This one's really just only about me.

Bitter coffee with no sugar and a good back massage can do wonders to your body. Coupled with jesting with the black sheep of your family makes it quite… interesting. So talking to this particular cousin of mine while feeling the relatively new taste of strong, black coffee touch my tongue and go down my pipe, I discovered a lot of things about myself which I must’ve always known but never spoken out aloud. I never did want to go to school. Till fifth it was happy; school was just an excuse to do whatever you wanted, you just needed to learn the rudiments of geography and evs and those horrendous practical things one has to learn in order to ‘develop’. And then you could do whatever you wanted; you could paint, or read or dance or act or write or just enjoy eating. I liked mimicking Kathakali dancers when Thakurma would switch on the tv and ma saw how much I enjoyed it and decided that I should be trained. I remember thakurma arguing how I should be learning how to sing instead and how everyone in her family had turned out to be brilliant singers, how it was in my genes… and how maybe the fact that I was my mother’s child I had somehow unfairly lost the genes in the process. I remember ma asking me very gently if I wanted to learn how to dance; thankfully there was no pressure to nod a yes just because her eyes shined when she asked me; and I remember grinning from ear to ear and doing another Kathakali eye thing to show that it was an affirmative. I did Bharatnatyam for a month; somehow that’s the first dance form that comes to most people’s minds when they think of classical dance. Then I caught the loo and by the time I was well again I’d forgotten I had joined in the first place. I never went back to the aunty’s place to learn ta-hit-hit-ta.

Then one day I was waiting for another cousin of mine in the place he was supposed to ‘learn’ how to draw when I started scribbling on paper. I don’t remember what I drew but I loved it and since that day our evenings would be spent in drawing while the adults laughed and talked in the other room. We drew Tintin covers, wacky monsters, places we wanted to go to that didn’t exist anywhere except in our heads, action figures, big monster racing cars. Then one day—I don’t even remember when, I started learning Odissi. I loved every minute of it; I don’t know if it was because I loved to dance or because I was good at it or was it simply because I received a lot of attention as a result. But I loved each class and I would be eager to prove how I could outdo myself every new day. I remember the adrenalin rush on the first day we performed; how I loved the lights, the big stage, the audience’s eyes focused on us, clapping, watching, admiring. I was probably eight or maybe nine and my sari came loose while I danced and all I did was bunch it together and stick it somewhere and continue dancing; I would not let anything interfere with this. There were many performances later where saris were perfectly in position, spotlights were on me and I wasn’t dancing in a group anymore, but nothing ever quite beat that first time. I enrolled into a ‘proper’ dance-training school—a choice I’ve always regretted—got degrees, learnt a whole lot of ‘technical’ things… But somehow lost the happy feeling dancing gave me somewhere in between. I dropped out of dance school right when things were gathering pace, right when a New York tour was supposed to come up, right when we were told we’d been promoted to the elite class. I’ve never been more relieved, and I’ve never looked back since and regretted it for a day. Six years of dance school and not even a flinch while I calmly told my teacher I would be not dancing anymore.

I did not like school; going there was the most mechanical thing that I did. Day after day, month after month, and I never questioned it all; I just thought it a routine one is supposed to follow and you couldn’t possibly have a choice in. I remember sitting in classes not listening to a word the teacher said unless it was literature, and then I was all pricked ears and ready mouth. I remember loving PT periods where we would play kho kho or dodgeball or when the stupid boys would allow us, football. Which was rare, and the fact that nobody else was much interested in playing football in any case made me shy away from asking to be ‘allowed’ in the game. The only time they did want to play was when they thought they’d look ‘cute’ and it’d be a perfect way of getting a guy’s (and in some cases numerous guys’) attention. It was all very cumbersome. By the twelfth I’d worked out a perfect system to survive school. I’d calculated exactly how many marks I needed to be a ‘good’ student in subjects I did not like studying any longer and then devoted all my energies towards things that made me happier, and I was content.

I loved choosing to do English, I loved knowing I could choose my college, I loved the people around me, even though I was doubtful the first month if this was how college was supposed to be like. I loved the freedom; I had never known how much I had always wanted it. I loved knowing new things, and I’ve changed a lot, since those first days of walking into college in half pants and a black slogan screaming shirt. I’ve learnt to welcome change, I’ve learnt that inertia did no one ever any good. I’ve learnt getting bruised isn’t that bad; and that safeguarding yourself always is just plain cowardly. I’ve discovered unlimited potential in things that I never knew could have any depth. And I’ve learnt to know that things can be grey, and that it was actually me who believed in binary more than anyone else.