I kept on procrastinating writing this blog post for quite a long time. It has become quite a hard job, writing these posts every day. I was quite an ambitious person when I started, I guess. But here’s the thing, I managed to write every day during some of the most trying times in college. I have worked on this all this time that to stop now would be a grave injustice to myself. I am going to make myself do this for the entirety of this year. I owe myself that, I owe the Yashasvi, who, in her completely blocked mind found the energy and will to write a post. I owe the Yashasvi, who, when in a particularly low point in her life, still found time to write on this blog. I owe the Yashasvi, who, right now, despite the procrastination is still typing this blog post with eyes that are closing but she’s still fighting. For this Yashasvi, and all the Yashasvi’s before, and all the Yashasvi’s after, I will continue fighting, continue writing.
It is actually quite funny how I started writing in the first place. I had another blog, I started it when I was 14. I had been in tenth standard at that time, it had been our Puja holidays. Puja holidays were a 10 day holiday that came during the month of October. They would be at the time of Navratri, ending at the time of Vijayadasami. Vijayadashami was the day when school would reopen, it is considered an auspicious day for beginning any kind of educational/creative pursuit. Classes would start their enrolments on that day, my dance class would have a big event on that day.
My dance class also had a music class in it, so the students from there would start the function. The teacher and the students would sing a Ganesha song, and this would be followed by the dance class students. All the batches would go to the class on that day, we would present our ‘salangai’ (anklets, kind of) to our ‘gurus’ (teachers), get them and then the batches would dance for a few minutes. It was a symbolic beginning, it was beautiful. The higher batches would perform songs, while the smaller, starting batches would dance some ‘adavus’ (basic steps) only. It used to be beautiful, everyone would come in their best uniform, wearing beautiful dance jewellery (not the entire ensemble of course). This would be followed by students leaving, but they would be given this small package just when they were leaving. There would be a sweet (mostly mysore pak), a pen, a pencil, and an eraser. It was a small cute thing, and we used to take them back home with us.
I remember the first time I joined that dance class, it was after nearly 7 years in another class. I joined my first dance class when I was three, and when I was nearly 10, I changed. I changed styles too, from one different kind of Bharatanatyam to Kalakshetra style Bharatanatyam. I was very scared because I knew steps but I did not know their names, I felt simultaneously alien and familiar. I remember how I joined a few weeks before Vijayadasami, the Vijayadasami function was my official induction/initiation of sorts. I had never been to anything like that before. I felt like I was a ‘senior’, but I also was not a senior. I was in a very confusing position. I was also very worried, very troubled, apprehensive, not very sure if I could do this.
Kalakshetra style was different and more difficult for me, it required much more of me than I thought I had. All the other students in my class were doing so well, while I struggled. Moreover, it was the start of feeling fat, I was one of the bigger kids in class. My older class was not in groups, we didn’t have batches, we used to have one on one classes. I personally don’t want to enter into the debate on whether groups are better than one on one or vice versa. I find those debates to be quite pointless, both have their own benefits, and cater to different kinds of people. It does not make sense to compare, at least for me. But coming back to this, I could very easily see how I looked different, it hampered my confidence a great deal. I was already lost and almost ‘vulnerable’ position, this did not help matters for me.
But one incident that really stands out for me is the fact that it was during Vijayadasami, when, after the dancing and all batches were done, I finally made my way down the stairs to collect my package and leave for home. I went down with my parents, and I saw my dance sir there. He was giving the packages, he gave me one and he spoke to me and my parents for nearly 10 minutes. That conversation really soothed my anxieties, it gave me the motivation to try my best at this. I would say that my desire to dance and make him proud started there. I wanted to prove myself, show him that his trust in me was not in vain. He was a phenomenal dancer himself, his performances have brought people to tears, he was that emotive and good. But I did not see much of him during the initial periods. I saw more of my dance aunty, who also I adored but who used to fat shame me quite a bit. I grew used to it, almost, until I started resenting the treatment. I still struggle a lot with weight and body image issues.
I still am fat, still overweight, a fact that I am reminded of every time I see people around me. It just throws me back to the times when I used to be so scared of the dance costumes because almost always, there would be some problem. They would not fit, they would have some issue or the other, I grew quite tired of that whole ordeal. This was another difference from my older dance class since we had our own costumes there. We used to perform quite a lot solo, maximum of three people, not more–we could afford to have different costumes. But here, each batch, when they performed, they did it together. We rented out costumes instead, so there was the reason why I had so many problems.
Looking back, dancing was one of those things in my life that gave me so much joy. I loved the thrill of the stage, the thrill of the emotion, the music, the whole process. I thrived there, I used to love it. Cut to me now, who fears the stage so much that she becomes nauseous and dry heaves before any performance. It has been nearly three years since I left my dance class, and there are so many days when I wonder what would have been my fate had I stayed with it. I keep on wondering if I could probably retry, think of this as a break, a long one nonetheless, and get back to dancing. It seems quite plausible for me, it might actually work I guess. Sometimes, thinking about dance makes me feel so happy, like right now when I recalled these memories. They are beautiful, there’s something beautiful with stuff that set your heart’s flight mode on, isn’t there?
And that’s my memory for the day.
The Memory Of A Storyteller 