You try to focus on the translated lyrics and at the couple’s dance on screen because you don’t understand Tamil and you don’t want to miss the dance moves either. The bad translation and the unintentionally comical dance makes you chuckle. You sing the catchy chorus, absent-mindedly, yet you are mindful of the way your tongue curls at ‘zh’ since your classmate corrected you recently. How could a Kannadiga know Tamil, you wondered, but soon you learnt that Bangalore is full of Tamilians who migrated years ago.
The heat of the laptop on your thighs and the music from the grounds, wafting in from your room windows, snatches your attention. You want to continue sitting on your bed. You are comfortable walking around the small campus, it being an all girls’ college, but today there will be guys around. You actually don’t want to get out of the hostel because you have been left behind by your NRI roommate. She had discovered on the first day that you are not the type of NRI she likes to be seen with for you had never heard of the Beatles.
You cannot roam outside in shorts. You are aware that IIM students wear pyjamas during college fests but yours isn’t IIM, not even close. So you slip into jeans after considering leggings but dismissing the thought immediately because they highlight your hips that you think are oddly shaped. The confidence of fat girls to wear white leggings! A group of Bengali girls hang out in the corridor. Girls have formed groups based on ethnicity. You only have your roommate. And she wants nothing to do with you.
You check yourself out in the full-length mirror of the hostel corridor from the feet upwards and pause at your lips. You generally don’t apply lip gloss for fear of appearing to be an attention seeker. Today, the more simple, the better. As you descend the stairs, you think of girls who boldly reapply their lip-gloss anywhere, anytime, in the presence of just about anyone.
Your hair is pulled back in a pony that looks like a worn Indian broom. You envy girls with hair so silky they look like they are from a tv ad. Your kurti is dark purple; you have chosen it intentionally because you anticipate hard nipples that always accompany goose bumps when you listen to loud music.
You caress your arms involuntarily and already regret getting out of the hostel. Your arms and legs are unwaxed as you don’t ever meet guys. As you near the grounds, you can feel the vibrations of the music under your feet. Your heart thumps with the beats. You look around, to see if any guys have arrived. There are very few at the gates, some stand by the trees. They look like locals, their hair brown and their skin with a brownish tint. A few Chinki guys too.
You notice a makeshift stage, located not far from you. The ground is full of scattered girls. You stop by the big tree and then remind yourself to not stare at the tree. The mighty size and variety of the trees fascinate you, a stark contrast to the palm trees you grew up with. The girl emceeing on the makeshift stage is popular, you know her from what others have to say about her. The crowd gets loud, cheering, calling out to her to perform. After some feigned resistance she gets rid of the stole around her torso and your eyes pop.
Arabic beats play and her belly wiggles in all directions making you cringe. You try to conceal your grin and look down. You have seen better in the Gulf, professional dancers, but you know better than to criticise the popular girl. Your Dad had once used his contacts to get you a front table at a five-star restaurant to view a belly dancing performance. Your heart tugs at the memory of the gesture.
You wish you could visit home the way some of your hostel mates do by just catching a train that costs next to nothing. Bitterness rises in your heart like bile rising in the throat and you are suddenly offended at the vulgarity projected at you. But, you wonder if it’s also because you will never have the guts to dance on stage, stand on stage even, let alone belly dance.
Her dance is followed by the popular Nakka Mukka that you have come to enjoy after hearing it often, but you are caught off guard. The base from the speakers makes the windows of the nearby meeting hall vibrate. You want to shrink into a shell as you see all the plus-size girls let go of their inhibitions (if they have any) and just dance like there’s no tomorrow. Their fat ripples as they let themselves go. In a million lives, you can’t be that uninhibited. The dance that you think is called dapanguthu is freestyle.. You have only ever danced in your bedroom and bathroom. What does it take to be so free? At the end, not finding an answer to that, deciding that it is vulgar indeed, you are disgusted at the lack of grace.
The crowd moves into the nearby hall after a while. You manage to sit right in the front where everyone has gathered to see the boys perform. You have been looking forward to this since you heard that the quality of the performances was just like the ones in the Step Up movies so you don’t mind sitting on the floor, your legs going numb. You look around at the others sitting on the ground. Their legs won’t go numb. They are used to it. Most of your cousins in India sit on the floor and eat.
