Brown Baby

by Nikesh Shukla

  ‘Am I going to die?’ you ask.

  ‘Yes,’ I tell you. ‘But not for a very very long time.’

  I tell you that you have hands just like my mummy and that reminds me of her. It makes me feel close to my mum.

  Often we think about the traits or memories or trinkets that remind us of those we have lost. It’s not often that we think about skin in this way. You, with your hands imprinted with the same look and feel as my mum’s, bring me closer to Mum. Knowing she lives on, in this tiny way, helps me grieve.

  ‘Who is your mummy?’ you ask me one day as I demand you hold my hand instead of skipping off ahead. We’re walking to the shops to buy chocolate to make a cake for your mum’s birthday. Even though she’s ambivalent about chocolate cake. It was your choice.

  ‘Her name was Jayshree.’

  ‘She died,’ you remind me.

  As you get older, you look more and more like your cousins on your mum’s side. Your hands change and the fingers start to take shape. Now they look a little like your fai’s hands, especially seeing as you both bite your nails. But the memory imprinted on me, of your hands looking like Mum’s, is long gone, crushing me in its departure. I’m losing her, I think most days. I cannot frame her enough in my head.

  One of the worst clichés you hear about grief is that it takes time and things will get better. I feel frozen in grief. Like I stopped growing as a person. It defined me and I became stuck inside it.

  Denise Riley writes in Time Lived, Without Its Flow, about grief and the death of her son, that the ‘time of the dead is, from now on, contained within your own’.

  ‘This stopping of time can,’ she says, ‘for those who find themselves plunged into it, be lived. It turns out, surprisingly, not to be necessary to live inside a time that runs in a standard movement.’

  Being a parent can mess with your sense of time as well. These times, these separate movements of life, are intertwined in their disorientation.

  My mother dies and it’s been five years, ten years, fifteen years; time slips away and yet it exists within you, so it is always there, in the present. Some days, that present is distracted. Other days, it is the first and last thing you think about. We have you and it’s been five years, five months, five days; time slips away and yet it exists within you. Some days, the drudgery and inertia feel like it will never end. And the fleeting happy moment seems to last for a second, a lifetime, be a perfect memory all at the same time.

  We’re in Spain, on the beach. It’s nearing the end of a two-week holiday and I am itching to go home, get back to my rhythms, get out of my head the work that is throbbing, be away from you so I can think about you fondly in absentia, eat lunch by myself.

  It’s been two weeks, but it feels like we only just arrived. The first week was hard. The second week floated.

  You are both running towards me. It’s a race I’ve set up to occupy you both so you won’t fight over the bucket and spade.

  You’re both running towards me and I’m watching you and taking a photo at the same time. I’m watching you. I’m not looking at the screen. The camera snaps a perfect moment I miss. In the wild abandon of your run, you look at your little sister and she looks at you. The camera snaps the moment you both make eye contact.

  John Berger writes that ‘the deeper the experience of a moment, the greater the accumulation of experience. That is why the moment is lived as longer.’ I feel like I’m living in this moment forever. The pure unadulterated joy as you both rush towards me. You are both screaming. Which, under normal rules, is an instant time out. But this moment is perfect.

  For those ten seconds of the race, I am whole again. I miss my mum but that void she left has been filled. That still pool, that time out of time, is disrupted by two small pebbles. The ripples curl around me. I am moving again. I am inside the moment and I am living and you are here with me, and I am accepting that she’s gone. Because you are here with me. You are both here with me. The moment is lived as forever.

  I still put you both in a time out for screaming. Because rules exist for a reason.

  Even though my mum’s not around, she’d appreciate my consistency in this moment. I don’t know how to talk to you about her just yet.

  You ask me if chocolate has sugar in it. I nod and smile the smile of a person who knows only too well the sadness of something being so good and so ‘bad’ at the same time. Like the Netflix show Designated Survivor. Or one of those bum cheek wobbling farts we do in our private time, giving no shits cos no one will hear us. They smell comfortingly good and bad at the same time, and sound joyful, like a children’s TV sound effect for a Whoopee Cushion.

  ‘Sugar is bad for you,’ you tell me.

