The Subtweet

by Vivek Shraya

  or

  @RUKMINI should stop singing

  (though Subaltern Speaks songs weren’t always specified).

  The word accountability seemed to have a magical ability to elevate the veracity and status of the “writer” and the writing itself. Said writer was also not required to be accountable to the subject of their criticisms (by not using sexist and racist language to describe Rukmini, for instance) or to anyone else. One of the writers getting the most attention was a film critic named Vidya who asserted that the “lazy asshole” or “mean girl” (she didn’t refer to Rukmini by name) had co-opted the idea to record a spoken-word pop album from her when they were in university together. She also claimed to have proof of this and, even without sharing it, her tweets amassed likes upon likes.

  This blind backing made me switch from listening to Hegemony via the downloaded link to Spotify, a pathetic and belated attempt to show solidarity through stream numbers. But the more I listened to the album, the less I heard Rukmini and the more I heard Malika.

  “She’s going to text me back, isn’t she?” Rukmini had pleaded for reassurance through her tears in her bedroom last fall, after she had told me about their falling out.

  “Of course, she will. The attention your album is receiving is Malika’s dream come true,” I offered, lifting a loose strand of her hair that had fallen on her cheek.

  “The dream I prevented her from pursuing . . .”

  “No one can be blamed for impeding someone else’s dream. If Malika wanted to pursue music, she could have.”

  “Hmm,” she said, leaning away and combing out the tiny knots at the back of her head with her fingers. “I just wish we could share this moment together. I wish things didn’t end the way they did.”

  But someone else — a careless stranger — did impede Malika’s dreams. How would Rukmini grieve the death of someone she had first lost long ago and now lost again? Even though I still hadn’t heard from Kasi, I paused Hegemony and texted her.

  How is Rukmini holding up?

  I thought about how I had planned to take Rukmini to St. James Cemetery, where I had roamed and written Selfhood, when she returned home from the tour. I pictured her there now, without a gravestone to kneel before, weep at, knowing with certainty that she would never see or speak to or hold or apologize to or make music with her old friend ever again. Subaltern Speaks would never have a reunion tour and Hegemony was now a relic.

  Hi Neela,

  I’m reaching out to see if you would be available for a cover story for Toronto Tops. It will be a follow-up to our recent article about Rukmini. While your tweet has been extensively discussed and analyzed, this interview would offer you the opportunity to provide more context for your words.

  Look forward to hearing from you.

  Sumi Malhotra

  Seeing Sumi’s name in my mushrooming inbox felt surprisingly gratifying. Though she wasn’t any more culpable for Rukmini’s online dismemberment than I was, I was livid with her.

  We had met once last fall at the AGO. Right as Rukmini and I had stepped into the gallery through the revolving doors, we ran into Sumi, who was on her way out.

  “Sumi! What are you doing here?”

  “What everyone is doing here? Looking at art,” Sumi responded, looking outside.

  “Ha!” Rukmini looked at me, her open smile trying to coax me to also smile. “I guess I meant are you here for work?”

  “Nope.” Continuing to avoid eye contact with either of us, Sumi reached into her pocket and checked something on her phone.

  “Well, Neela, this is my good friend and colleague, Sumi. Sumi meet the Neela.”

  “Good to finally meet you. Rukmini has told me a lot about you.” I considered waving my hand in front of her face instead of extending it towards her to get her attention.

  “Nice to meet you too,” she muttered, leaving my hand in the air. “I should get going though. I have a lunch meeting.”

  “Do you think I was standoffish?” Rukmini asked as we winded up the voluptuous wooden staircase, which was always the feature exhibition for me, the true crown jewel in the gallery. I often wished that the stairs would never stop curving, climbing upwards, like I was inside a growing tree that deserved to erupt beyond the building.

  “You? What? Not at all. What was up with Sumi though?”

  “She’s always kind of like that. Actually, I meant to tell you. Our boss sent out this message to the Toronto Tops team congratulating me on the Hayley gig.”

  “That’s nice of her.”

  “Yeah, it was. And so were all the excited responses from my co-workers.” We paused in front of the lengthy curator’s statement at the Georgia O’Keeffe exhibit. Neither of us were big O’Keeffe fans, but it had been almost a decade since the work of a female artist had been the main exhibit at the gallery, so we felt a responsibility to show our support.

  “So, did Sumi respond?” I asked after we entered the Saturday-packed space.

  “One guess,” Rukmini whispered.

  “You know, I really don’t like her,” I blurted. Seeing Rukmini surrounded by O’Keeffe’s enormous watercolour flowers, it was clear that Sumi was a thorn.

  “What? Really? Why not?”

  “First of all, if that’s what she’s like all the time, she’s rude. Second, she acts like she is this underground arts connoisseur. And guess what? She’s just a journalist for a local weekly magazine.”

  “Ouch.” Rukmini recoiled like O’Keeffe’s Abstraction sculpture we had passed. I immediately put my hand on her shoulder.

  “I didn’t mean you! There is so much to you outside of that job.”

  “Is there?”

  “Of course. You are about to go on a world tour! I just mean Sumi seems to think being a critic means she gets to be a dick. Including to her friends.”

