"Different.

But also very good."

Ma gazes at the steam rising from the cooling ma.s.s of semolina.

"I wish your pa and I had been able to work less.

Spend more time with Paati and you.

Your paati was a pillar at the center of our household.

I never saw her death coming.

I let her do too much.

I never saw her age."

"She wouldn't acknowledge her age either," I say.

"She never enjoyed people fussing over her.

She would have hated it if you'd tried to make her rest.

She wouldn't have wanted it any other way."

Ma's eyes are tearful but she smiles as if I've given her a gift.

SHARING.

Ma's made so much sojji there's a huge mound left.

I decide to take some to our neighbors downstairs.

Ringing their doorbell -after ignoring them all my life- feels strange.

But Mrs. Subramaniam welcomes me in with nothing but friendliness in her tone.

Mr. Subramaniam says, "So nice you're here, Veda."

And Shobana's eyes light up.

In one corner of the room, inside a gla.s.s-fronted cupboard, I see a beautiful old veena, its seven strings glinting as though someone just oiled them.

"Do you play the veena?" I ask Shobana.

"Yes, want to listen?" Shobana unrolls a straw mat, places her veena on the ground, and sits cross-legged in front of it, caressing the strings.

She loves music as I love dance.

"Shobana, perhaps you can practice what you plan to play for the boy's family this weekend," her mother suggests.

She tells me a nice boy is coming with his family to "see" Shobana to decide whether she's a good match, in as old-fashioned a way as in Paati's day.

Even Chandra's family, though traditional enough to set up a meeting for her sister with a boy they approve of, will at least give the couple the freedom to meet alone for some time and choose whether to marry.

I glance at Shobana's face.

I don't know her enough to tell if she's upset.

From her veena's strings, she plucks the pensive notes of a sad but hopeful key: Raagam Hamsaanandi.

Listening to the mood of her music shivering in the room, I pray that Shobana's husband will be a good, kind man.

And that he'll share her love of music.

SILENCE.

SOUNDS.

Roshan prances from the cla.s.sroom, the last child to leave.

As I follow him out, I hear Govinda say, "How are you, Veda? How is everything?"

He looks more beautiful and sounds more caring than ever.

I feel like I've stepped into a strong current of water, pulling me toward him.

I wonder if Govinda was teased about dance, too.

He probably had to learn to stand up to other boys, just as Roshan must.

Govinda must have a strength I never recognized.

I want to voice my thoughts but they stay trapped in my mind.

Chained feet that can't escape.

We fall into that unhappy place where words are s.n.a.t.c.hed away and silence feels loud.

"See you later?"

Govinda leaves me wishing I'd said, "Let's meet.

Soon."

FROM DANCER.

to

DANCE.

Radhika and Chandra come with me to the evening of "transcendental dance"

for which Dhanam akka's given us tickets in the very front row.

On an open-air stage, I see a dancer-a very old woman.

She wears long, loose, saffron-colored robes. No jewelry.

White locks wave wildly all about her face.

Her eyes look at us at me at something beyond.

I see nothing but the darkness of the evening.

She sings, "What Your name is, I do not know or care.

Because I feel You everywhere I dance."

Her notes rise into the air.

She follows her voice with her body, turning slowly, her arms outstretched like beams of light reaching upward from the earth.

Her palms carve a staircase into the sky.

I watch her skirts swirling around her ankles, her hair flying around her face, whirling faster than the rest of her.

She is the edge of a spinning circle.

She is the stillness at its center.

She is light as a petal rising in a spiraling breeze.

She is a petal dissolving into flower-dust.

Disappearing.

On the stage, there is no dancer.

There is only dance.

MY WAY TO PRAY.

At home, bowing to my dancing Shiva, I say silently the words of the prayer Govinda taught me.

My hands are lips.

My body is voice.

As I shape the words "the entire universe is His body"

an invisible hand flicks on the switch I've been fumbling with.

In my mind's eye, I see my students.