by Varsha Bajaj
I bite into my yummalicious piece of pizza.
What would Dad think of today’s Mom? He told me he was impressed that she ran her own business.
Yesterday after Concert Time Dad became a bit mushy. “Your mom did an amazing job raising you on her own. I’ll always owe her.”
Grandma kissed me on my forehead, said something in
Hindi, and then went to bed.
“What did Grandma say?” I asked Dad. “She wants the evil eye to never fall on you.”
Dad and I continued to sit on the antique wood swing outside. Its broad wooden seat was polished smooth with use and the carved brass ropes on which it was suspended told stories.
“Hey, Abby, why the smile?” Jay asks, bringing me back to the present.
“Oh! I’m thinking of dessert,” I lie.
“Have you tried kulfi?” Shaan asks. “It’s an Indian ice cream.”
An hour and a pistachio kulfi later, Jay jumps to his feet. “Do you guys realize the time? I promised my girlfriend I would meet her at six! She hates it when I am late and I was late twice last week. Three strikes and I may be toast. So we better hurry back. Ravi, follow me.”
I think he just wanted an excuse to drive crazy. He jumps on the bike and I hurry after him. Here we go again! I clutch his shoulders and he guns the bike. It’s a busy intersection and hordes of pedestrians cross the street when the traffic light turns red. Even crazy Jay has to stop.
Jay swears at the traffic. “We’ll never make it at this rate. I’m going to take a shortcut,” he says and swerves off the road into a smaller back alley, and I feel like I’m stepping
through a portal into the belly of Mumbai. Shaan and Ravi follow. This lane is so different from the main road we’ve left. Nothing I’ve seen at home could have prepared me for how little some people have in this world. Shops in large raised corrugated tin boxes line one side of the road. On the other side stand makeshift structures built of tin, mud, and plywood. They are people’s homes. This is not the street where Naveen Kumar lives. I cling on for dear life, bug-eyed. Children with bare feet and bare torsos run around, chickens peck at garbage heaps, and a goat bleats. Naked yellow light bulbs light the street, and exposed electric lines hang overhead. It strikes me that my mom didn’t count on me seeing this India. It wasn’t featured in
any of the tourism brochures.
Shaan and Ravi catch up to us. Even Shaan has lost his grin. Then their bike lurches over a gigantic pothole and swerves to avoid colliding with Bessie the cow. Or maybe in India she’s called Latika.
My hand flies to my mouth to muffle a scream. The bike slams onto the road. Startled Bessie-Latika says, “Moooooooooo!”
The string quartet amazingly moos in harmony with Bessie-Latika.
Pedestrians scream.
The kids stop playing and gawk.
Even the chickens freeze for a second before they scurry away.
I hear Shaan’s uncensored version of oh Schmit! Jay slams on his brakes and turns around.
The other motorbike has spilled, and Shaan is sprawled on the street.
My heart pumps as fast as a Vivaldi concerto. A million thoughts compete in my mind. Is Shaan okay? Please, God, let him be okay. Almost instantaneously, as if they sprung out of the earth, hundreds of people gather, speaking in a foreign language, yelling.
Shaan leaps up, shaken but with only a skinned elbow.
In the dwindling light, the fallen bike, Shaan’s elbow, the throng of people, and the shadows paralyze me. My heart is beating so loudly that it seems to dwarf the rest of me. I’ve never felt more homesick or alone. I want my mom. I want to be home.
“You guys okay?” Jay asks Shaan and me. We nod.
“Let’s get out of here,” Shaan says, nervously scanning the growing crowd.
Ravi punches Jay on the arm. “You idiot! What’s wrong with you?”
“I thought we would get home faster if we avoided the main road,” he answers.
Jay says to Shaan and me, “Some of the people who work in our homes live in these neighborhoods.”
I think of Mina and Bina and wonder if they live in similar neighborhoods.
I can feel hundreds of huge eyes staring at us with unmasked curiosity. Among a sea of Indian people, my paler American skin stands out like a white shell on a brown sand beach.
