Hold my Hand (Penguin Metro Reads)

by Durjoy Datta

  ‘Isn’t SoHo for older people?’ I ask Dad because he always has his out-of-office meetings in the district.

  ‘Are you asking that because I hang out there?’ he asks, and I’m sure he’s raising an eyebrow, but I have no way to tell.

  ‘You know, kind of?’

  ‘Are you saying I’m old? Ahana, I can pass off as your boyfriend any given day.’

  ‘You can say anything to a midnight girl and she would believe it,’ I say and he hugs me close.

  He loves it when I call myself a midnight girl.

  Dad used to be a big fan of comic books, and he named me Daredevil after the blind superhero, but the nickname was too masculine, so I chose Midnight Girl. Dr Midnight was another blind superhero, he wasn’t famous or anything, but he was blind and that often came in the way of major superheroing. The comic series wasn’t popular so they gave him back his eyesight. (He wasn’t particularly handsome either, I am told.)

  So he loves it when I call myself a midnight girl.

  He holds me close and out of habit describes to me the constellation of traditional houses, mixed with chic cafes that serve every possible cuisine and more, the quaint little coffee shops that remind him of the one year we spent in Paris, and also of the few months we spent in Singapore. When we hadn’t shifted to Hong Kong, Dad had pitched Hong Kong to me as a gurgling cauldron of cultures and experiences, the consumerism of the chic West embroidered dextrously into the intricate fabric of the East, hoping that I would play along, not knowing that I trusted him more than myself.

  ‘We have been on this escalator forever!’ I exclaim.

  ‘It’s the longest,’ he says. ‘And on our left is the first cafe I ever went to in Hong Kong. There are three more that have sprung up near it. I keep seeing construction workers all around, but I can never see what they build, but after a few months, a new building or a new restaurant crops up somewhere. The city is constantly rebuilding itself!’

  ‘It’s so different when Deep describes it to me,’ I say. ‘He makes it sound more like people, souls, birds and happiness, and you make it sound like bricks and mortar.’

  ‘That’s the difference between men and young men.’

  ‘Aw! Are you jealous? You don’t have to be, because I love you more!’ I clutch his arm tighter.

  ‘More? Which means . . .?’

  ‘Oh, shut up!’ I say. ‘You’re as much a man as a high-school girl on a sugar rush.’

  He laughs.

  We are sitting in a French restaurant. We picked it when Dad turned me around, asked me to point to a restaurant randomly, just to prove that we are surrounded by places to eat, each with more tantalizing smells than the other. I have been to a few cities and Hong Kong, by far, smells the most exotic. Maybe it’s because every corner treats you to a new cuisine, surprising your senses, playing with your gastronomical needs or because here they take food more seriously than anything else, but like they often say, it’s truly the culinary capital. It sure smells like one. The SoHo district, a place I had heard a lot about but have come to just twice is a shocker when it comes to food smells, because of the inexhaustible variety of places to eat.

  As Dad and I entered the street, I was at a loss to decide which restaurant smelled better.

  ‘So I can’t describe it like your new boyfriend does,’ he says, ‘but it’s really classy with dark wood furniture and the racks after racks of wine and my T-shirt is out of place in this intimate dim-yellow light. I should have worn my suit. People are really dressed up here. We should have gone to the pizza place next to this. It is livelier. I think I saw people on a karaoke machine there.’

  ‘You’ll be fine. I have never heard anybody not say how gorgeous you look,’ I say.

  And then he describes and counts at least ten other exotic restaurants he can see from where he’s sitting, serving authentic Chinese fare to Indian food to Mexican, places where people are dressed less fancily. He says that we should come here more often, for the SoHo district is really the place to go after a long, hard day at work. ‘You have had a pretty stressful day, haven’t you?’ he nudges naughtily. I chuckle.

  I can feel the relaxed atmosphere around me; soft music is piping over the speakers and people’s voices are cheerful and devoid of any stress. It sounds and smells like a nice place to be in.

  He orders for things that sound suitably French, which he does to impress me, because he knows French cuisine is not my strong point, and I know he’s getting a little possessive about me.

  He orders for wine, which is another new development, and it means he’s really happy today. The food arrives before time and it smells delicious and very French.