  Now, months later, I was being offered a chance to confront Sumi directly. I imagined going to the Toronto Tops office to meet with her. “Are you so insecure about your career that you couldn’t be happy for your friend?”

  But then she would just retort, “That’s rich, coming from you.”

  Rereading her email at my desk, I reconsidered meeting with her. I wasn’t interested in “the opportunity to provide more context.” I could barely recall the last time I had longed for an opportunity to provide more context for my art, let alone to discuss a subtweet. And even if I agreed to meet, but not for an interview, I didn’t trust Sumi not to quote anything I said off the record.

  Instead of responding, I created a filter in my inbox for any email with the words interview or comment, convinced that my continued silence, like Rukmini’s, would eventually smother the media interest. But I still wanted to remain attentive to where and how this “discussion” was travelling, so I set up a Google Alert for my name. When I took breaks from transcribing, I scanned the articles the alert flagged. Seemingly frustrated by my refusal to comment on my motives or on the reactions to my tweet, journalists had begun to dig up and share quotes from old interviews that I had conducted with DIY blogs and lesser-known media outlets. Lyrics from Selfhood, the few that were there, were also scrutinized. The Sheep & Goat interview and review was finally published, with the headline:

  SELFHOOD: The Neela–RUK-MINI Breakup Album You Didn’t Know You Needed

  This spawned stories about our supposed love affair, illustrated by our selfies together. Even my back catalogue began to receive airplay on radio stations across the country, particularly the original version of “Every Song.”

  When I received an email from Levi’s about licensing the track for their upcoming summer campaign, I instinctively picked up the phone to text Rukmini.

  You won’t believe this. Levi’s wants to use Every Song. Weird, right?

  For a moment I forgot that Rukmini was no longer someone I could share news with. I forgot that any attention my music was
receiving right now was directly linked to my disavowal of Rukmini.

  As I deleted my text, the phone rang. Blocked number.

  “Rukmini?” Had she been thinking about me in this moment too?

  “Neela?”

  I jumped up from my desk when I heard the sound of a man’s voice and inspected my apartment as though he had broken in. “Who is this?”

  “This is Bart Gold. So glad I got hold of you.”

  “Sorry. I’m not interested.” Had Rukmini given him my number? I started to pull the phone away from my ear to hang up but I could hear him buzzing.

  “No wait, I am not a telemarketer! I run a national music management company called Gold & Platinum Entertainment? I’m sure you’ve heard of us.”

  “I’m sorry I haven’t.”

  Almost a decade ago, after my debut album had been out for months and had been only reviewed once, I decided to seek help. I had read a profile on Bart Gold in Toronto Tops and his “mandate to revive Canadian music with hidden gems,” which inspired me to stroll into the Gold & Platinum Entertainment office on Spadina in my knee-high suede boots.

  “Do you have an appointment?” Wearing a white camisole and with her hair in two braids, the receptionist looked like a high school summer student.

  “No, but . . .”

  “Well, Mr. Gold is a very busy ma—”

  Right at that moment, Bart came out to the front desk sporting an ironed Broken Social Scene T-shirt.

  “And who is this?”

  “I’m Neela Devaki,” I said and put out my hand.

  “She doesn’t have an appointment, Mr. Gold,” the receptionist pouted.

  “Well, I always have time for pleasant surprises.”

  Looking at the cluster of framed photos of Bart with Tragically Hip, Tea Party and Sam Roberts on his wall, I sighed, “Hidden gems . . .”

  “I know. We have so much incredible and underrated talent in this country. I just want to help everyone. But first you. What can I do for you?” Bart spun side to side in his chair, legs open.

  Sensing that this effort was a waste of time, I decided to get to the point. “I just put out a new album and —”

  “Is that your album?” He reached over his desk and yanked the CD out of my hands. After listening for a couple of minutes and nodding out of time with the drums, he pressed Stop.

  “Well, the good news is you have some talent.”

  I faked a smile. Great news.

  “Your voice is not really what I expected from looking at you and the overall composition is a bit . . . niche.”

  “Niche?” Like a hole in a wall?

  “That’s not a bad thing. We could use it to our advantage. Are you from India?”

  “No?” I started to button up my trench coat.

  “I’m just thinking about the big picture. I could set you up with some hotshot local producers, get you doing some co-writing. I actually just signed an incredible guy — Marcus Young? Heard of him? He’s going to be huge. I could set up a session with both of you.”

  I told him I would think about his offer and then did the exact opposite — until last year, when Rukmini texted me the screenshot of the invitation from him. I wondered then what might have happened if I had opted to work with him and Marcus and whoever else: Would I have been the one asked to open for Hayley Trace? Or was Rukmini the music industry machine getting the Brown Woman Musician equation right?

  Hearing his real estate agent voice again on the phone, I knew I had made the right choice.

  “Well, listen, I would love the chance to meet with you and talk about how we can support your career.”

  “Right now isn’t a great time, to be honest.” I picked up my house keys, jingled them loudly and headed outside, hoping the sound along with the outdoor noise would emphasize my busyness and disinterest.

