The Ballerina

Chapter 1: The fiftieth LIVE performance

The stadium was packed to the brim. The Ballerina had millions of fans. India had to look to the west every time they wanted to do some “head-banging”. However, that was a thing of the past.

“The Ballerina” is India’s most loved rock band. For a country which has found idols in only cinema stars and cricketers, this was a metamorphosis – in mindset and action.

It came as no surprise then that the youth of India had flocked in huge numbers to witness the fiftieth LIVE performance of “the Ballerina”.  If their music was inspiring, their story was worth emulating.

There are very few youngsters who have left behind the road to being drunkards and drug-addicts and had taken the road less travelled to become something no one else in their age group could boast of.

They did owe it to the Ballerina. She was a singer in a bar and not an upmarket one at that. Drunkards would ogle at her for hours without being able to decide whether it was her beauty or voice that attracted them to her. She was an excellent dancer as well and she had the presence of a super performer.

It is this very Ballerina- that was what she was called - that is today the lead vocalist of this band. No one knew why she was called the Ballerina and it may not be important in context. What is important is that she could herd the four young guys with creative talent towards the most green and suitable pasture.

The first among them is Billy, the lead guitarist. The second is John, who is in charge of the rhythm guitar. The third and fourth are Ross, the bassist and Lee, the drummer respectively.

The Ballerina, dressed in white walked on to the stage. She looked like an angel descending from the night sky. The cheer for her was unprecedented. The others followed suit and the crowd went ballistic. The stadium witnessed everything from the Mexican wave to whistles within a few minutes.

They took their positions and the Ballerina started singing with unwavering support from the band. This went on for a good two hours but the crowd did not have enough of it. They wanted more. They badly wanted more.

The country had never witnessed such decibel levels of cheer. They resumed within a few minutes. The music suggested that the Ballerina was about to sing “Balance”. The audience went berserk and she started to sing.

The jeering crowd, the ogling eyes,

The lecherous thoughts, the dirty minds,

And the distractions of all kinds.

She was unperturbed; she was in a trance,

Nothing could stop her love for dance,

As she twirled around, so did the arena,

Coz, nothing could stop …

And suddenly, she stopped singing and the band stopped playing. The crowd took the cue and the stadium erupted in unison,

The Ballerina, The Ballerina…

They made her life, miserable,

She knew she was capable,

She had no backing, she had no clout,

She did the jig, to keep afloat,

Still she had, the will to win,

It was apparent in her magic spin.

Nothing could stop her love for dance,

As she twirled around, so did the arena,

Coz no one could stop….

The Ballerina… The Ballerina… (again the audience went berserk… chants of ballerina refused to die)

Her craft could make her attract the crowd,

From them, she made a team so proud,

She was not all dance, she was also smart,

With her team she could top the chart.

The four gems and Ballerina earned a million bucks,

She was the beautiful swan among the ugly ducks,

Nothing could stop her love for dance,

As she twirled around, so did the arena

Coz no one could stop,

The Ballerina… The Ballerina… (She sang with the crowd)

The crowd was on a high like never before when something on stage brought them back to reality. Billy fell on the floor with the thud of the guitar. John collapsed in quick succession. The Ballerina continued to sing and twirl while Ross and Lee fell like Billy and John.

This had never happened in a Rock show. But for the lead vocalist, everyone fell. They were down and probably out. Had someone shot them, had they been electrocuted?

The cheers gave way to cumulative murmurs. The Ballerina stopped but seemed composed. The medical team rushed to the stage. They were carried along in a stretcher to the backstage.

Four people weren’t as composed as the Ballerina. They were the fathers of Billy, John, Ross and Lee. They rushed back stage to see what happened to their respective sons.

The Ballerina walked calmly backstage but the mystery refused to leave the arena.

Chapter 2: Loan Sharks, the Lawyer and Joyce

Billy, John, Ross and Lee were carried to an emergency room in the back of the arena. A team of doctors went into the room as well.

By the time the fathers of the boys arrived, the door was shut and no one knew what was happening inside. ‘What has happened?’, shouted one father. ‘Has someone shot our boys?’, shouted another.  Emotions were running very high and they wanted to break open the door and get inside.