  ‘Well,’ I reply. ‘It is if you have too much of it. Everything is best when you don’t do too much of it. Except vegetables. You can never have enough vegetables! But it’s important to do everything in moderation.’ (I’m talking to the man in the mirror here, probably asking him to make a change.)

  ‘What’s modern-a-shun?’ you ask.

  You’ve been looking at healthy eating in school recently, and so every mealtime involves you telling us what’s good and bad for us. Sugar in particular has been a source of repetition, because you ask, with everything, whether it has sugar in it.

  ‘Does chicken curry have sugar in?’

  ‘Do lentils have sugar in them?’

  ‘Is paneer made of sugar?’

  ‘Does this empanada have sugar in it?’

  You become particularly fascinated with the idea of sugar and how it can be bad for us since you found out your dada is diabetic. You offer him a piece of your birthday cake and he says he isn’t allowed it because it’s bad for him.

  You look horrified. Cake? Bad for you? What? Even birthday cake? On someone’s birthday? You look shaken. Like you’ve found out Santa Claus isn’t real. Wait, shit, if you’re reading I hope we’ve had that conversation by now, because otherwise this is awkward. But yeah, Santa Claus? Your mum, mostly. That bite out of the mince pie? Papa-shaped.

  ‘Your dada is diabetic,’ my dad tells you, in that classic way he does, where he is ostensibly talking to you but he’s really playing to the room, using words that only adults understand.

  ‘What’s a bi-betic?’ you ask.

  ‘Dada can’t eat sugar,’ he says. ‘It will kill me.’

  You look at me, in distress. Like, a second ago, cake was just bad for dada. Now? Now, it could kill him? Can cake kill everyone? It’s a lot to take in. Maybe flippancy is an annoying family trait on my side.

  You’re already trying to compress yourself around the reality that my mum is dead and you don’t really understand what that means, but you know it makes me sad and you know she’s not here. Now you’re having to deal with the fact that your favourite thing in the world might murder your dad’s dad.

  Diabetes is a worry in my family. Every single health or news programme that mentions diabetes on television will almost always confirm that Indians have a higher chance of getting it. The incidence of diabetes is rapidly increasing globally, and Asian Indians are in the biggest risk category. An estimated 32 million Asian Indians have been diagnosed with the condition, and experts expect this number to double over the next thirty years.

  ‘We know that Asian Indians are highly susceptible to this condition, and they often acquire the disease at an earlier age and at lower body mass index than people of European origin,’ explains Mayo endocrinologist K. Sreekumaran Nair, M.D., Ph.D., the study’s lead researcher. (I know I framed this like we sat down for a sugarless tea, but I read an interview with the good doctor online!) ‘The question we asked is whether any metabolic differences between Asian Indians and Americans of Northern European origin can explain the higher incidence of diabetes in Indians.’

  There is an extent to which migration doesn’t always agree with us physiologically. While there is a rise in India itself of diabetes, the effects of migration on the diaspora can often result in ou
r bodies not working as well as they should. Darker skin with more melanin allows less UVB to enter the skin (because melanin protects against skin UVB sun damage), so less UVB absorption means less vitamin D is produced each minute. As Kieran Yates writes in a piece for Dazed Digital about how migration has and will affect our bodies, ‘basically, Black and brown people living in countries with less sunshine and long dark nights need to top up. People migrating from places where diets are rich in oil-based fats, fresh vegetables, pulses, and raw ingredients, are affected by moving to western countries where people eat an abundance of highly processed, sugary things.’

  Processed sugar, in abundance in England, Europe, America and so on, is bad for everyone. It’s particularly bad for brown people though.

  Epigenetics is the study of changes in organisms caused by modification of gene expression rather than alteration of the genetic code itself. There is a degree to which migration is an epigenetic issue. What traumas do our bodies hold? How much of my father’s diabetes, something I will inevitably contend with, is because of his move west, and how much because of his bad genes, and how much because of how prevalent it is in our community, no matter where you are in the diaspora.

