"Hope makes the world better and the heart bitter."
🎶 Aise kyun (ghazal version)
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She could feel his minted breath fanning on her cheeks. Just a bit closer and they would touch in a way they had never before. The thought enticed her.
"Dev," she whispered, her voice unwilfully husky.
"Meera-"
"Left leg goes with right hand and right leg with left hand. Understood?"
Meera came back to her senses as her teacher's stern voice pierced through her ears.
The melodious tinkling of the ghungroos and the rhythmic slaps of feet against the granite floor to the tune of classical music reverberated around the empty room save two people. The song tempting her to indulge in her fantasies.
Light drizzled through the floor to ceiling glass panels and illuminated her steps as Meera whirled around the span of the entire room with her body swaying to the beats and hands splayed in an expressive gesture.
Her face glistened in perspiration, dampening her elaborate attire, her feet had started to blister and tiredness seeped into her bones but she persevered, never faltering. But just before she could take her final spin the music paused causing her to stumble mid- step, snapping her out of her Zen mood.
Her instructor with her thinning grey hair ticked in a tied bun and thick black glasses perched on her nose wore her sternness like a garb over her wrinkled persona and tsked away unsatisfied.
Meera sagged under the weight of her instructor's heavy, disgruntled gaze and waited for the criticisms. It wasn't long before the condemnation began.
"Do you even pay attention to my instructions?" It was a rhetorical question and Meera kept mum. She had no idea where she went wrong because the instructions had been changed so many times throughout the course of six months that at this point she was just going with her instincts.
"It's left leg and left hand, right leg and right hand. Not the opposites."
"But-" Meera broke off her protest knowing it would only lead to an argument. It was a task in itself to keep her patience. She was sure that her dance teacher was just editing moves to spite her. Either that or she had a very short term memory.
"But nothing. Your posture is average at best but your steps are un- coordinated and absolutely abysmal. However are you going to qualify for this competition, I wonder."