And that is when it occurred to one of the fathers that they should look for the Ballerina and question her. THE BALLERINA (the rock band) was a rage among the youth. Ballerina, the lead singer, was the absolute favorite. Every young boy in India wanted to be with her and every young girl wanted to be like her.

As a result, she would always move around with a coterie of bodyguards to safeguard her at all times. The fathers came in search of her. She had anticipated this move. She had asked for them to be guided to a room backstage where she was sitting on a chair and her bodyguards stood behind her. There were many chairs facing her and all of them were unoccupied.

As the fathers came into the room, almost all of them had made up their mind that she was responsible for what happened on stage. They wanted to pounce on her but thought otherwise when they saw the hefty bodyguards standing behind her. They had many questions which they started throwing at the Ballerina. She felt like attending a press conference, an experience that was not alien to her.

The Ballerina asked them to relax and have a seat. She knew exactly who she was talking to. However, the fathers of the four guys did not know her. She began by telling them that she had a story to narrate and she wanted them to listen carefully and quietly.

The fathers were puzzled but decided to agree with her. She began narrating it slowly. She wanted them to absorb each word that she said. She paused a lot as she wanted to gauge their reactions and understand what was going on inside them.

The story was about Joyce. For a very attractive and enterprising woman, she made one mistake of marrying an absolute jerk. He could give her nothing more than two kids. In her tenth year of marriage, she decided she was better off without him and moved into a new town far from the place where she spent her life. The place was more of a village than a town but had the basic amenities and most importantly, had a school which was fully functional. For Joyce, this was the most important criteria.

She set up a small restaurant with the help of borrowed money. She wasn’t intelligent or educated to know that taking money from loan sharks was not a wise option. Her restaurant was doing well from the first day but the interest that she paid ate a lot into her profits and she was finding it difficult to make ends meet. She sent her daughter to the only school in the village as she was smart enough to know that education is the best way towards a better life.

As her restaurant began growing from strength to strength and became the talk of the town due to excellent food and service, the loan sharks who offered her the loan started having a devilish plan in their head. They wanted to acquire the restaurant and they did not want to pay for it.

She had taken money from a loan shark trio. Three friends, who were good for nothing, made a lot of money by offering loans at exorbitant interest rates to ignorant villagers.

The fathers started growing suspicious. They had done something similar. However, two things did not match in their case. The woman’s name wasn’t Joyce and she had only one daughter.

They continued in the hope that they wouldn’t be the characters in the story that the Ballerina was so vividly describing.

The Ballerina said that the trio had a friend who was something more than them in terms of usefulness. He was a lawyer who had helped many a clients with dubious acquisitions. He helped the trio with the acquisition plan. At this, one of the fathers lost his patience and started hurling abuses at her.

Calm as ever, the Ballerina asked him if he could sit and wait for her to finish or want to be kicked out by the bodyguard. Very wisely, he chose the latter.

She continued that the loan sharks and their lawyer friend duped the illiterate Joyce by getting her to sign a contract which said that she would agree to the interest rates revision from time to time as decided by the loan sharks and that she would hand over the restaurant to the loan sharks if she failed to pay even one installment.

While she was blissfully unaware of what she had signed using her thumb, she took the interest rate hike in her stride and continued to work hard to attain her goals within the constraints. However, her daughter fell ill and was admitted to the only hospital in the village which caused a lot more financial strain on her.

As a result, she defaulted for the first time and the loan sharks with the help of the lawyer went on to acquire her restaurant. She pleaded, she tried all tricks but nothing could get the loan sharks to relent.

The fathers were quite sure that the loan sharks and the lawyer she was talking about were all in the room. However, no one chose to speak as they feared physical harm from the bodyguards.

The Ballerina continued that this left Joyce with no income and still the principal to be paid. Her teenaged daughter had to stop going to school. Her daughter was as enterprising if not more. Equipped with supreme intelligence and elementary education, she decided that she had to be the bread-winner. She often wondered why her enterprising and always smiling mother had gone so quiet.

