I see His cosmic dance of creation as the spinning of electrons within every atom. Veda asks her best friend, “Do you believe in God? In Karma?” Chandra, on her way to a career in science responds, “Physics says every action has an equal and opposite reaction./ Karma is kind of the same, isn’t it?/ Good actions result in rewards, sooner or later.As for God. Once she recovers from his gentle rejection, she grows stronger. She has a crush on the handsome doctor who took her through the worst of her ordeal. Once she recovers from her initial depression and a young American doctor prepares her for and designs a special prosthesis, Veda is determined to dance again.
Of course she is devastated.īut now her true journey begins. On the way home from the contest there is a terrible car accident. Shiva is the Hindi lord of Bharatanatyam and Veda’s hard-won trophy is made in His form. But wise spiritual Paati supports Veda’s dancing. Dance is not practical for a middle-class girl. Ma wishes Veda would study to become an engineer or a doctor.
When Paati, her beloved grandmother is “grating slivers of coconut for a tangy chutney,” Veda hears “ thakka thakka thai” which is a perfect embodiment of the drum that accompanies Bharatanatyam dance. At the onset, she is a competitive dancer who feels that “Pain is proof/ of my hard work,/ proof of my love for dance.” Veda feels the rhythm of the dance in every aspect of her life. Veda is a teenage Bharatanatyam dance student in India. “A Time to Dance” (Paulsen/Penguin 2014) by Padma Venkatraman is an insightful story about a dancer and a novel- in-verse set in a different culture-of course I’m going to review it.
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