  “Right now is absolutely the right time! You have a fresh and authentic voice that audiences are clearly hungry for,” he yelled.

  “Oh, so you’ve listened to Selfhood?” I paused and leaned against a stop sign.

  “Sorry?”

  “My album? Selfhood?”

  “Oh, I downloaded it last week and haven’t had a chance to listen to it yet. Things have been so hectic in the office, you know?”

  “I see.” I rolled my eyes at my reflection in the window of a car braked beside me.

  “But everything you have been saying online is exactly the kind of commentary this industry needs. You are the kind of hidden gem that made me start G&P.”

  I agreed to meet with Bart (another lie — the only way to get him off the phone), and appreciating the humidity, I continued walking west, past Riverside Bridge, and then turned off the main strip, back onto the residential streets. Bart’s persistence made me think about Sumi, how her approach with her interview request a few weeks ago had been the opposite — short and no follow-up message. Unless my inbox had filtered her messages out.

  It turned out that Sumi had just moved on. Lying on the sidewalk at the foot of the steps of a church was the latest issue of Toronto Tops.

  The cover featured another face I recognized.

  HAYLEY SPEAKS

  Exclusive interview with pop star Hayley Trace

  By Sumi Malhotra

  Where were you when you saw Neela Devaki’s subtweet?

  Honestly, I didn’t see it until a few days after it was posted, and by then it had already been deleted. My manager Bart Gold texted me a screenshot.

  Did you know it was directed at Rukmini?

  I had no idea what it was about. It’s a subtweet. Who has the time to analyze all the weird stuff that gets said on the internet? But Bart kind of explained it to me.

  And what did you think about it then?

  Well, my job as a cis straight white woman is not really to weigh in on a dispute between brown women. My job as an ally is to amplify and support, which is why I invited Rukmini on the tour to begin with and why I immediately checked in with Rukmini after I saw the tweet.

  What was Rukmini’s response?

  She seemed fine. Quiet, but fine. She’s a trooper.

  Where is she now?

  I’m not sure. I assume back in Toronto? It’s so hard to keep track of everyone’s comings and goings on the tour.

  It’s been over a month now since Neela’s tweet. During part of this time, your tour was on a scheduled break, but I see that some recent and upcoming dates have been postponed. Is this connected to the controversy surrounding Rukmini or the comments made by Malika’s cousin?

  No, I’ve been under a lot of stress running a massive show night after night and my physician prescribed immediate bed rest.

  I do want to go on the record to say that I never endorsed Rukmini’s decision to perform Subaltern Speaks songs on my tour. Nor did my management company, Gold & Platinum Entertainment. She was invited as a solo artist.

  That said, I am deeply concerned about the impact all of this is having on Rukmini and I am not sure that continuing this tour together makes the most sense for her at this time.

  So is the tour ending?

  Definitely not! But we have suggested that Rukmini take a break from the tour. She probably needs it more than I do.

  When will she be rejoining you?

  I don’t know. It’s a bit up in the air right now. But I do know that the upcoming shows are going to be spectacular. I am launching a new single, and we have hired more dancers and another lighting designer. There’s a lot to look forward to!

  That bitch Hayley Trace kicked Rukmini off her tour.

  I chucked the paper back on the pavement where I had found it and darted back home.

  I had assumed Hayley’s management would advise her to do the opposite, given that “all press is good press.” Wasn’t all of this great publicity for the tour? And yet, Hayley’s decision also wasn
’t surprising. She had squeezed what she wanted out of Rukmini — underground cred and a badge on her allyship card — and could now toss her aside like a dried-up piece of fruit. One way or another, white people always found a way to fuck a brown woman over.

  The more I thought about this and about Hayley’s interview, the more I knew I could no longer afford to remain silent. I had to do something. Noticing the posters wheat-pasted to the boards surrounding a construction site, I wondered about making a bold declaration online.

  When I returned home, I paced around my living room with my phone in my hand, brainstorming ideas in the Notes app.

  Publicly apologize to Rukmini

  How do you apologize for a subtweet? “I’m sorry I implied Rukmini was pandering to white people”? Would that do much more for Rukmini than my personal apologies had?

  Publicly defend Rukmini

  But what if my statement backfired and somehow heightened the animosity towards Rukmini?

  Call for a boycott of Toronto Tops and/or Sumi Malhotra and/or Hayley Trace for character defamation

  No, that would only give them more attention.

  Write an op-ed with an invented narrative about how challenging Rukmini’s childhood had been and how hard she has worked to persevere

  Obviously, this was a bad idea, but it seemed the performance of pain on the internet was often a successful means of eliciting sympathy (and popularity).

  Was silence the best option, or just the easiest? I closed the Notes app and remembered how often Rukmini had used it to compile our list of potential band names. Had she deleted that note now?

  My index finger slid to my Photos folder and I scrolled longingly through photos that Rukmini and I had taken together. I stopped at the selfie from the Swet Shop Boys show with the piano onstage behind us and sank into my couch. I remembered how seen I had felt when Rukmini told me that she could imagine me living amongst the black-and-white keys. I wished we could go back to that moment, the discovering-each-other phase, the addictive self-revelation-through-another’s-eyes phase.