  ‘Dad, how do you know so much about French cuisine?’ I ask him.

  ‘I was in France for a few meetings for the Indian Air Force. I was young and I wanted to try out everything. The food was free for us, so I hogged like a pig, trying practically everything that came my way,’ he explains. ‘That was also the time when I bumped into your mom at the Indian airport. She was such a mess when we first met . . .’

  When he mentions Mom I know that the topic of discussion has changed. As the wine kicks in, he tells me the story again with moist eyes. A story that becomes more romantic every time he narrates it. Mom fled Afghanistan at the peak of the Soviet-Afghan war, lived in Pakistan for a few months and then flew to India, hoping to forget the devastating war, the loss of her family and start anew. He tells me I have her eyes, a changing shade of green and blue, her honey skin and golden brown hair.

  ‘I was in love the moment I saw her,’ he says. ‘Plus in those days you didn’t really get too much time to fall in love. I chose instantly.’

  Dad tells me how he followed her out of the airport and saw her wait for someone who didn’t turn up. After an hour he approached her; she hated him at first because he was in his uniform and she had seen enough of war and soldiers, but then trusted him for the same. He gave her his number, and you know, he’s kind of charming and chivalrous in a way that only uniformed men can be, so Mom fell for Dad who had already imagined having kids (Yay! Me!) with her.

  ‘Didn’t her being a Muslim affect Dada and Dadi?’ I ask again because I love how my father turns to mush when he talks about how beautiful Mom was and adds more colours to my painting of her.

  ‘You think? My mother showed off your mom to everyone in the neighbourhood. She always used to say I didn’t deserve her,’ he says. ‘She was incredible. I miss her so much . . .’His voice is choking and he sounds like he is on the verge of tears, his machismo melting for the second time tonight, and I feel sorry for him. I reach for his hand and he holds it, takes it to his face and kisses it.

  ‘I’m sure she misses you,’ I say. ‘And me!’

  ‘I’m sure she does. I used to envy how much attention she gave you, and that’s even before you became a Daredevil.’

  ‘Midnight Girl.’

  ‘Yes, that.’

  We laugh. He laughs harder because he’s drunk.

  18

  I’m not sure how many courses a French dinner has, but I’m sure it’s our fiftieth. Dad’s positively drunk, so he’s shouting over the din of the restaurant, which is now packed. Halfway through my chocolate cake, I hear someone call out Dad’s name.

  ‘RANBEER!’

  There is the sound of shuffling feet, followed by the unmistakeable sound of bodies hugging each other.

  ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘I’m on a date with my daughter! It’s her birthday,’ he says excitedly.

  ‘You must be Ahana. Happy Birthday, darling,’ the lady says and I like that she doesn’t shout the words. Usually, people tend to shout the first time they talk to me, like I’m deaf too. She says, ‘I’m Sadhika. I work with your dad.’

  ‘Hi, Sadhika and thank you,’ I say.

  ‘You’re so beautiful!’ she remarks and I blush, although I have no real concept of beauty. All I know is that Mom was beautiful.

  ‘Thank you.�
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  ‘Why don’t you join our table?’ Dad asks her.

  ‘I wouldn’t want to impose,’ she says but Dad cuts her off. She joins us at our table.

  They start talking about office, work, Sadhika’s son Varun, the next projects, while I devour the chocolate cake. Her words are measured, delivered with confidence, yet when she talks about India and her son, there is a softness, a vulnerability, like whipped cream. I listen to their conversation in snippets, Dad asking all the right questions, acknowledging the silences, supporting her statements and standing by her beliefs; Dad’s such a player! I smile to myself at the thought.

  ‘Your father is a great pilot,’ Sadhika suddenly says to me.

  ‘Huh? Do you want some cake?’ I say as a reflex, guilty for having finished it. ‘Oh, him?’

  ‘Yes. He’s brilliant. He’s a little reckless for he thinks of himself as Tom Cruise from Top Gun and gives all the engineers in the box nightmares, but otherwise he’s great. He’s a big hit with the ladies as well!’ she says. ‘Did he tell you about Jessica? Oh, and Connelly? The women in our office love him, especially when he comes to office riding his Harley.’