She came to know, a bit later, that it was what the lawyer had proposed that became a problem area for her. The loan sharks were having a fun filled evening with drinks to celebrate the latest acquisition. They were sure that the venture would yield them great profits. In their drunken stupor, the lawyer and the loan sharks started discussing how beautiful Joyce was, in a very demeaning manner.

What followed the next day was far more obnoxious. They invited Joyce to the Lawyers office where the four of them told her that there was one way she could get the restaurant back. When she was told that all she had to do was spend the night with them, she stared at them in disbelief. She was assured that no one would know about it. Without uttering a word, she ran and never looked back. They never saw her face again.

The fathers couldn’t hold back any longer. So, you trapped our sons? What have you done to them? Have you killed them?

We will collect all the evidence in the world and ensure that you are put behind bars. Everyone wanted to kill the Ballerina and would have made an attempt if not for the bodyguards.

‘I have not finished yet’. The Ballerina announced and asked them to sit back promptly.

‘Were the four boys alive’? The fathers (loan sharks and the lawyer), the crowd who loved THE BALLERINA and refused to leave the arena as well as the media gathered outside the arena had only this question on their minds.

Only the Ballerina (the lead vocalist) of THE BALLERINA knew the answer.

Chapter 3: No better Revenge

The situation that they were in left a lot of questions unanswered. The fathers wanted to know what happened to their sons and the Ballerina was in no hurry to answer their questions.

‘Are our sons alive? What has happened to them?’ said one of them. ‘I am sure she must have got them assassinated’, said the other. ‘You wanted to take revenge from us. Why did you drag our sons into it?’, said the third father.

‘Your sons were dead five years ago and you did not even know about it’, said the Ballerina. ‘The fathers were shocked and couldn’t comprehend what the Ballerina wanted to say.

The Ballerina narrated the story of how they were forced to leave the village and she had no option but to quit her education. She explained how difficult it was for her to sing and dance at the not-so-happening bar to make ends meet.

She said how the four sons had walked into this bar and almost passed out at the table when everyone else had left. The Ballerina told them how she started talking to them and they felt being cared for. It was then that the boys opened up about their love for music and how they were forced to study at the city college, graduate and succeed their fathers with not so lucrative ventures in their villages. They never felt loved by their own families and hence they had found solace in drugs, liquor and the frequent visits to bars and not-so-sacrosanct areas of the city.

Their friendship with the Ballerina slowly grew. As she enquired about them and their parents, she came to know who their fathers were.

‘At that time, I thought it would be great revenge if I could make them drug addicts and ensure that their fathers have no successors for their ventures, no matter how small and insignificant.’ said the Ballerina.

However, the Ballerina thought that this would be extremely negative. She had seen them play the respective instruments and thought they had immense potential in the world of music. It is then that she decided to lead the way and tell them how great it would be if all of them got together to form a rock band.

They were hesitant at first but the Ballerina was soon able to convince them. This led to the genesis of THE BALLERINA.

‘So, why did you decide to tell us today?’ asked one of the fathers.

The Ballerina smirked. ‘It is not such a difficult financial calculation, especially for businessmen to comprehend.’ She further added that she had calculated what her mother had paid as interest, what the principal was, and how much would the business have been worth today. The financial part ended there. She wanted to add an emotional value of 10x times the valuation of the restaurant as on date and she did that as well. Hence, in her head, the Ballerina arrived at a figure. The proceeds from this show would take THE BALLERINA’s total earning till date to more than this figure.

One of the fathers laughed and then fell silent before speaking again. This one was the lawyer. He argued that he suspected if there are papers which talk about the ownership of THE BALLERINA.

He was told by the BALLERINA that the ownership was equally divided among the five people. He had a smirk of victory when he said that if the four people decide to exit, they could sell their stakes to someone else and exit. They would thus be millionaires in their own right.

