Chapter 11: Rohini (The Garba)
The society garba was in the big ground behind our building. I had watched it from the balcony every year. Strings of lights. Loud music. Hundreds of people moving in big circles.
Now I was walking into it.
At the entrance, my legs almost stopped. People turned to look. A group of aunties near the food stall stopped talking. Two boys I had played cricket with as a child stared at me, then at each other. I felt every eye like a hand on my skin. I wanted to turn around and run home, back to the balcony, where nobody could see me.
Mummy’s hand tightened on mine. Ananya’s tightened on the other side.
“Don’t look at them,” Ananya whispered. “Look at me.”
They pulled me into the circle.
I didn’t know the steps. I had only ever watched. Step, step, turn, clap. I was always half a second late. My dupatta slipped off my shoulder, and Mummy, still dancing, reached over and fixed it without missing a step.
“Watch my feet,” she said. “Step. Step. Turn. Clap.”
I watched her feet. Step. Step. Turn. Clap.
A small girl in a pink lehenga danced past me. She looked at my wrist and shouted over the music, “Didi, your bangles are so pretty!” Then she was gone, spinning into the crowd.
Didi. From a stranger. From a little girl who didn’t know anything about me except what she could see.
Mrs Kamat came into the circle and danced right next to us. She didn’t say anything. She just danced, and every time she passed me, she nodded.
Then the drums got faster. The circle got faster. And somewhere in the middle of it, I stopped counting the steps. I stopped looking at the aunties near the food stall. I stopped thinking about who was looking and who wasn’t.
I was just spinning. My dupatta flew out behind me. My bangles rang with every clap. Mummy’s jhumkas swung against my neck. Ananya was laughing next to me, and I was laughing too, so hard that I couldn’t breathe.
For the first time in my life, I wasn’t watching from the balcony. I was in the music. And nobody, nothing, could take that away from me.
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