The first guy, from Kristu Jayanti College, does a headstand and bounces; you get to know from the emcee that the style is called beeboying. You haven’t heard of it before but when he starts performing you realise you have seen the dance in some YouTube videos. After the next four guys perform the same style you think about leaving, but the music has you charged enough to not want to return to your solace. A skinny guy comes on stage and the whole crowd cheers. You know from the pitch of the cheer that the guy must be famous. When he starts moving, you forget everything and hoot along with the crowd. You haven’t seen a robot dance live before.
You are still thinking about him the next week, in class. When you overhear some of your classmates talk about him, you ask them casually if they know him and they say he is choreographing a dance for the upcoming fest. And the only way to get in the group is to know the leg split, you overhear. The athletes in the group are smiling. The thought of the split makes you shudder. Your face falls, you forget to thank them and go to your room. At night, after your prayers with eyes sincerely closed (though you are distracted by the sounds made by the rat in the room) you really hope your path crosses with the guy’s, and then you remember the split and you can’t sleep.
You are reminded of an episode from your childhood in Bahrain, you were watching the Olympics on tv, the fluidity of female ice-skaters mesmerised you so you tried doing a split in your room. Your Dad caught you while he passed your room and he warned you never to try it again. Later, your Mom explained the importance of the hymen and that you shouldn’t be doing splits or anything outrageous with your legs to jeopardise it. She showed you a confessional article in the local magazine about a local woman who returned from the UK after a brief stay there. She was advocating hymen reconstruction, that article made you cry then because Catholicism always told you about the purity of virginity and the article was in sync with the ideology about being pure for your husband.
*
Your parents are not here to see you, now, trying to do the split. The laptop is on your bed. It hurts. Your roommate knocks on the door, loudly. When you let her in, you say quickly, ‘I was just working out, sorry.’ She looks at you with narrowed eyes and asks, ‘Are you trying to get into that dance group? If you are, forget about it. They have already selected dancers. The auditions are just a sham. The guy has a lot of head weight by the way.’
‘Oh,’ you manage. You have learnt that by ‘head weight’, Bangaloreans meant ‘attitude’.
You actually believe her; you think she’s looking out for you because for all of your life, people have been looking out for you. You never try the split again, because deep down you do know that you will not master it in a few days and that you’re not good enough to get into the group. You learn later that your roommate has got in.
A week later, the rehearsals begin, you linger by the room full of privileged girls and he notices you. You have a split second to decide if you want to run or stay. You are actually stunned that he even noticed you. You are unable to move. He asks you if you are interested in joining. You can’t be cool about it. You are that girl whose admiration shows on your face so clearly that it can be seen from a kilometre away. Maybe he likes it, you think, your transparency, because he invites you in.
You see the girls doing splits and you feel your stomach rumble but your mind is blank. The girls are looking at you with eyebrows raised. They know you shouldn’t be here. You feel out of place too, but he asks whether you could help him with the music if you are free? He doesn’t really ask, his tone assumes you will. You think you are about to faint. He wants you to assist him!
He is already giving you instructions to change the music and observe the girls carefully. You will help him decide who stays and who leaves. He has equated himself with you, the power you have now makes you blush, but it also makes you nervous. What if he asks you to do a split? Your body language will betray you. He will find out you are a virgin, you haven’t even kissed a guy. You have heard that Bangalore guys love experienced girls.
Later, as the girls leave, you tell him that he was kind to allow you to stay and watch, and you turn to leave because you are afraid your enthusiasm will irk him. He surprises you by asking you to escort him to the gate. He needs help carrying the equipment. The walk to the gate is silent except for crickets, who sound as if they are whispering about you and him. There are many thoughts running through your head. What was he thinking? As he hails a rickshaw, he pats you lightly on the shoulder and thanks you. You are elated. You cry the moment you reach your room.
It is midnight. His inclusion of you a few hours earlier has made a big difference to your confidence. You do some light warm ups to loosen your body. Your roommate pretends to be engrossed in her phone, but you know she is watching you. You feel judged. That night, you sleep fitfully. He asks you to do a split in front of a huge stadium and there, in front of everyone, you disappoint him.
