girls looked at her in askance, but she could not stop laughing.

#

Six Months Later.

"Just when the caterpillar thought the world was over, she became a butterfly" - Anon.

Arya smiled and hugged the kids as they came up to say good-bye at the end of the dance class. Her dance class was flourishing, and at this rate, she would have to hire another instructor and move into a bigger studio.

She had won the competition but declined the offer to do a solo performance at Opera House. She had what she wanted FREEDOM - and the dancing at Opera House was nothing compared to it. With the cash prize, she had remodelled her cafe into a dance studio. She had the same routine as before, wake up, meditate, dance, but now there was a lightness to her being. She was the dance, and life was the dancer.

She knew now that nothing external could give her a sense of completeness. It has to come from within. Once that had become clear, she understood why her granny had not lost her inner peace even after her mom's death. She turned around to look at her granny's photo, who seemed to be smiling at her today.

She walked to a small hole under the sink where a wooden chest lay atop white cloth. She placed a new little black notebook with her daily quotes in it with the bundle of twenty thousand dollars. She dusted her hands and smiled at the stranger she saw in the mirror.