Luckily, nobody is hurt, not even Bessie-Latika. The police arrive in a jeep. Jay apologizes and explains. Shaan and I stand and shiver. I try to hold back my tears. I can imagine myself in an Indian police station.
Luckily, no harm was done and the police ask Jay to leave. We hastily get back on our bikes and find our way back to the main road and to sanity.
Jay rides as sedately as possible the rest of the way home and I can’t have been more grateful. He apologizes a million times when we reach home.
Shaan apologizes too. “I usually like Jay’s crazy stuff, but today he scared me. I’m so sorry.”
I walked into the house, shaken, with my hair disheveled from the wind. Grandma Tara and Shiva look at me with puzzled expressions. “Did you leave the window open in the car?”
Oh! They’ll never know, will they?
“Yes, is it a mess?” I say, acting innocent.
“Abby!” Dad calls from his room. “Can you come upstairs?
I have news. I need to talk to you.”
“Give me a minute, okay? I want to wash up,” I yell back.
I race up to my room, close the door behind me, and stand against it, taking long breaths. I want to pick up the phone and spill the beans. Tell someone about the movie, Shaan, the shortcut, the fall, and crazy Jay. I can call Mom, but I can’t really tell her much besides the movie part. She’d have a complete meltdown. My stomach flips, thinking about my afternoon.
I call Priya. She’s been to Mumbai so she’ll get the picture. I need to unload or I’ll explode into bits like a melon crashing to the floor.
It’s six o’clock in India. It’s 6:30 a.m. in Houston. Time to wake up, Priya!
Groggily Priya gasps. “No! You’re making this up. OMG, Abby, glad you’re safe. You cannot tell your mom.”
“Abby!” I hear Dad yell.
“Uh-oh, Priya, I really need to go.”
“I can’t believe all this stuff is happening to you.” I can almost see Priya shaking her head.
“I know. I’ll tell you more later. Bye!” I get off the phone, rush to the bathroom, washed up, and pull a brush through
my hair. I have to look normal. Dad can’t know about the ride. He’d be livid.
Can a just-discovered dad ground you?
Chapter 16
Gateway to dad
Dad sits in the living room with his feet on the coffee table, his fingers knitted together behind his head. His entourage hovers around him, competing for his attention. Someone wants him to approve an outfit for a photo shoot. Someone else wants him to look at a shooting schedule. The third person wants to know if he can attend the opening of an exhibition. And the fourth one begs him to attend the wedding reception for the daughter of the minister of broadcasting.
I want to spend alone time with him. I can’t say that though. It would sound so lame.
Dad sees me slink into the room and sit on the rocking chair in the corner. I could be a fly on the wall. I catch my breath after my literally hair-raising ride. Dad fends off the demands, saying yes, no, and maybe without faltering.
Maybe it’s years of practice. I take longer to decide which top to wear with my jeans. “No to the wedding. It will take me two hours to get there in Mumbai traffic,” he says. Then he calls, “Abby!” and draws attention to the fly.
“Everyone,” he looks at Thomas, Salima, and the rest of the gang and says, “I’m taking the evening off. Yes,” he cuts off the groans and protests with a slicing wave. “I’m taking my”—he stumbles—“Abby out to dinner. Work will have to wait.”
I think he almost said “my daughter.” I swear. My heart skips a beat.
&n
bsp; He walks over to me, puts his arms on my shoulders, and looks into my eyes. “Abby, give me ten minutes to freshen up. We’re going to the Taj for dinner. Thomas, tell Shiva I plan to drive myself.”
Dad’s dejected entourage files out of the room.
I grin as if I’ve won the first prize in a talent show. “I’ll go change too.”
My book told me that the Taj is a famous, grand old hotel, and I want to look appropriate. I also know by now that wherever Dad goes, paparazzi follow. I want to look nice.
Grandma Tara looks as pleased as a mama bird that caught a worm when Dad and I say bye to her. “Naveen,” she says, “show her the Gateway of India and maybe take
her for a boat ride on the harbor. Abby, I want you to have a good time, beta.”
