‘Aanchal.’
I don’t answer him. I want to fight. I want this to go on.
‘Jaan,’ he says softly. ‘I just wanted to tell you I will miss you.’
I have no choice. ‘I will miss you too,’ I respond dryly.
‘Love you,’ he says. ‘I love you so much. You know that, don’t you?’
Those words, which once held immense power, mean nothing to me now. It’s dirt.
‘Same.’
‘Will you call Mummy?’
If I don’t call, Vicky’s mother will call Maa and I will have to talk to them over a conference call.
‘Once I land,’ I tell Vicky.
I cut the call. I find a place to sit and enjoy the rest of my coffee.
2.
Daksh Dey
I park the scooter at the side of the road.
‘Stop moving, Rabbu! The scooter will fall. How many times do I have to repeat the same thing?’
‘It’s not me, Dada, it’s the holes in the road!’
Rabbani’s large, watery, hypnotic eyes make me want to believe her. I have read parenting books, listened to podcasts on how to effectively raise children without losing your shit. They are fucking useless when you’re in it. Only Amrita Thakur, my favourite podcaster, says it like it is. In the truly testing moment, you go back to the basics. And while raising kids, the basics are to shame them!
‘Rabbani, do you want to be late? Your teacher will say what a useless brother you have. Do you want her to say that?’
She touches my face lovingly. ‘You’re not useless, Dada. You’re the best. Dada is amazing! Dada is the best!’
It’s something I made her learn and repeat even before she knew what the words meant. Now she uses it like a drug to uplift my mood even if she doesn’t mean it all the time.
‘Don’t move, okay? Jump everywhere but not when you’re on the scooter.’
She pinches her throat. ‘Promise.’
I turn the ignition and the scooter comes back to life. Rabbani clutches the display panel with both hands to keep herself steady. Outside her school, I weave my scooter between the mass of spluttering, stuttering cars that stretch for over a kilometre of traffic jam.
‘When will we get a car?’ she asks.
‘Probably never,’ I answer. ‘Why would you want to be a loser like them?’ I point to the cars, honking.
Her classmates, six years of age, have already started comparing cars. A couple of boys make fun of Rabbani because her Dada drives a scooter. I try to see the positive, hoping Rabbani is traumatized by those boys and boys in general, grows up hating boys and dates girls instead when she’s of age. That would work best for everyone.
Amrita Thakur talks in her podcast that despite good sense, she likes to brainwash her children. And so I tell Rabbani every day that young boys are pig shit.
Rabbani hugs me at the school gate.
‘I love you, Dada,’ she says.
‘I love you, too,’ I say, but of course I’m lying. Love’s too small a word compared to what I feel. ‘You’re acutubutton,’ I tell Rabbani.
