Abhinaya - Dancing to Tunes

I was wondering if I should go home when Parijatha came out of that house that day and she wasn't alone. She came out with a young, blind girl and together they walked to that school. They walked almost quietly and hardly spoke to each other. They plodded along all the way to the school, the young girl holding on to Parijatha's hand, walking by her side. Somehow, and I still don't know why, I found just the sight of the two of them walking very riveting. They walked for quite a distance and I was worried about losing my way home when they finally turned into that school.

There were a few children and even some adults in the yard so I didn't follow the two of them into the school. They walked in and were heading for the nearest building when one of the adults in the yard, a nun admiring the flowers, walked up to Parijatha and said something to her. Parijatha didn't seem surprised as she stopped and started talking to the nun. They were at it for a short while and sometime after the young girl went inside with the nun and Parijatha started walking out towards me. I made the mistake of hanging around for too long and the nun spotted me. I had to hurry to get away before she caught up with me. That day when I left that school I went back to that lonely, yellow house to see if Parijatha would come back there.

I waited for quite some time but she didn't come back. Parijatha must have gone home that day and I was sorry I hadn't stayed back at the school to follow her. Today I can only say it sounds ridiculous, the kind of things children do out of curiosity. I was basking in the morning sun outside that house for more than an hour when my father finally found me. He'd already been there to check on me but by then I'd gone to school with Parijatha and the girl. This time he'd finally filed a police complaint and was doing a desperate last check to see if I was to be found anywhere.

Dad cancelled the performance scheduled that day at our house and I was very relieved, but for the first time in my life my father threw his temper at me. He didn't hit me but I never saw my father as angry as he was on that day. Even my mother couldn't help as I very ironically listened to a long, irate lecture about controlling my anger. He told me how risky it was to run away from home and how lucky I was to have escaped without getting into too much trouble. I, for my part, was equally angry and being the brat that I am, refused to apologize. Nothing much happened that day after that except for a stony silence, but I think that was the day when I finally rebelled against my father.

I refused to continue with my dance lessons and no amount of cajoling, coaxing or even coercing would make change my mind. I simply stopped dancing. I was always a very quiet child, I never spoke much but I started becoming even quieter than ever before and I rarely ever said much to my father since that incident. For a long time after I never noticed one thing - my father had started to become a bitter man. He kept trying to persuade me to continue with those dance lessons but I was too stubborn for him.

As things turned out, his pre-teen son wouldn't fulfill his ambitions and it looked like life would be one big unrealized desire and a complete disappointment. I, for my part, didn't notice that he was becoming bitter and disappointed simply because I was too young to realize the adverse reactions my actions were eliciting. Well, if you ask me, in all my selfishness I can only say either my father had to be disappointed or I had to end up being disgruntled and incomplete. Better my father than I, and if he never understood that, well too bad for him.

When my dancing lessons stopped, my extra-curricular activity ceased. I did precious little in my spare time and just went through the motions in school. I once read somewhere that when each day drags and the weeks and months run by fast, life isn't fun. If your days are fast, then you remember each day of your week and every week of your month, that's when life is going somewhere. Well, I didn't realize I was wasting my time until I read that and that really is ironic considering my inactivity was very obvious.

School was a drag itself and as in any typical Indian school, the teachers knew better than anybody else and discipline was paramount. And then someone kept coming up with some corny idea on how to radically improve the education system. There was one crazy librarian that the school had - a Mrs. Radhika Swaminathan. She came up with an outlandish scheme that was directed at making the students well read. With the help of the principal she promulgated a law that made it mandatory for every student in higher secondary to borrow at least one book every week. She only lasted in the school for about six months and her law was repealed when the next librarian came along. Even while it was in place, most of the students borrowed a book, any book, and kept it at home for a week before returning it. I did the same thing most of the time until I accidentally read one of the books. I still remember reading A Commoner's Vagaries the first time when I was 14. Kamal C. Pathnivala's book is no literary classic but it is a representation of a man's mind and his desire to speak it. It was from Mr. Pathnivala that I learned I was wasting my time much as he had.

Well, if you must know, I didn't add too many extra-curricular activities to my list but reading my first book did get me started on the only good habit I ever cultivated. I tried to read every book that I borrowed from the library and although I couldn't finish all the books I borrowed I still continued to borrow them long after Mrs. Swaminathan was history. I did finish and enjoy a number of books and I still enjoy those knight-in-shining-armour tales but I often went back to read my first book.

In the decade since I first read A Commoner's Vagaries I must have read it at least a dozen times again and I don't ever get bored of reading it simply because every time I read it I see something new, some new connotation or thought that I'd not noticed before. I'm sure, were I to read the book again one more time, I'd realize a little more about myself and life itself and I can't wait to be an old fart before I read it all over again.

When I learn something I feel an unquenchable desire to share my newfound knowledge with someone but funnily enough I'm a loner and I have very few friends. For a long time I yearned to tell someone about the magic of Pathnivala's words but I never ever found someone I considered smart enough to share what I knew.

One day in school I got sick of the class I was in and started reading the book. I probably would have gotten away with it because the teachers usually ignored me but that day in class, in one moment of ecstasy I exclaimed my wonder out loud at having understood some more and at becoming someone a little better than my previous self. I got into trouble with the teacher immediately and this one was a particular tyrant the students called Leo Cannibalis for her man-eating habits. She judged harshly and her punishments were pretty severe. The last guy who crossed her ended up cleaning all the dustbins in the school block. As things turned out I was scheduled for some community service too. She asked me to bring the book I was reading to school that Saturday at 9 in the morning. Contrary to my expectations, it turned out to be a memorable Saturday.