Basanti and my Navratri tale of 2019

Sipra Pati

So, you think only Basanti can dance on broken glass? Wrong! I did. Yesterday. And, I didn’t have Gabar breathing down my neck telling me Veeru’s jaan depended on my dancathon! It is that time of the year when Indians pay obeisance to their goddesses starting with Goddess Durga. When Gujaratis form a major part of your community, you join them on at least some of the nine-days of celebration doing garba. The collective frenzy of gyrating to a slowly-rising tempo of garba music bows to a Gabar-like bidding because your jaan (and limbs) and that of several other dancers depend on your continuing to dance - swing left bend forward clap, turn right arch backward clap, swing right arch halfway clap, repeat. An abrupt, unprecedented stop would make the person behind bump into you and like dominoes yielding to gravity, every dancer would lose balance and splay in every conceivable direction! So, in the broad interest of humanity, you dance on.

Hey Durge - you slayed the Buffalo-bodied asur (and as much as my secret prayer alluded to a certain asur with a carrot-top) and I swear I most sincerely bow to your ‘I-can-take-care-of-myself-and-then-some-self’, my mind did wander to Basanti in the stark ravines of the infamous Chambal. Because right in the middle of the swing left bend forward clap, turn right, (and so forth), I stepped on something. Needles shot piercing pain through my feet as they stomped and moved. That part of my brain which registers pain was literally assaulting itself by demanding the part that controls the lower limbs of my body to shove ego issues into temporary abeyance and stop.

It listened because the pins and needles left it no choice.

I eased out of the never-ending ‘what goes around comes around’ circle of dancers limping to the water cups. Two cups of water later, I surreptitiously sought an empty chair (darn, Basanti, I thought). There were a couple of sequins stuck to my foot. Flicked them, and what looked like a broken bead to my presbyopic eyes, off. Time to jump back into the fray, oops, the circle of gyrating sequined-ghagras, backless cholis, and their beaus.

Deep breath in - swing left, no it’s right, oh.... got it - swing left bend forward clap, turn right arch backward clap, swing right arch halfway clap. Ouch, ouch! Pins and needles! Pins and needles! Swing left, right foot half-down... bump into the person on my right. Ease out again. Pins and needles! Pins and needles!

Darn Basanti. No chair in sight. I lifted my foot, ran my finger over the pins and needles area. Nothing. Put my foot down. Ow! Ow! Ow!  I wanted to go home. As luck would have it... I had not driven but had been driven to the temple by friends. So, I couldn’t leave. Till they were ready to.

Fast forward to thirty minutes later… (because those thirty minutes all I felt was pins and needles) I was home. Hubby, who in my absence, had returned from a business trip was in deep slumber. My foot was in less pain, so I limped to bed and slumped - it had been a long day and a longer evening.

Morning saw my pins and needles more of one pin in one area. Carefully running my fingers under my foot - OWW! There was something. Hubby managed to maneuver a pair of tweezers into coaxing that ‘something’ out. Sighing in relief, I turned to tending to the weekend mundane. It was a beautiful Fall day - we decided to go out. After strolling for about 5 minutes, pins and needles were back. I couldn’t put my foot down. We rushed to the nearest in-network Urgent Care and spent the next couple hours filling out forms and waiting for a doctor. It took the doctor thirty minutes to anesthetize my foot and remove three tiny pieces of glass stubbornly embedded (she had to scalpel-cut my sole almost half a centimeter to extract them) in my sole.

Like Basanti, I had danced on broken glass. That’s my Navratri tale of 2019.