An incomplete story.

They say, all your life flashes before you, in a moment of clarity, just before you die. Mine did not. Maybe because I knew I was not ready to die. I knew that the images that flash would not complete the story they recount, because the story is still not complete. The story of my life and now death. Incomplete.

I was happy. That was the irony of it all. I was completely immersed in my life, in myself, complacent and satisfied with who I was and what I did in life. Although I had nothing that I could identify, nothing to call my identity, nothing to argue passionately about. I was still happy. And then he came and threw my world into chaos.

***
"Thayyum thath thath, thayyum thaha", she intones and we dance. Sometimes, I dance with my eyes closed. I feel the rhythm better, hear the melody within my head when I do that. I am Meenakshi teacher's favorite student. At kalakshetra, I am a different person - confident and capable. I excel and I am aware that I do. Perhaps it is this vanity that draws me to him in the first place. Not my vanity itself but the fact that I feel none of it, in his presence. He does not allow it and I submit to his wishes, unwillingly and completely.

I dance, with fury, with energy. I am alive when I dance. Transformed. This is probably what Meenakshi teacher notices in me too. My hands and legs move in perfect synchrony, as if they move of their own will, effortless, in smooth movements - it's as if each mudra comes from within, emerging from my soul to give my body a purpose, a shape. We are not separate elements - the thalam, the ragam and my dance steps - they compete and complete each other to form a whole. He tells me this, leaning casually against a wall, just outside Kalakshetra. His words flow all around me and linger behind, long after he has gone, the import of each syllable impressing itself upon me, with each passing second; their intensity dawning upon me, as I stand there listening to them in my head. His words, over time, replaced by my voice, explaining to me what I knew not about myself, my identity that he helped construct, one bit at a time - my vanity withers and yet I am more aware.

The first time after practice, I don't notice him. The second time, I do. It's not anything about him as a whole that makes me notice him. It's only if you take the time to notice, his eyes that hold your glance for so long, you have to look away; his mouth that taunts you with a hint of a smile; his hands, constantly active, restless? the way he stands, unconcerned, almost indifferent? And I would notice them, not all at once, but would take my time to be drawn to him - slowly but intensely, madly, passionately. How I wish I had known then, that time was the one thing that I had not?

But, I notice him for none of these reasons. I notice him because he criticizes me.

"You missed a step."

"Am sorry?"

"Alaripu - as soon as you began."

And I spend the next three hours fuming over this non-conversation. I cannot take criticism easily. Especially about my dance, the one savior in my otherwise insignificant existence. Yet another revelation! I know I like to dance. I just do not attribute anything more important to it. Talking to him makes me think of priorities in my life. I don't know that yet for this is just the beginning.

***
The next class,

"I did not miss that step."

"But if I say you did, will you react to it better now than before?"

"Are you saying you criticize for the sake of it and not for a reason?"

"Is there not a reason?"

"Yes, there is! You want to put me down because..."

"Because if I do before someone else does. Maybe next time, it will leave you with just a tear and not a scar."

"And why do you care?"

"I do and you know. Does anything else matter?"

Always questions. Questions that make me think, evolve. I don't blame him for making me lose myself. I love him for making me find my real self. Does it matter that I don't live long to spend time with us? Maybe not. Aren't all epiphanies short-lived? They make their mark and are lost forever, carried away by the winds of time to guide some other lost traveller's journey. My gentle philosopher, my epiphany, I wonder if you will be lost too if I don't exist? Did you die the day I died?

***
What is this invisible bond that ties us together? Music, perhaps? In my dance, in his words, in my naivete, in his beats...two people entwined so completely, it is not for either of us to decide when to break free - it is beyond us, dictated by a consciousness that we , as separate individuals do not possess....but together, we create magic. I wonder if he thinks that? My artist, what goes behind that powerful gaze? Do let me glimpse...

He plays the mirudangam. Better than I can dance, I sometimes feel. I will admit that to noone, not even him. I don't need to for, my eyes betray me when I watch him play.

He plays with his head slightly tilted towards his right. His eyes closed. Brows furrowed in concentration, as if constricting, to prevent the music that plays within his head from escaping. His fingers dance across the either ends of the mirudangam - fleeting, light touches or so it seems and yet they evoke such powerful feelings through their rhythm - subliminal yet mesmerizing.

I wonder if he is playing the mirudangam or if indeed the mirudangam is making his fingers dance to its tune. His senses perceive nothing of the reality all around him, he is in a world away from where I stand - a world where music fills the air and the soul, a world of melodies and beats...

and I long to be transformed as he is and for even a moment to step into this world and lose myself, where the only consciousness is music and I am one with it.

***

Love, you ask me? Is this love? I don't know and I turn to him for an answer.

He laughs.

"Don't we all wish it were love?"

And as my eyes brim over, he replies,

"When,
to see you, I look into my eyes,
to hear you, I listen to my heart beat,
to find you, I look into my soul
to feel all that is you, I need only to feel what is within...

And when I feel thus, how can I say anything but that I am in love?"

And that is the moment, I wish with all my heart, that I would live, live forever to be with him, my dear poet. That is the moment that I begin to love. And that is the moment that I hope will surround me just before I take my last breath.

But it does not.

My accident is like all other accidents - a car wreck, flashing lights, shivering people huddled around and silence. No music now. Just silence. My melody has died. So perfect even in death, did I imagine that you called my name when I died? Did you cry when I wouldn't open my eyes? Did you shiver, not from the biting wind but just a gnawing feel deep within you, as if your soul died but you lived on - incomplete and helpless?

And even if you did, how would I know? A million questions yet to be answered. How did I have the heart to leave them all unanswered? My philosopher, my artist, my poet, answer me now - why did I die?

***
And that is the story that I would have told you if I had died. I did not die though. He did. He just took my life with him. That's all.