  ‘My dad can be such a wannabe sometimes. I’m sure women love him, but he’s taken. He has a full-time job attending to me,’ I remark.

  ‘You’re a grown-up girl. Cut your dad some slack. He needs to date, too,’ she laughs.

  I like her. She’s not treating me like a disabled person. In fact, I think she just, kind of, borderline, made fun of it.

  ‘I’m not sure what to say here,’ Dad says. ‘But if Ahana allows me, I can sure ask you for a dance.’

  There is silence and I feel two pairs of eyes turn towards me and I nod.

  ‘I will be back,’ he whispers in my ear and kisses it.

  Chairs are pulled back, there is shifting of feet, Sadhika runs her hands through my hair, about which I should be appalled but I’m not, and I order a cheesecake.

  They dance to a couple of songs and return to the table. It’s time for us to leave. Sadhika wishes me goodnight and kisses me on my cheek, which I don’t mind, before telling me that I have the most beautiful eyes, which doesn’t sound affected. She hugs me, tells me that she always wanted a daughter and would love to take me out shopping some time. I nod happily.

  Although Dad’s unsteady himself, he is holding my hand, and we are back in the never-ending escalator.

  ‘Did you have fun tonight, Dad?’

  ‘Me? Yes. Did you? Sadhika is kind of nice, isn’t she?’ he asks.

  ‘Yes, I’m sure she’s one of the ladies in the office who really like you,’ I mock.

  ‘It’s nothing like that,’ he brushes it aside. ‘It’s just that she’s a little lonely after her divorce from her asshole of a husband. She’s too brainy for me anyway. I’m a retired soldier and she’s an aeronautical engineer with PhDs in something that enables her to make aircrafts fly.’

  ‘That sounds like the perfect love story, Dad. Brainy, geeky, misunderstood single-mom falls in love with a bad-boy pilot who rides around in a Harley with a leather jacket slung across his shoulder,’ I respond.

  ‘You’re spending way too much time with your writer boy,’ he says.

  ‘Don’t change the topic,’ I say. ‘I like her. She’s really nice. She didn’t once mention my disability, treated me nicely and sounded really genuine. You need adult friends. I know I’m kind of awesome, but still.’

  ‘I will think about it,’ he answers.

  ‘How does she look?’ I ask.

  ‘Smashing.’

  19

  On some days shit just hits the fan and I’m a mess. Today is one of those days. I wake up in total darkness, which is okay considering it’s almost always dark for me. I claw myself from under the soft duvet, yawn, and wish Dad would be around but he’s not here. He’s at work for there is money to be earned, women to be wooed and aircraft to be tested.

  I just feel sad and alone.

  My mouth tastes stale, so I walk to the washroom, but not before I stub my toes twice because despite my condition, my direction sense is just awful. It’s so quiet today. There are no families outside gearing up for their day of sightseeing in Hong Kong, the hotel staff is not creating a ruckus to ensure every room is clean as if it’s a hospital, and in general, it’s borderline depressing. I just want to crawl up in my bed again with a tub of ice cream, listen to a few movies, and cry.

  But before I can order the ice cream, I’m already in bed, crying. Being a brave girl with a disability is okay, coping up and living life to the fullest despite the circumstances is great, but all I really want on days like this is to be a normal girl. Not brave, not courageous, just a girl who can have a lot of friends, doesn’t have to be a pain in her father’s ass, and can look at her own face in the mirror. I wish to be like others, fall in love, hold someone’s hand not because I have to, but because I want to; a normal life where I can grow old with someone, have a few kids I can see playing, and maybe pet another dog who doesn’t get run over.

  But I’m crying not because it’s all pent up in me and today’s the day when it’s got to erupt, but because these small eruptions are generally good for releasing steam. At least that’s how I feel after the overwhelming and all-consuming feeling of misery passes. But while it’s still happening, like right now, I just feel twenty shades of pathetic.

