Over the coming years, my mom and I bonded over 40-minute car rides from Irving to Plano for dance class. With each blue summer reading challenge ribbon that went up on my wall, I lost a bit of my Tamil, until I even exchanged amma for “mom.” My parents drove me to every library within a 30-mile radius of our home, and they began to walk out of parent-teacher conferences with beaming smiles instead of hushed whispers. When I said “Gold,” I felt it only in my lips when I said “ Thangam,” I felt it in my heart.Īfter that, I stopped dragging Thangam with me everywhere, and much to everyone’s relief, I learned English. I didn’t have the words to defend myself.
Bharatanatyam song how to#
I stopped and switched languages, thinking for a moment before mumbling, “It means ‘Gold.’” My face was flushed and I didn’t know how to continue, so I returned to my seat. I was interrupted by classmates calling out, “What does that mean in English?” and “Can she even speak English?”, both curious and cruel. When it was my turn, I held up a battered stuffed dog my aya, maternal grandmother, had given me. During show-and-tell, my classmates shot ugly glares at me when I couldn’t respond to their electronic gadgets and colorful toys.
In reality, I was just at a loss for English words. One of my teachers asked my parents if I had a speech or language disorder when I still rarely spoke up at the age of seven. I was shy - not in an endearing way, but a concerning one. I was born in India and raised speaking only Tamil for the first five years of my life, so when I moved to the suburbs of Dallas, I was placed into the English as a Second Language program at my elementary school. Through most of high school, I carried a fan to this makeshift studio and practiced with the door slightly ajar until the moon crept out or I began to feel bug bites on my sticky arms.ĭuring these long nights, I learned Nee Manam Irangi Varuvai, the only varnam - a type of Carnatic musical composition - that my dance teacher taught in pure Tamil, my native tongue. Nearly every day for the past 16 years, I practiced rhythmic tattu mettus until my feet became calloused and our downstairs neighbors filed a complaint about the “incessant basketball thumping.”Īs my dance classes intensified, we rented a garage a short walk from our apartment building. My salangai, red anklets with three rows of bells, chimed through our apartment as I danced Bharatanatyam, anIndian classical dance.
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