"Divine!" Nilima Seth stood in front of a noh mask on her wall. "Don't you feel the vibes?" she asked, reverence in her tone. "What does it say to you?"
It is easy to imagine her dancing on stage, and on the lawn at the Indian residence in Tokyo, as she did 30 years ago. Slight, her eyes large and flashing, her movements sinuous, even in a crowded room she projects a lithe, dramatic intensity. The wife of the Indian ambassador to Japan recalls her early life and young womanhood. "I was not particularly encouraged, nor discouraged, by my family," she said. "I wanted to become an Indian classical dancer, unaided, unabetted, doing my own thing."
She calls herself one of Salman Rushdie's "Midnight's Children," as she was born exactly in mid-August 1947. Her parents had left what is now Pakistan for the cooler climate of Mussurie in India. Because of partition, they stayed in their new surroundings. Nilima grew up in an extended family, surrounded by cousins, aunts and uncles and grandparents. She always had someone to tell her troubles to, and her dreams.