The next morning, you can’t breathe properly as you are seated beside him and now, in the daylight, it all feels real as opposed to last night’s surreal encounter. You were tempted to apply lip gloss before meeting him today but you didn’t want to seem desperate. You realise he has an accent that sounds wannabe American (with the emphasis on the ‘r’s) which easily slips into the local slang (punctuating his sentences with ‘di’, ‘macha’ and the like). He is discussing some songs with his friend over the phone and your face feels hot, you are sweating. You think about escaping on the pretext of attending class, but you remember classes have been suspended for a week on account of the fest. You don’t know the songs he is mentioning, you want to Google them.
‘Ok let’s watch Thriller,’ he says suddenly. You are wondering why he wants to watch a thriller now but at least he wants to watch a movie with you! You try to think of your favourite movies and you can’t help thinking of the nude lovemaking scenes which you re-watch. There are so many topless scenes; even by mistake you couldn’t watch it with him. You know you have turned red. In your panic, you click on some movie on your home screen.
‘What’s this?’ he says, neck thrust forward, mouth open. His Adam’s apple protrudes. ‘This is a recent thriller I watched…’ you blabber.
‘What?’ he raises his eyebrows. ‘Thriller! MJ?’
You are confused; he might be talking about a specific movie. You try hard to see if ‘MJ’ rings any bell, it feels like you have never thought so hard before, not even for a math problem. ‘You want to watch a specific thriller movie?’ you ask, feeling foolish.
‘I have only recently started watching...’ you blabber some more. He first looks at you as if gauging if he heard you right and then, as if realising what a big fool you are, he laughs loudly, doubling up. You wish you had an invisibility cloak. When he catches his breath he says, ‘Where are you coming from, ah?’ his question is accompanied by a thumbs up that you have come to understand is a gesture used by many Bangaloreans, when asking a question.
‘Bahrain.’ you stammer.
‘Where is that?’ he looks like he has tasted bitter gourd.
‘The Gulf.’ your voice is a whisper.
After a moment of hesitation he says, ‘Ah ... you are like Gulf trash, wait, you wouldn’t have heard of white trash, have you?’ You are speechless. Girls are walking by. Some smile at him. And suddenly you feel exposed. At that moment you decide that this guy will make you worldly. To keep the conversation going, you ask him if he likes Allu Arjun whom you have come to admire for his dance.
‘Who?’ he asks, his mouth open, eyes narrowed and nostrils flared. You regret asking him. ‘I don’t watch anything Indian.’ He shakes his head and palm, indicating his total disconnection from Indian cinema. In that moment, he looks very much like the South Indian actors you’ve seen on screen.
How can you tell him that you have grown up watching Bollywood movies on Channel 55? You understand his will to have nothing to do with Indian cinema yet you prod like a fool, ‘What about Tamil cinema?’ He looks at you as if you are an alien he is trying to comprehend. ‘Didn’t I just tell you? You know so much about Indian cinema huh? Where are you from?’
‘From as in?’
‘State? Goan?’
‘No, Mangalorean.’
‘Kannada? No, right. Konkani?’
‘Yes! Konkani.’ you smile.
‘What do you know about Konkani cinema? Does it even exist?.’
You think of how little you know about your culture. You have only attended one Mangalorean wedding, years ago, and you don’t remember much from it. You are ashamed of yourself for testing his knowledge. He definitely knows a lot.
*
Despite your lack of knowledge about anything really, he lets you hang out with him. You feel unworthy of his company. Meeting some of his friends, you are introduced to different styles of dance. A girl from the dance group asks you, ‘He hasn’t made you a dancer has he? How can he even, you can’t dance.’ This stings, but their smile betrays their jealousy and you feel superior.
*
Your roommate is packing a small bag, you ask her if she’s going to Kuwait. It made you feel jealous? When would you get to go home?
‘Kuwait?’ she snaps. ‘Why would I go for the weekend? You crazy? I’m going to spend the night with him.’
‘Oh!’ She says it so casually that it strikes you only after a minute that she’s talking about him. You blabber something like, ‘He called you to practice, maybe, no?’ She just looks at you and smiles, ‘You didn’t even know what Cosmopolitan was, honey, I don’t expect you to understand what we are going to do at his place.’ You can feel the tears threatening to burst out, you know it will make her happy to see you this way, so you control yourself.