  When your fai tells me she is pre-diabetic, I decide to get myself checked out. I hate going to the doctor. My mum prescribed paracetamol for everything. From back pain to the flu, from a sprained wrist to feeling depressed, she made us guzzle paracetamol. Because that’s what she prescribed for every illness, nothing ever felt doctor-worthy. It was paracetamol or tough it out. The only time I went to the doctor was to have a few vaccines before I went to India. And when a chest infection defeated paracetamol and I coughed blood.

  Pre-diabetes means that your blood-sugar level is higher than normal but not yet high enough to be type 2 diabetes. Without lifestyle changes, people with pre-diabetes are very likely to progress to type 2 diabetes. If you have pre-diabetes, the long-term damage of diabetes – especially to your heart, blood vessels and kidneys – may already be starting. The exact cause of pre-diabetes is unknown. But family history and genetics appear to play an important role. Inactivity and excess fat – especially abdominal fat – also seem to be important factors.

  So I book an appointment and go. Because I don’t want cake to kill me, Ganga.

  In order for the doctor to determine whether I’m pre-diabetic, I have to have a blood test. You also need your eczema looking at. The miracles of the NHS manage to present us with back-to-back appointments, first your eczema and then I have a non-urgent blood test with the nurse. Then I whisk you back to nursery.

  Walking down the road, past your soon-to-be school, holding hands, looking at the blue skies, talking about our favourite things, I’m feeling elated, my skin pulsing with vitamin D, my darling daughter by my side. I feel unbeatable.

  ‘My favourite place is the beach,’ you say.

  ‘Which beach though?’ I ask.

  You proceed to list every single beach we’ve ever been to. We then rank them, settling on your grandparents’ caravan and the beach at the bottom of the hill it’s on as your absolute favourite, and everything else, equal second.

  ‘My favourite thing in sandwiches,’ I tell you. ‘Is paneer . . .’

  ‘I don’t like paneer,’ you tell me. ‘I like cheese sandwiches.’

  Hurt by the rejection of our shared culture, I say, a bit too firmly, ‘Paneer is cheese.’ I say it in the way a teenager who knows they’re only really lying to themselves shouts at a parent, I did study hard for that test.

  ‘Paneer is full of sugar,’ you tell me.

  I shouldn’t have admitted to putting a small pinch of sugar in the marinade for the paneer tikka a few weeks ago. My hand drops till you are holding two fingers.

  ‘My favourite thing to do at home is watch TV,’ you say, cutting the tension.

  ‘My favourite thing to do is sleep,’ I tell you. Yawning.

  ‘Daddy,’ you say, squeezing my hand with the remembered pain it causes you every damn night. ‘I don’t like closing my eyes.’

  ‘I know, darling. I know,’ I say.

  ‘You are always tired. You say it every day,’ you tell me.

  ‘Maybe we should just assume I’m always tired,’ I murmur.

  We arrive at the doctor’s and, suddenly, I feel like the bones have been removed from my knees. It’s only muscles gristling about under my skin, struggling to hold their shape. My stomach is turning over and over like its contents are being whisked. My entire body feels like it’s floating. I’m dying. We come in here to be told how we will die. I think this every time I come to the doctor’s.

  I was there, sitting next to Mum, when we were told she had months to live. I was there in the same hospital, when she was given her death sentence, an immune deficiency condition. I was there in the same hospital, when the doctor took my blood years ago and said I needed to be mindful of diabetes.

  GP surgeries will kill you. Hospitals will kill you. Just like cake.

  My daughter just has eczema, I think. Give her the cream and we’ll go. I check in for you and I check in for myself.

  ‘After your appointment,’ I tell her, ‘Daddy needs to see the nurse as well.’

  ‘Are you poorly?’ you ask me.

  ‘No,’ I say. ‘It’s just a check-up. Make sure I’m okay.’

  ‘If you’re not poorly, then why do you need to see the doctor?’ you ask me.

  I need to eat something. I need something in my mouth. Preferably something sugary. Something with a cookie-like crunch. Hidden chocolate chips.

  ‘It’s just to be safe,’ I tell you.