The Ballerina decided it was time to call her lawyer into the room. In walked a very well-dressed gentleman. The Ballerina briefed him about the ambiguity and the lawyer was quick to explain that each member of THE BALLERINA had signed the contract which clearly mentions that if anyone wishes to leave the rock bank, his/ her stake gets equally divided among the remaining. The lawyer also told that the terms of THE BALLERINA clearly define that if the lead vocalist (THE BALLERINA) is killed/murdered/assassinated or dies a natural death, THE BALLERINA will cease to exist and the proceeds will go the a foundation named the Joyce foundation. He also explained that the boys never bothered to read such clauses and blindly signed on these contracts without reading or pondering too much about it. They were too happy in their world of music.

‘What is the Joyce foundation?’ asked one of the fathers.

The Ballerina was quick to reply that it was a foundation established in her mother’s name to support enterprising women to establish small businesses by offering loans at very affordable rate of interest. The foundation was also keenly involved in ensuring education for the girl child across the villages of India. Every month, a certain portion of the earning of THE BALLERINA goes towards this foundation to support its charitable activities. The Ballerina added that the foundation worked on these two areas because she could find her mother in every enterprising woman and her childhood in every girl in India who wasn’t fortunate enough to get her education.

‘But her name wasn’t Joyce. And she had two children, didn’t she?’ asked one of the fathers.

Yes, her name was Jennifer. Joyce was the name she used after she got rid of her first life with the disaster of a man, whom I had to call father. She did not want anything from her past to come back to her. She also wanted to ensure that if someone would search her, she shouldn’t be traceable.

She further added, and this time with a noticeable smile on her face that she did have two children. Joyce had a son who was studying in the city and living with Joyce’s sister, who was a bit better off financially. He never visited the village so you couldn’t have seen him as a child. However, you will get to see him as a man. He is standing beside me and is already answering your questions.

‘So, this lawyer is Joyce’s son’, said a father who was starting to get a clearer picture and hence was much more worried.

‘Let’s get back to our sons?’ said another father.

The Ballerina said that she would need another minute before they could all go to their sons. This sent shivers down the fathers’ spine. They assumed that the Ballerina had got them assassinated and felt that they were also going to meet the same fate soon. However, they stayed put.

The Ballerina finally told them that their sons were alive and now they needed to listen carefully. The old men watched her intently as she spoke. She said that through their sons, she had earned much more money than what her mother would have earned by running the restaurant.

She told them that, in the process, she had not killed their sons but saved their lives. She added that she not only saved the aimless teens from disaster, she also gave wings to their dreams. She said that she enabled each of them become self-sufficient and also become youth icons.

She told the fathers that they couldn’t leave the rock band so there would be no way that the business of the four fathers could have successors as they all had only one son. She also said that they are highly unlikely to leave because it is here that they had found a life. They know there is nothing for them outside” THE BALLERINA”. She further added that if any of them wanted to leave, they would still make her very rich. She paused and looked at her brother (also her lawyer) and said that the contract took care of any such unceremonious exits.

The Ballerina said that her revenge was that the fathers would have to live with this story for the rest of their lives. If they told their sons, they would be despised and their affinity for both THE BALLERINA and the Ballerina (the lead vocalist) would only grow.

She added that she always thought revenge should be such that it has its share of positivity and fairness. Hence, while she had ensured that their sons have a great life, she has also made sure that they work to pay back everything their fathers took from her.

She stopped. She then raised her voice and said, ‘Each of you will see your sons rising and shining, but their success will be a bitter-sweet pill that you will have to keep living with all your life. Hence, I am fair to your sons as they weren’t responsible for what happened to my family. However, by being extremely positive to them, I have still taken my revenge in the best possible way. If I had you killed, it would have been a normal revenge tale. The way it is now, you will feel the revenge, each day of your life, and everyone from the media to your neighbors and friends will rub it on your face that your sons are paying for your bad deeds.’

The fathers were beyond words and in a trance. They couldn’t utter a word. They did not even realize that the Ballerina had summoned her PR team into the room and told them to make the official announcement that the four members of THE BALLERINA who collapsed on stage are alive and doing fine. She asked for the team to come up with a very convincing story on why they all fell together.’

The Ballerina then told the fathers that they could join her as she walked out of the room to go and join Billy, John, Ross and Lee. She was quite sure that THE BALLERINA was here to stay. She knew that with the publicity that the events of the evening would have generated, the next concert would be an even bigger success.