I know beta is a term of endearment and that it literally means son, but it’s used for both sons and daughters. Grandma Tara has been using it to refer to me for the last two days. Shiva smiled when Grandma first said it to me. Once I knew its meaning, I smiled too when she said it.
Having said our good-byes, we get into Dad’s Mercedes. What a day it’s been. First the movie with Shaan, then the ride with crazy Jay, and now this dinner with Dad. If the rest of the days are this eventful, I could pack a lifetime of excitement into this trip.
As we drive, I realize this is the first time that Dad and I are completely alone since the short drive the first day I spent in Mumbai. Strangely, I’m tongue-tied. While I miss home and Mom, I feel like a dry sponge absorbing everything I could. Making up for lost years.
My mind whirls like one of those diagrams of brain synapses in my biology book. Zing, zing, zing! Thoughts, words, feelings all clashed and collided and I’m mute and a bit choked up. I can’t cry! No way.
Dad puts in a CD and startles me with the sounds of Beethoven’s Concerto no. 5.
I stare at him in surprise. I didn’t know Dad likes Western classical music.
“I know how much the violin means to you, so I bought some CDs,” he says.
He’s taking an interest in my music—for me. “Thanks, Dad,” I say.
Our eyes meet. “You’re welcome, beta,” he says. I get goose bumps. “Abby, I wanted to talk to you about this secrecy.”
“It’s okay. It’s fine,” I interrupt, not wanting to spoil the moment.
“No, no it’s not,” he says, his hands clenched on the steering wheel.
Silence. The violin swells in the car. In spite of myself, I smile. No one could have planned a better sound track if they tried. Seeing me smile, my dad smiles too. He exhales as if he’s been holding his breath. The car is at a traffic stop and he mimics playing an intense piece of music on an invisible violin. I pick up my imaginary violin and join him in the crescendo. Is there a term for air violin like there is for air guitar? Well, we’re doing a heck of a job air violining to Beethoven!
What seemed like a million people cross the street. The traffic light turns green. Dad puts down his imaginary violin and so do I. We grin at each other as if we’re the only two people on this planet that matter. I’ll never forget this moment for as long as I live.
We drive on the Worli Sea Link, picking up speed. The Sea Link is a brand-new twenty-first century toll road suspended over the ocean. We stop at the tollbooth. The man almost falls off his perch when Dad rolls down the window to pay.
“Naveen Kumar!” he says in a choked voice and elbows his partner. Without looking, the partner says, “Naveen Kumar? In your dreams!” but then sees that it is indeed Dad. He leaps to attention and salutes Dad as if he were a general. Dad chuckles as we drive off.
“Abby.” He takes a deep breath. “Your mom and I have been discussing how best to reveal that you’re my daughter. I have to be the one who makes the statement. I’ve scheduled an interview and photo session with Film World on Friday. The editor is a friend of mine and has been supportive from the beginning of my career. I told her you are my daughter but not that we just met. That is too personal and nobody’s business.”
I’m not sure how to react.
Dad continues. “The editor promised that she would handle the story as respectfully as she can without distorting it. The issue will hit the stands a week after that.”
“I’ll be home by then. Will you mail me a copy?”
“You know I will,” he replies. “My film premieres this weekend. Abby, for the first time I’m responsible for the entire film. It’s a subject close to my heart. The hero is a TV
reporter who investigates and uncovers corruption. I want the attention to be on my work, not my personal life.”
“And I don’t want the attention and neither does Mom.” “I understand, but it can’t be a secret forever. And I don’t
want someone else to discover and distort the truth.” We’re both silent as we realize this has to be done.
“Your mother and I will figure out the details in case anyone tries to contact her. I’m sure she needs to tell some of her friends and family too.”
I still hate the idea of the press trying to contact Mom. It didn’t strike me that someone could twist our story, my story. I’ve watched my share of TMZ and E! News at home. The hosts of the show are always wondering about the personal lives of stars.
Will Brad and Angelina marry this summer? Which Kardashian is having a baby this year?
I guess there’s an equivalent of TMZ in India and I might be the subject of its speculation. Why did I never think of that? The hosts could announce:
Why did Naveen Kumar hide his teenage daughter?