‘What about the attendance? Don’t you need permission to stay out?’
‘You are there no, to give me proxy.’ She continues with the packing and leaves. Maybe you deserve it because you actually sign on her behalf, if he likes her, who are you to interfere? You dream that he has asked you to do the split and you go numb. He then asks, ‘Are you good at anything really? You must have got no exposure at all in the Gulf, no? All you Gulf kids are so dumb. You don’t dance or sing or draw or even do any sports. Hell, what kind of Catholic are you? You haven’t dated or even drink or smoke. Like what the...’
*
It is evening, only an hour more before your curfew; you and he are seated in the hollow of the tree. He had chosen this spot. Your heart races, does he want to get romantic with you in this confined space? A group of his friends are practicing in the field far away from where you both are seated. You watch some dance videos together. You comment on how the camera always focuses on the main lead dancer. And that it isn’t fair to the background dancers. He laughs. ‘They are there for a reason. If they were worthy of attention, they would have been in the front,’ he says and you nod. He is right. He knows a lot.
Finally, he is watching the rehearsal videos on his phone. You are thinking of what he could do to you here, maybe put his hand around your neck and then slip it inside your top? You feel your heart leap.
The video he is looking at is shot by you, he is teaching your roommate how her feet should point when she lands on the ground, in the process his hands graze her thighs and at that moment the phone slips from your hand slightly. The aberration in the angle of the video makes him half smile. So he knows you like him! Can he feel the heat emanating from your body?
He slips his hand in yours as if it’s the most natural thing to do. His hand is surprisingly heavy for how thin he is and you feel special now that you are privy to this knowledge. He tells you about his father and that he doesn’t talk to him anymore because he never approved of his dancing. Your phone rings, the loud ring startles you both and he lets go of your hand. The word ‘home’ flashes on your phone screen and he says, ‘You are such a pampered girl. DO they ever leave you alone?’ The vulnerability in his voice has disappeared and any possibility of a kiss or caress.
After that moment under the tree, his texts have become more frequent and demanding. He is the first guy to give you this much attention. You start opening up and despite receiving no empathy from him as your NRI problems seem petty to him, you still consider the interaction to be special. The lead up to the big day has made you intimate with him and now you know there is no turning back. Even when the event is done, he will be in touch with you.
Students arrive from different colleges. You are sitting in the driveway. He is standing with the group near the auditorium. He looks at you from time to time. You smile, acknowledging his looks. He approaches you, you assume he is calling you to join him and the group but you notice he has a box in his hand and your heart beats fast, you think you are going to die. He looks like he is going to smile but he is trying his best to keep a straight a face, ‘Open the box, c’mon.’
You have never been proposed to before and the possibility of it scares you, you want to delay the moment. His friends are laughing from behind him and you wonder if he has proposed to a girl before, he looks nervous. For his sake, you say yes even before opening it and the moment you open the box, the shock of it makes you fall. He says, ‘Oh shit, sorry’ when you slip, but he is laughing and everyone else behind him is too. He is torn between helping you to get up and controlling his laughter.
‘So sorry, the guys dared me. I’ll make it up to you I promise.’ He says and leaves for the event after you stand up. They rush into the auditorium. What you just experienced in the language of the locals would be a ‘nose-cut’. He just insulted you.
Did your roommate have anything to do with this? Had she told him that you stared at his photo all day? Had she lied to him about you, that you were desperate? Had those talks meant nothing? Did he look at you as a friend or as a girl gullible enough to believe all his sad stories? He had many girl fans. Why did he pick you? You thought it was because you were special. You walk in a daze towards the middle of the campus grounds. You’re taking out your phone to play Nakka Mukka. You feel like you’re crawling out of your skin. You play the song. And then you freeze. The girl who dances like there’s no tomorrow can’t be you. You are the girl who fell for the guy who could dance. The girl who dances like there’s no tomorrow can’t be you.
*
Michelle D’costa is a Mangalorean from Mumbai. She works at Bound, a literary company. Her poetry and prose have been published journals like Eclectica, Litro UK, Queen Mob’s Teahouse, Coldnoon and more. She loves to interview writers. Her debut short story and poetry collections are complete. She edits Kaani, an ezine for fiction. She talks about books on YouTube and blogs on WordPress.