Behind The Controlled

Editor’s Choice: Psychological Thriller Short Story – Behind The Controlled

“So, you can only feel it, you say?”

It did not come as a question, she could clearly hear the unpronounced words.

“Yes.” The resolved response did not surprise her. This was who she was. How could anyone make her deter from her own being? Not even God, she knew.

“And thus you can’t even think about it, that’s what you say? I’ll tell you what. I think you’re just making this up. You know you’re good at it, but how can you say you felt it when you did not even know what the words meant? And you say you can feel it? I don’t want to say it, I really wish there was someone else who could do this in my place, with what has been between us outside the institute, but as the authority I hold, and with the responsibility that comes with it, I have no choice. You understand?”

There was an absurdity that always surprised her. Absurdity in people, how they could never resolve their air when they spoke, like they did not know what was going to be heard next by the others. Like it wasn’t really them. Bodies, she smirked in her own mind. Bodies, that are untouched by art, invariably in a mindly bliss. Bliss wasn’t in the inside, it surfaced too. Bodies, they could not feel it on the outside.

“Yes.”

“Alright. That’s good, though, I must pity you. You were beautiful to look at when you danced. Though you were beautiful to look at in other ways too.”

The right cheek slightly turned up, to place on his face a lop-sided grin.

She smiled. Another creature, uncontrollably human. No, she did not hate him. She did not hate anybody.

“Hate burdens the heart which rears the taal for nritya”, her Guru had told her, her teacher.

“You start to rot, my child, like a stale piece of bread that no one wants. I don’t say that you must feel wanted. But here, you must want yourself. A heart which dances, borne into someone who feels the rhythm of her feet coincide with the rhythm of her heart must not hate.” She never saw hatred, thence.

“I’ll have my things collected, I should leave in an hour.”

 

As she pushed open the door to her house, the acquainted sights flourished in her mind, not like water, but like the sound of her ghungroo. Sights of her lifetime, that she had spent swaying in the living room, walls mirrored, that reflected every movement, resembling the inside of a kaleidoscope as she tranced from one corner to another to the hymns of Vasanta, or Bhairavi. Her hands reached for the floor, not involuntarily. She was a being of reason, respecting her stage, her earth, was from her mind, her soul. Soul. That was what the kaleidoscope contained, not broken pieces of purposeless things, unattached, untied. It was a whole, and flow.

She left her things in the single room that nested her floor bed, and a few necessities, pulled up a bottle from the kitchen and placed it in the middle of the length of her living room, right in front of the mirrors.

My stage, she thought. The giver of her being, where she produced dance.  I am a producer, a maker. Creator, of beauty.

Her hands, carrying long slender fingers, tied the intricate ghungroo to her ankles. It was like giving a philosopher a pen. He could do with or without it. So could she. For a moment, she sat there, eyeing her feet with the ornament. She stood up.

It started with the same steps. Begins from the beginning. Slow tempo, simple feet movement, hands rested at the waist, fingers clung together and pulled back, thumbs folded, and the face, always smiling, forward.  The tempo pumped up, so did the complexity of the preliminary steps. The hands left rest, enhanced each and every movement, and with the hands, followed a subsequent glance.  Whither the hand goes, the glance follows. Compounded adavu (steps) came in, and her mind glided along her sight, the sight of herself in the mirror, noting where she was imperfect, half-finished.

Whither the glances lead, the mind follows. Infusion came in, the moment of the feeling creeping. She lifted her eyes from the mirror, and found herself staring at where the mirrors ended in the ceiling. Slowly, she closed her eyes, not involuntarily. Whither the mind goes, there the mood follows. And the dance transformed. From steps, to songs altogether, where the notes were heard in her mind, and the taal was played by her heart, amplified by her feet.

She took a look at the water bottle, smiled, and the feeling infused in, again. The song was about Lord Krishna, Radha, passion, love, and above all intensity. She could feel it, she could taste it. She looked again, into the eyes of the girl in front of her. She did not recognize her, but she recognized the dance, the steps, the taal, both the elements, nritta and natya, and the combination of the two, nritya.

Whither the mood goes, there is “rasa” born.

The flavour.

It wasn’t until the rap was louder than the music rolling in her mind, that she heard it. She opened the door to receive a disc from the guy next door.

“It was a very old record. I tried my best to convert it with quality.” He always had a satisfied smile accentuated by fresh eyes. She reciprocated. He was a couple of years younger to her, seeing him always gave her an elder sister stance.

“Thanks a lot. I owe you a treat. Tell me where and when.” She stated, with no playfulness, but simple glee. So her, he thought.

“Nah. Let me just contribute to this art of yours.”

She gave a laugh. It wasn’t the kind of laugh which succeeded a joke. It was a simple laugh. SO her, he thought again, and left.

She closed the door behind him, and gave herself more than a few moments to try to encapsulate the content she experienced holding that disc in her hands. She couldn’t. A few weeks ago, she had been handed over an old box of her teacher’s. Late teacher’s as her husband said after she gave it to her. She had found more than she wished for, in it. It contained a bottle of dried Aalta, a few pictures, broken trinkets and an old cassette. It was the cassette that wasn’t trivial.