I shudder.
Dad looks over at me. “Abby, you understand, right? I don’t want this to be made ugly and sordid.”
I nod.
Why did Naveen’s girlfriend hide his child from him?
Is she really even his child?
More disgusting headlines creep into my mind like roaches crawling out of the sink. Dad sees me wince and says, “Abby, don’t worry about it. I’ll take care of it. It’s why I was hesitant to tell people. I want to be in control of how it’s spun.”
Now I feel like an ignorant brat for ever doubting the reason Dad wanted to hide my identity from the press. He’s trying to protect me.
We’re driving through a part of Mumbai with old Victorian buildings from the British era. Some are lit up and the coconut trees around them wish they’re as tall.
“The old Churchgate Station, Flora fountain,” Dad points out. They are magnificent and centuries old, which I’m not used to. America is such a young country in comparison.
Dad swings the car into the foyer of the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel across from the Gateway of India and hands the keys to a valet who gapes in surprise and recognition. The last speck of sun lazily lowers into the ocean. The Gateway stands tall and majestic, with its turrets and latticework, its stone lit by the sinking sun.
Impulsively Dad grabs my hand, “Let’s go see the Gateway. I haven’t gone up close in years.” He slides on his sunglasses as if to hide his face.
We cross the street, leaving behind stunned onlookers in our
path. I can hear the whispers of “Naveen Kumar” echo around us. We run through the pigeons and tourist photographers. The Gateway official recognizes Dad and waves us through. We read the plaque: The Gateway was built to commemorate the visit of King George V and Queen Mary in 1911.
“And when the British left India, the last ships to leave for England also left from the Gateway,” Dad adds. “I’ll have to tell you about India’s history and colonial rule sometime, Abby.”
The words are a promise that we’ll know each other for a long time, and I almost skip along. I haven’t been sure how my relationship with Dad would be. There are kids who don’t see their fathers in years. I’ve been living in the moment, afraid to imagine a future with Dad, but now, who knows? He’s said other stuff, how he’d like to come and be at my orchestra concert sometime. Maybe we’ll visit each other.
Maybe he’ll come to Houston. I can just imagine introducing Dad
to my friends and to Grandma and Grandpa Spencer. I pinch myself. How crazy and fantastic would that be?
A small crowd has gathered. Dad whispers, “I think we better head back inside before the crowd grows too big.”
Dad poses for a few photographers and asks one of them to take a picture of us against the backdrop of the Gateway. Then, Dad and I manage to weave out of the gathered fans
and run across the street. I can’t help waving at a few of the fans who are waving at us.
The Taj Mahal Palace Hotel with its stone façade looks over at the sea. We walk in and enter a palace from another time. Soft sitar music pipes through the hotel. My string quartet joins in. A fusion concerto.
The air is hushed and air-conditioned. Marble floors and exquisite murals make me glad I changed my clothes from what I’d been wearing on the back of the motorbike. This is as different from the back alleys as McDonald’s is to a five-star meal. I remind myself that my book said that Mumbai is India’s wealthiest city and that it’s ranked higher than Shanghai, Paris, and Los Angeles on the number of billionaires who live here. In a matter of hours, I’m seeing both sides of the city and I feel like Alice in Wonderland when she goes from being miniscule after drinking potion to huge after eating cake.
We stand at the host stand and a manager walks over, beaming. Her sari rustles and she greets us with a dazzling smile.
“I hope I can get a table at the Shamiana,” Dad says,. “I don’t have a reservation.”
“You are always welcome, sir,” she says and whisks us away to a table. Dad and I feast on kebabs and naan and every other delicacy possible. The chef comes out to suggest
items on the menu. We’re treated like royalty. Dad orders dishes he thinks I’ll like. He makes a point to tell the chef that he and I are allergic to coconut and asks him to make sure that none of the curries have coconut milk and that coconut is not used as a garnish.
A shared dinner. A shared allergy! Shared interests? A shared life?
When we’re alone, Dad says, “Abby, would you like to go shopping to prepare for the photo shoot? Or you can wear your jeans and I could match you?”