  We sit and I read you a story from the book we’ve brought with us. My mouth is dry. My stomach has, now my brain has registered I’m not chewing anything, started to remind me, repeatedly, like a whiny child in a loop, that it needs food. I can barely see the words. I rely on memory, having read you this book many times before. It’s hot in here. It’s way too hot. I need to get out of here. My phone rings. It’s your auntie Anita. As an excuse to be outside, I rush us out of the door so I can answer it.

  We speak for a few minutes before your name is called and I take you to see the doctor, a genial man, who takes two minutes to examine your eczema and give us the prescription we need. The one that could have just been renewed over the phone.

  My chest throbs, shallow and intense, like how a loud car sub woofer playing garage two streets away can rattle a window. My feet are hot. My clothes all suddenly feel too small. I need to get out of here. My breathing is shallow.

  This is why your mum brings you to doctors’ appointments now. Because this always happens to me. Your prescription in hand, we wait for my blood test. I read you another story and try to calm my breath. I don’t want to be here. I need to leave. I need to guzzle the air of outside. Is the air in this surgery thinner? Has everyone else used up all the air?

  The reality is, I don’t want to know if I’m pre-diabetic. I’d rather live in ignorance. That’s what rushes through my head as you ask me my favourite type of music and my favourite thing to watch on television and my favourite person in the family and all my other favourites. We have ten minutes to find out whether I need to make a significant change or whether I can continue to coast, with a lack of care towards myself.

  But you have kids, don’t be selfish, I tell myself. It’s easy for an internal monologue to fall on deaf ears.

  I don’t want to know if I’m pre-diabetic. Also, I’m sure I’ll pass out from being pricked with a needle and you don’t need to take care of me in that situation, Ganga. You’re four and so concerned with taking care of everyone already. You don’t need to see me in actual distress. I don’t want you to know how weak I feel.

  Plus, I know the truth. I know how much sugar I have in my body. I know the lies I tell my calorie counter app. I know that when your mum asks me what I had for lunch so we can think about dinner, I only tell her about the main thing I ate, and not the snack I had on the way to get the food
nor the snack I had on my way back to my desk. I never tell her that I can eat an entire pack of Oreos in twenty minutes without really trying.

  Some days I care that I’m killing myself with sugar and salt. Some days I don’t. Most days, I don’t even give it a second thought. The occasional day, I’m willing myself to have kidney failure. Because at least the frosting of chocolate cake is still on my tongue.

  ‘Come on,’ I tell you. ‘Let’s get you back to nursery.’

  ‘You haven’t seen the nurse yet, Daddy,’ you scold me.

  ‘I know,’ I tell you. ‘I’m feeling better already.’

  In 2018, 15 million GP appointments were missed, costing the already-strained NHS £216 million. I owe the NHS £30. The problem is, I’m going to spend it on snacks as soon as I drop you back at nursery.

  On my way to work, later on, I buy two large chocolate chunk cookies. The person serving me asks if they need to be in separate bags. It’s a subtle prompt from them. Only one each. Come on. They’re massive. Each one is nearly 500 calories. It says so in tiny lettering underneath the price. I already know today that I won’t be recording anything at all in my calorie counter app. I only acknowledge its existence when I’ve hit a new low or when I’ve been ‘good’ and need to tell myself there is a version of me that can manage my diet.

  On weekends, if I’m lucky enough to get a solo trip to the shops to pick up something like milk or gravy granules, I’ll buy crisps and a chocolate to wolf down before I get to the end of our street. Our neighbours’ bin is filled with empty packets of my shame. I can still remember the absolute horror when one of them caught me disposing of a crisp packet.

  ‘Otherwise I’ll have to share it with the kids,’ I told them. They smirked. The way they looked at me, they knew the truth. Maybe they didn’t know the extent of it, but they knew.

  Most evenings, around 11 p.m., I’ll require fuel to help me stay up till 1 a.m., either to make my way through Netflix, hoping one day I’ll have completed it (they need to stop adding stuff so they can give me a realistic shot at this), or to write. Or I can scroll mindlessly through Twitter, smirking at memes, rolling my eyes at men repeating my jokes back to me (it’s only ever men), explaining my jokes to me or getting angry at me for my glib opinions about British politics.