She had given the cassette to her neighbour for conversion; technology had evaded her a lot. And now, it was here, containing songs she did not know, or probably did. When she lifted her eyes off it, she saw that it was dark. This wasn’t unusual. She ended the customs, removed her ghungroo and took a closing look at her stature. Then her eyes fell on the water bottle that was lying for five hours. She smiled and turned. Not needed.She took a bath, washing down all bits of sweat and dirt, changed into fresh clothes. It was something that surprised her, how important it was to remove the sweat of today, to earn more of it from toil tomorrow. Empty your cup, to fill in more.

She was searching through her refrigerator when she heard another knock. The time in the clock told her that it was him.
She was whisked away in his arms right when she opened the door.

“I am sorry, so sorry. You know I did not want to do it, right? You knew what pressure I was under, huh?”

She smiled. She knew all.

She knew she had to leave the dance institute. She knew he was obligated to remove her. She knew she did not expect him to not do it. She knew she expected nothing of anyone.

“I know all”, she said, with that un-decoded smile.

He never liked that way she smiled. He did not hate her happy, but how could he accept that plain, unadorned smile that she flashed for everyone? How could he put up with that similar approach she had towards everything else, him being no speciality in the crowd? How could he still question the prudence of her control or defiance or indifference, whatever it was, when she was right there in his arms? It was a basic, but elegant smile, just like her dance. So her, he thought, and immediately found his lips on hers.

So invariably human, she was left thinking, as he pushed her down right there, in the living room, walls mirrored. His caressing grew intense, she did not mind. His palms trickled down from holding her face, to undoing her shirt, then his own. He handled her, he fingered her, he kissed her, mostly, and then he pulled her right in the center of the hall.  She could feel him smiling in between the fondling, she did not mind. It was only powerful, and she did not despise sex. Why, it had much in relation to dance.

The numbness faint, built up, just like the tempo of her dance, and concentrated somewhere in her chest, leisurely but creating a pleasurable itch in her mind, comparable to the mood that pooled in from all her corners when she danced. The movement, like a vacuum drew in all feeling of senses. It extracted, teasingly, but extracted till it couldn’t anymore, and the absolute epitome could be felt. She caught glimpses of the tangle of olive, her own and his white in the mirrors. It was striking. Beautiful. And then, the release. Pulsating as it was, the senses were freed, again, extrapolated by her, by him.

He turned to his back. The regular masculine immodesty concluded in him. He believed he had conquered. And what a beauty at that. He had not used her, it was not just lust. He knew this, she knew this better. But he knew it couldn’t be raised to the power of love either. For now, it was a reign that he celebrated in his mind.

How amused she was at his mindly revelations, those of conquering her, ruling her. She knew better. Rule is only dance. This, whereas was a lower, underdeveloped mode of it, for her. Sex, always made her feel lost, though sense-free and ruptured, but lost nevertheless. Dance, however, was to find. She found herself without the apparent senses, and definitely in euphoria. Alive, vibrant, refreshed, unlike this which left her motionless, clogged.

She had no grudges against him, herself. She was made to accept, not expect. He dug into her hair, placed his head on her shoulder, and retired to sleep. She had no other option, either. With no teaching left for her in the institute, she concentrated on a healthy breakfast the next morning. It was imperative to nurture this creation of God, a body fed by food, the soul by art. It was hopeless. There was absolutely no concern that she held for the breakfast, she knew the new CD was waiting for her. The soul felt full, already, by the simple thought of adding a few more pieces.

She completed the chores of her little room, her own human body and at last, found the time solace.

The first track, was an alteration of an item that she had been taught in her beginner years, she remembered. The second track was a favorite of her teacher, it was imprinted on her memory. She played the third track.The beats started like most of the items that she had learnt, slow, monotonous ones, which were delivered for neck movements. Pace picked up, and she meticulously worked out the steps which were required according to the beats, she knew enough Sanskrit to understand what it was grounded on. The theme was dread, fear. After a hearing, she got up to perform it. It was almost effortless for her to give the song physical splendor. But, as much as it shocked her, the emotion, the taste, the rasa evaded her!

Because it’s the first time with this song, she settled and finished the piece without giving it the essence. Then, she started again, this time repeating in her mind various other expressions of the same lyrics. Somewhere eventually, I will pick up the cue.

Nothing. A tense sweat bead broke out under her eyebrow. Third time, she concerted on bringing some blotch of memory that triggered terror. She was rewarded a blank mind.

This cannot be likely, the uncertain shrill of her thought shook something inside her. Never potentially, did she take three hearings to work a song to perfection. It was improbable.

Fourth, fifth, sixth time, she was empty hearted.

The seventh time, her legs gave in. She stared into the mirrors. She traced the slender figure of the girl’s hands, which were now curled into fists. She outlined the furrowed brows, and she never recognized the eyes.

I can’t give up.

And she shivered. It was the first time that she had heard her own thoughts broken, frayed. This wasn’t her. The heart was not beating with the rhythm of the song; the mind wasn’t singing the notes. No. It wasn’t feeding the flavor either. Fear. Fear.  Was this happening because she was never scared before, or was it evidence indeed that she was unusually obsessed with something she couldn’t even fathom in the ways of the world?

I cannot lose what I am. I cannot deter from it.

And she shivered again. This did not come out in the basic tone which was hers; it was heard like a question, an uncertain mind playing the tricks. Or so she believed.

Fear. Fear! I cannot lose what I am. How can I? I cannot deter from it!

A shrill scream preceded a crashing. Every sense was silenced.
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