Meatspace. Nikesh Shukla
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KITABWILLDESTROYYOU: Go to bed. Stop stalking people online.
Decarp: Go Aziz!
History:
It’s Friday night (my dad’s usual slot for me – Friday for the children and friends, Saturday for the ladies) and I’m sitting in our favourite Indian restaurant waiting for him to arrive. When Dad shows up, he is dressed in a silk pink shirt, a leather jacket that goes past his waist, and black trousers. The only thing missing is some crocodile shoes. Instead my dad is wearing the omnipresent black Nike Air knock-offs he’s been wearing for the last 20 years, which keep his now-mangled feet breezy and comfortable. I once bought him some proper Nike Airs but they’re boxfresh, unused – ‘unused to my feet’, Dad said. His feet are now moulded to the shape of the inside of these cheap versions. He is holding on to the remnants of his sparse, thin, silky silver hair by growing around the bald crown a fine mane as long as possible.
‘What’s new, kiddo?’
‘Rachel wants to be my friend on the Facebook.’
‘She wants to be back together? Good, I like that.’
‘No, just friends on Facebook.’
‘Why would she do that? Unless she wants to be back together?’
I don’t reply. We both snap poppadoms.
Dad spoons onion onto his shard and I stare at the bubbles on mine, before dipping it in the raita and crunching down, grimacing at the sugary yoghurt.
‘Thank you for shaving. You know? Your face looks fat. Why is your face so fat? I need to work on this beer belly so I can get more dates, eh kiddo?’
When my mum died, when I was young, he went through a decade of wearing a fleece jumper and tracksuit bottoms, going to work in the same warehouse and coming home and eating the same food watching the same DVDs of the same Bollywood songs he and my mum listened to. It was a decade of mourning. Then he retired, and quickly realised how much of a social animal he is. He goes out 4 nights a week, wakes up in the early afternoons hung-over and watches old films till it’s time to go out again. He is basically me in my early 20s. Wednesday and Thursday nights, he props up the bar in his local Indian pub, watching cricket and counting masala peanuts (finely-chopped onions and chillies mixed in with dry roasted peanuts, drizzled in lemon juice and chilli powder) as dinner. Fridays and Saturdays are date-nights for him. He only ever has dinner with me or with a lady. And because he’s the type of guy who stands on old-fashioned ceremony, he will never let his child or a lady pay for dinner. We eat for free.
‘Son, I am happy to see you because you are my son, but going out with guys is no fun,’ he says to punctuate a silence.
‘What do you mean? You can talk to me about football, girls, whatever you want …’
‘I go out with people to have fun, not talk. I want to flirt, to dance, to eat with a knife and fork.’
‘You can do that with blokes. Why do you need to date girls?’
‘These are not dates. They are my friends. The girls are all my friends. Because I take them out, we eat good food, listen to the music, and dance. And they laugh at my jokes.’
‘Because you’re paying to take them out.’
‘Why must you make me feel like they are my prostitutes?’
‘Because you make it sound like you pay them to let you take them out.’
‘Well, kiddo … I’m old-fashioned.’
‘And it is the oldest profession,’ I say, spooning onions into my hand and throwing them into my mouth.
I feel, as I always do at these dinners, the unsettling pressure to be my dad’s best friend as well as his son. Dad used to have 2 close friends whom he did everything with. They watched every sport going, from cricket to the World’s Strongest Man, drank together, played cards, even worked together. Now those guys have retired and moved to Dubai, leaving my dad to date and take me out for dinner. And be a barfly.
He finds friends of friends, divorcees or widows who want to be taken out for dinner and a dance and he uses them for company. He pays to take them out and they give him company. He has rules for prospective partners. He’s trying to protect himself from history repeating. He doesn’t want to outlive another partner.
My dad doesn’t ever want me to come to see him in our family home, probably because he thinks the sight of all the kebab cartons and empty beer cans, dirty bathroom and unwashed dishes will probably send me into a panic. I think of the state of my flat … Rach’s chutneys filling the fridge are the only civilised things left about me.
Dad will dress up to visit in one of his 3 silk shirts and come and see me in my part of town because he thinks it’s buzzy (he describes it as a ‘carnival atmosphere’) and filled with beautiful women. He’s always disappointed to learn that the crowd is rarely, if ever, middle-aged single Indian women looking to be wined and dined, only thin boys and girls not bothered by our presence in the slightest. Still, he pays. And it’s near my house, so I’m happy.
Dad, when first looking for a new girlfriend, set himself some rules and parameters. He laminated them on a card to stick in his wallet as an aide memoire. They were: she must be younger than me; healthier than me; Gujarati Indian but, not too traditional or religious; able to dance; tell jokes; know how to cook (and he goes on to reel off a list of my mum’s signature dishes). I repeatedly told him in the last year that he’s not going to find a replacement for Mum, not least because his parameters are too defined. He thinks, why mess with perfection?
‘How is your book doing?’ he asks me, placing his hands together in prayer formation, to show me he’s listening.
‘Okay,’ I say, not looking up from the table, as if enthusiasm would indicate failure. ‘Sales are slow, but you know, at least it’s out.’
‘But what is your marketing strategy?’
‘I let the publisher deal with it.’
‘How can you trust them to market you? You need to determine your market and sell the book to them.’
‘Sure,’ I say, to shut him up.
‘You better be writing a bestseller. One with police detectives in the countryside. One with murders and car chases. Something you can buy in an airport and a supermarket.’ He pauses. ‘And don’t talk about the past this time. No one wants to hear about the past. Talk about now, kiddo.’
‘That’s not my thing, Dad.’
‘You should though. Don’t think you have another inheritance coming to you. I’m spending it all now on enjoying myself. So, write a bestseller.’
‘Okay, СКАЧАТЬ