Dance Classes

By Sanskriti Arora

Your face is still yellow

Mother said as she prepared her face for Bharatanatyam class. The dance

teacher wanted to enact the performance for

their show tomorrow. The turmeric had stained her face making it seem lifeless,

without any blood and joy.

Her mother plastered white cold cream, filling every crevice of her slightly ugly

face. Whitened, Katyayani stared at herself

and then her mother in the mirror and found the same determination as before in

making her perfect, so that she could

call her her child while she danced clumsily. She cannot be ugly and bad at dancing,

The material of the red blouse made

the skin of her breasts itch, and she tried to dig her blunt nails into the course cloth

as her mother dug black pins into her

hair bun. She set her headset made of fake gold on the line of forehead, just where her

hair began and noticed her hairy forehead.

Her remedies were weak. She needs a foolproof way to pluck the black hair from her

fairly pale face. Katyayani admired

the golden on her head and adorning the borders of her saree. The fan descended from

her waist to her calves in perfect pleats.

She fiddled with their perfection and mother swatted her hand away, protecting them.

Her mother held her face in her left

hand as she decorated her eyes with kajal. The more the kajal, the bigger her small

eyes would look. Mother admired her

eyelashes. Finally, hair in the right place, she thought to herself. She had done

something right after all. Long, and thick

eyelashes and the hair on her child’s head. What’s that? Katyayani asked as she saw

her reaching for concealer. Something

to cover your dark circles. She finally tied her red ghungroos on both her feet and

her mother took a last look at her.

By Sanskriti Arora