the girl in my aerobics class
knew what she had to do to keep going
I noticed her only in my third or fourth class. I was so struck by her, I couldn't think of a single good reason why I didn't see her earlier. But like most amazing events, once seen, they refuse to be unseen. And so it was with her.
It was during my maternity leave that I decided to join an aerobics class. Everything was still new, my baby, my breasts, the leaking, the feeding, the winter sun on her cheek when I burped her on the rocking chair, my sleeplessness, my mother’s panjiri laddoos made in ghee that were going to give me my lost strength back, my weighing machine and most of all the numbers on my weighing machine.
It was an early evening class, held in a sports stadium surrounded by Jacaranda trees. The room was big, airy, and had mirrors in the front and on the sides. Two big glass doors with wooden frames opened into the big room. I was getting bigger and stronger but my mind felt as fragile as all the glass that surrounded me in that class. I had never attempted aerobics before and there was nothing about me that was coordinated. It was all very daunting. The first few classes, all I could take notice of was how my feet were landing back with a thump a whole minute after everyone else. Nobody looked back at me in the back row to tell me that but I was flushed all the time as if they had. Then the music started taking over. The instructor had put together a workout mix of Spanish songs with a sexy male voice telling you to keep moving, left, right, up, down and it was mesmerizing. It got louder than my misplaced thumps. Ringing in my ears, shutting out imagined baby wails and the out-of-tune beating of my heart. It was around then that she started swimming into focus.
She was in the front row, right at the center. Soon, I realised it was quite the coveted position. Even if she didn't come to class that day, nobody would claim the spot. The reason I noticed her was because she appeared as uncoordinated as I was. Not at all synchronized like the rest of the class. She moved to a beat, all her own. The steps were the same, but the movement was like water, flowing, or even cascading. Standing right in front of the instructor, it was like watching two separate schools of thought. If hands were supposed to go to your left and over your head then she would do that but with a snaky wiggle and a shoulder twist thrown in. The result was well, dance. The instructor was performing a series of aerobic steps and she was interpreting the steps into a dance form.
Over time I realized she was his star student. On many occasions, I would watch as he stepped aside and let her show the class the same step but her own version of it. Watching her, I loosened up. l let my body listen to its own rhythm and only broadly refer to the steps. Watching her, I also marveled at her sense of self. To follow your own beat when the rest of the class was following the instructor and yet be his star student seemed strangely inspiring.
She had short closely cropped hair, wore t-shirts and loose cargo pants while everyone else wore the latest style in shapely workout gear. I didn't get to talk to her, Both of us seemed to be on tight schedules. I rushed in and rushed out, back to baby duty and she seemed as pressed for time. I often wondered what kept her in such a hurry but the opportunity to find out never presented itself.
I was finally beginning to enjoy myself. I kept to the back row and aerobic danced for myself. Keeping her in my line of vision, telling myself to flow, flow, flow like her. Then one day I skidded into class and it was a new instructor taking the class. He mentioned that the old instructor was on indefinite leave for a personal emergency and he would be filling in. He was changing the routines but we could take our time getting familiar with the new steps. The music changed, there was a lot of Bollywood, some Mexican, some Spanish mixes. The steps were simple enough but entirely different. I kept my eye on the girl at the center as I tried to get into the groove. She began with much gusto, doing her thing with the steps. But the instructor kept telling her to follow him. He would do it with a wink and a smile gesturing to his feet but she continued to do it her own way.
A few classes later, when this persisted, the instructor made a few changes in the front row positions. He shifted the girl to the end of the row so that she wouldn't be right in front of him. He asked another girl to step into her place at the center. My eyes still followed her. But something had changed in her. The water was solidifying. At the far end of the front row, she was not the girl at the center. I wasn't sure what was happening. I tried to keep an eye on my steps as well as on her. I could feel her distress. It was coming to me in a wave, coursing like a snaky path through the other girls. I tried to send the wave back telling her to chin up and go with the flow. But what was I saying? She was the flow. How is the flow supposed to go with the flow?
She made it through that class. And maybe the next, I’m not sure. I tried to avert my gaze and not put any undue pressure on her. My rhythm too was all over the place. The external world had found the cracks and crept in. I could hear the birds, the winter breeze, other players passing by, thumping their hockey sticks, their cricket bats, the basketball, all mingled with baby wails. The music seemed to recede further and further away. The instructor meanwhile had no idea he had set into motion a rogue charge of electricity. It was causing ripples in the girl and I was in the path. Water and electric energy don't go well together. If anything were to happen, I wouldn't be spared too. I was in the path.
At some point, the instructor decided to look for the girl who was once at the center of his class. See how she was doing, was she keeping up with him, with the rest of the class? Seeing her barely move, he made eye contact. Since I had eyes only for the two of them, I witnessed this exchange. Later I would often wonder why are we so intimately connected in a story that isn't even ours, to begin with? It must be because stories need witnesses. Someone to tell the story because strange as it may sound, people don’t see their own stories.
The eye contact with the instructor proved to be the tipping point in the voltage already coursing through the girl. She couldn't move at all suddenly. She stayed frozen, for endless seconds as the bewildered instructor continued to encourage her to follow his steps. Then I saw her stop to tie her laces. She bent down, got up, and went to the corner where we kept our bags and phones. She slung her bag over her shoulder and started walking towards the door, right behind me. The instructor, now having given up on her, continued with the rest of the class. One girl staging a walkout in the middle of the class didn’t really count, these things happen. The connection I shared with the girl was throbbing now. My steps were landing late, my hands were up when they should have been down and I was wishing with all my heart that I could make her stop, go back, resume class. She did stop when she came around to where I was. I heard glass splintering and then I tasted blood.
It could have been a simple dignified walkout but something made sure it wasn't. And maybe that’s why I’m writing about it, years later. What made her stop so close to the glass door? What made her kick it with such force that I would not be spared? If it was the fragility of glass that had triggered her then wasn't it all around her? Maybe she had managed to stay together for most of the walk, and the glass door was her last chance to vent. Vent not alone but with an audience that mattered.
She knew she had the flow, even that she was the flow. The previous instructor knew it too and that was the reason she was in the center of that class. When that changed, as it does sooner or later for most people, there were cracks in the flow. She lost something vital and nobody cared. I did, but I didn't matter. She didn't even know I existed.
When the world wants you to follow their beat and not your own, it can be brutal. Like watching a boxing match where the boxer you were rooting for is continuously punched in a loop. The face is messy, the blood everywhere but the blows keep coming as if it isn't the face but the spirit inside, that needs breaking.
Do you then exit without even a kick to lodge your protest?
I never saw her again. I left the class soon after. The class had already done all the good it could possibly do. I still feel the impact of that shard of glass and catch a glimpse of her the way she was in the center of that class. Flowing like water, cascading like ribbons do, liquid-like lava. Knowing that the lava can stiffen too, the very next moment if the world stops believing in us. Because sadly, that’s just the excuse we need to stop believing in ourselves too.