  It’s like things go the way they go every day. Life follows the same routine—I wake up to nothing new or exciting. Every day is the same. Except some days, days like today, when I wake up with a powerful desire of going right back to sleep. And maybe be spared the pain of ever having to wake up again. I’m just tired, tired of the monotony, tired of pitying myself and my dad, tired of being the subject of sympathy for everybody who crosses my path, and of being so pathetically obsessed with a guy who doesn’t give a shit about me. There, I said it, he might be cruel, he might be insensitive, but I really, really like Aveek. Still.

  I wish I had joined college this year, and not put it off until next year. But I was too scared of finding myself in a regular college. Going to school-for-kids-with-special-needs was fine, but going to a college with students who aren’t suffering from what I am scares me.

  Now all I can have is being left at a hotel room, with nothing but a piano, an instrument I’m not even very good at playing. I have all this fancy stuff made for ‘special’ people like us. Movies that I can hear, video games that don’t have videos and are custom-designed for people like me, audio books, music and . . . well, that’s it.

  I once had this fleeting affair with working out, which was cut short after just a week because the treadmill Dad bought for me was a regular treadmill, and even though I had tried very hard to remember which buttons to press to START and STOP, I ended up setting it on a speed too high, and it got difficult to breathe, and I searched frantically for the STOP button, but couldn’t. Ultimately, my legs gave up and I collapsed on the conveyor belt and was thrown off. Dad, who came running out of the washroom where he was getting ready for office decided it best to take the treadmill back to the store and not let me near anything that operates on power without supervision. I don’t know how Aveek does it. Oh yes, it’s his stupid clicks.

  I hate everything today. I hate Dad’s optimism like Aveek does. If only he accepted the fact that there will be no miracle, scientific or otherwise, and I will never be able to see again, and I will be a blind kid in a regular college.

  My thoughts come back to my current state. Company— maybe that’s what I need. Like every self-respecting brave girl who has ever faced depression, I, too, do the obvious and call my ex-boyfriend, who says I often cry without reason, which is true but he doesn’t have to say it.

  ‘Are you still in town?’ I ask him.

  ‘Yes, I am. I’m here for the next two weeks. What happened?’ he asks. He’s making his famed clicking sounds. And for a minute, all I can think of is how good things were between us, before they got bad.

  W
hen I met Aveek, it was the first time I had connected with somebody other than my dad. I felt this instant bond between us, like this was meant to be, like it was destiny and we were going to be together forever. We could talk about anything under the sun, and I felt like he actually understood. People like us aren’t usually supposed to fall in love, or find someone whom we can spend our lives with, but when he came along, I thought it would change, I thought I was the lucky one!

  Of course, I wasn’t the lucky one, the turn of events eventually revealed that the feeling was not all that mutual, and all the emotions I had felt were probably because I missed my friends, all of whom I had to leave behind because Dad and I were nomads, shifting from city to city, from one special school to another. But the first few months . . . those were something.

  ‘I was just a little bored sitting in my room. I was wondering if you could come over for a while. We can talk and stuff,’ I suggest.

  ‘Oh. Fine, I will! Your dad isn’t there, is he?’ he asks. ‘I don’t want to get into an argument with him again. He pisses me off.’

  ‘He isn’t here,’ I respond. It really bugs me when he says bad things about my dad, but right now, I don’t care. I miss him and I want him here, with me. I need to feel loved and desired, and may be kissing Aveek and letting him grope me a little would make me feel a little wanted.

  Aveek agrees to come over in thirty minutes and I push myself off the bed, to the washroom. I want to be ready for him. Looking good is pointless, but the senses of smell, touch, taste and hearing will be in play and I need to make the best of it. I rummage through the bars of assorted heart-shaped soaps in the basket and pick up each of them to smell. I finally settle on one that smells like oranges, because I remember him telling me once that he likes oranges. After my shower, I brush my teeth again, this time with extra care. I smear plum-flavoured body lotion over myself and pick out a pair of shorts and a T-shirt to wear. I shuffle though my iPod to select music. Smell—check; orange-scented soap would do the trick. Touch—check; plum body milk. Taste—check; fresh mint toothpaste and chocolate lip balm. Hearing—almost check; I don’t know if he’ll like Enrique, or if anyone listens to him any more. But I know Aveek listens to hard metal, which isn’t really appropriate for the kind of mood I’m trying to set here. So Enrique will have to do.