The Magic of Possibilities

"This is it," a voice said softly in her ear, and she knew it was the voice of Shiva. "You are the magic of possibilities."
Those are the final words to this book. And what a good book it is! Parvati went through so much in the course of the novel, and it all lead up to those final words. The Magic of Possibilities. What exactly does that mean? In truth, it could mean anything. It means she could do anything. It means that the difficult decision she was going to have to make is up to the reader to decide. What a smart author! But in all seriousness, the magic of possibilities means just that, because the possibilities are endless.

Robin Hood or Romeo?

Parvati's only friend at her school is Nalini, an older girl who dances beautifully but dreams of a handsome man to sweep her off her feet. She does not want to live the life that she is at the school to live, which is basically a dancing nun. I know that sounds silly the way I put it, but they are training to become dancers who devote their lives to the gods. Nalini wants to marry, though, and when she meets a man in the market, named Mayappan, who loves her as she loves him, she wants to run away with him. There's just one problem.
Mayappan is pretty much Robin Hood and depends on the poor to take care of him and his men while they steal from the rich and give it to the poor. With a bounty on his head, Nalini is afraid that he will die.
I have a feeling that something terrible is going to happen to Nalini. She is a teenage girl in love, like Juliet from Shakespeare's famous play, and from that tragedy I saw rash decisions that led to the death of both Juliet and her Romeo. I hope that Nalini has found a Robin Hood rather than a Romeo, yet isn't one just as dangerous for her to love as the other?

A New Life

I have reached page 156 and Parvati is almost thirteen. The Guru came to her home when she was twelve and asked her to come to what is basically his dancing school. The girls at this school, handpicked by him, devote their lives to dancing and the gods. Parvati decided to go, for the school would send her family money. This nearly broke her heart, though, because she would not be able to see her family for many, many years.
And so starts her new life.
I am convinced that Parvati is an extremely brave girl, for I would not have been able to deal with half of what she withstands. The ostracism she suffers in her home village continued at the school, so she has only one friend. I have moved from one state to another in the recent past, but I know I can only understand a little of Parvati's pain.

Instruments

Parvati is an Indian girl, and I don't want anyone thinking that her culture is missing in the book. This book has plenty of India's culture present, and it explains a little of it here and there. Some culture that fascinated me were the instruments played at the festival that attracted Parvati's attention. The book names and describes them, but I wanted to see some pictures:
Mridangam drum-

Veena-

Bamboo flute-

Harmonium box-

A Little Dancer

Here is a little more evidence that Parvati is blessed by Shiva, the god of dance: Parvati loves dancing. She tries to dance, with her little toddler legs, and tries again everytime she falls. She is entranced by the sound of music at a festival so much that she escapes the grasp of her mother and runs to listen and watch as an older girl dances. Parvati is so caught up in watching the girl dance that she forgets to breathe.
The song "I Hope You Dance" by Lee Ann Womack makes me think of Parvati and her growing love of dance. It is a song about not missing the beauty in life. Parvati, who has been extremely observant since her birth, has missed nothing, and, as a toddler, has been able to find joy even as she stands apart from the other children. The song is about dancing, too, of course, which I hope I don't need to explain the connection to Parvati for.
You can read the lyrics yourself at:
http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/leeannwomack/ihopeyoudance.html
Or listen to the song at:
http://www.grooveshark.com/#!/search?q=i+hope+you+dance+lee+ann+womack

Jungle Book Connection

Parvati, at the age of two, is teased and disliked by the other village children, including her cousins, because of the circumstances of her birth. It is truly awful that such a beautiful, sweet child is only loved by four people: her mother, two older brothers, and uncle. Because so few like her, she often plays alone. The monkeys that live in the trees trust her and even allowed her to hold one of their babies, which is really remarkable considering how few humans allow toddlers to hold infants. The funny thing about all this, though, is that I keep thinking of the Disney movies Jungle Book and Jungle Book 2. I realize the plots of these movies are completely different from that off the book so far, but Mowgli is different from the children of his adopted village in the second movie and has a certain shared trust with animals (of course) that little Parvati continues to remind me of. Another similarity is between the tiger from the movies, Shere Khan, and the child-snatching tigers that haunt Parvati's village while it was still recovering from the destructive storm. Now, if only Parvati could meet a singing bear...

Shiva

I am on page 52 and already shocked by the amount of destruction and devastation that can happen so soon in a book. I was blown away by the almost uncaring way in which death was written. The beautiful baby girl, named Parvati, who the story is about, was born at the exact moment the worst storm her Indian village had ever seen began. Little Parvati is seen with suspision, for everyone else is starving in thin while she is plump and healthy, feeding off of her mother's never-ending milk. Small miracles, such as her mother's milk, now surround Parvati's family.
But why?
All I know at this point is her father, who died shortly after her birth, could carve well, and the statues he carved of Shiva, god of destruction and also of dance, are so amazing that they really seem to dance. As baby Parvati lies next to her sleeping mother at night, she watches one of these statues dance beautifully.
The author has not yet confirmed my suspicions, but I think that Parvati is blessed by Shiva. That is, if a god of destruction can bless people. The only real way for me to tell is by reading.