‘Hey, are you okay?’ Vartika asked, sliding the pantry door close behind her. I only responded when she put her arm on my shoulder.
‘What if all of this just fails?’ I asked, not turning to her. Everyone who had shaken their head after hearing what I was planning to do post leaving a perfectly cushioned job and a steady income towered in front of my eyes like giants, their voices clearer and stronger than ever.
‘Are you kidding me?’ she snapped. ‘You can’t worry about becoming wet after you’ve already dived off the cliff into a river!’
I pushed my weight off the rack and turned to her. ‘You’re not helping.’
‘Damn straight, I am not. I have done all the helping you need and I’ll continue to do so, but only until you keep your shit together. Buddy, we both are riding our money on your confidence to see this through. If you waver now, we’re dead.’
I sighed, then turned away and she warmed. She took my face in her clammy hands, stood on her tiptoes and gave me a gentle peck over my lips. That seemed to soothe me like it had worked in the past. ‘I can’t say anything to you that I haven’t said before. So here’s the truth. You’ll always have your engineering skills. So if this fails, you can still go back to your job life. You’re not going to die on the streets.’
‘Go back to a life I escaped from,’ I mumbled, ‘and be termed a failure for life.’
‘No one can slap a tag on you if you don’t allow them to. You’re not a failure, Ishaan. But you will be, if you spend too much time afraid of becoming one.’
Her hands were marked, little bumps and burns on her skin that spoke of a tough job. Brushing lightly on the recent darkened spot on the back of her palm, I nodded, realizing I was becoming too dependent on her words. She had built her empire on her own. There was no reason why I couldn’t do the same. Besides, as she’d mentioned, I had a place to fall back on if this didn’t work out…
‘Good,’ she said. ‘I trust you.’
I clutched her wrist and kissed her hand, then stepped out the pantry before people wondered where I was.
Joycelin and Siddharth were the first ones to walk in. I was seeing her since the small party at the bar. We’d only talked twice after that. ‘Congratulations,’ Joy said, handing me a bouquet of flowers. I smiled as she ran an appreciative glance around the kitchen. ‘Finally, it’s up, huh?’
‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘Thanks for coming.’
‘Congratulations, boss,’ Siddharth said next, pumping my hand and giving me a man-hug. He was a large man, twice my size, muscular and lean. ‘So proud of you.’
I thumped his back. ‘How’s work going?’
He made a face. ‘Let’s not talk about lame things today. We’re here to celebrate THIS!’ He gestured around proudly and a lot of people laughed. The guy was too enthusiastic and too nice for his own good.
The first wave of people to walk through the door was the staff of Copper Club. Arihant, Saloni and Mom walked in exactly at six in the evening and I went over to greet them, pausing for a second longer to see if the fourth person would emerge through the doors.
Saloni looked around with pride, her eyes filled with wonder as she took the place in. Arihant gazed with his lips pursed, a critical eye. He studied the ceiling, the tables, the quotes on the brick-textured walls, finally pinning his gaze on the two big barrels in a corner. Mom, on the other hand, searched for me and broke into a smile when I joined them.
‘Welcome,’ I said and reached down to hug her.
‘This is awesome!’ Saloni remarked and I bear-hugged her next. ‘You did us proud, bhau.’
‘Did I, now?’ I asked, amused. For some reason, she looked older than I’d last seen her, which was a month ago.
‘What are those barrels for?’ Arihant asked and I turned to look at them.
‘Just showpieces,’ I told him.
‘It seems you’ve tried to give a vintage look to the place,’ he observed. ‘Blended old with the new.’
I nodded.
He smiled. ‘Impressive.’
‘Thanks.’ I looked to Mom. ‘He didn’t come.’ I’d meant to ask that as a question, but it sounded more like a statement.
She twisted her lips as if holding back the words, her face falling. ‘I’m sorry. I tried to convince him, but… you know…’
I swallowed the hurt, my face impassive and gave her a nod. The disappointed look on his face appeared in front of me, his eyes cold and unloving. It was like a stab in the chest.
Vartika walked over to me. She just knew exactly when I needed to see her. I guess it wasn’t difficult to guess. It was always. ‘You must be Ishaan’s family,’ she smiled pleasantly, holding out her hand to my mother, who sized her up, top to bottom. Mom wasn’t pleased. Nonetheless, she shook her hand. Vartika, oblivious to the reactions of my family, where Saloni looked at her with curiosity, Arihant without any and Mom disdainfully, asked me, ‘Should we start the ceremony?’
I nodded and she went in to fetch the ribbon and scissors. When she was gone, Mom turned to me. ‘Is she your partner?’ I knew in what context she meant it, but I assumed it was business.
‘No,’ I replied and not wanting to delve into details, led them outside the restaurant. After the quick ribbon-cutting ceremony, I turned to everyone who wasn’t my employee. ‘Make yourself comfortable and order whatever you want. It’s on the house, today. Only, no parcels.’
My family sat by the window, giving them a clear view of the footpath and winding road outside. Siddharth and Joycelin occupied a table right in the middle and ordered two broths and an oriental food platter, a mix of dim sums, spring rolls, fries and noodles.
Arihant sent the waiter with two dish preferences. One was a mocktail and another, a dessert. He sent the message that they were open to trying anything in the main course that I thought they would like. By the time I was done preparing their order, the restaurant had seven full tables.
While leaving, Mom came into the kitchen to put a note of two thousand in my hand and kissed me on both the cheeks, which was embarrassing with my chefs in the range of vision. But it was what she said after that that gave me the confidence to get through the day, a dose of positivity, ‘You can do this, Ishu. Prove to everyone who has questioned you that you can.’
I turned and picked up a small parcelled dish. ‘This is for Baba. Less sugar. Make sure he eats it, even if you have to tell him that you made it.’ Pressing her lips into a thin smile, she patted my shoulder before placing it in her bag. ‘Also, not today and not directly, but any time you get a chance, let him know that the doors of this restaurant will always be open to him.’
She nodded.
Squeezing her way between us, Saloni hugged me. ‘This place is epic, Ishu da. I’ll bring all my friends here. They are going to love it.’
When we pulled back, I pinched the tip of her nose. ‘Okay. But next time, no free lunches.’
Arihant, without waiting for me, gave me a quick hug that barely lasted a second. ‘The food was really good,’ he said, smiling.
I smiled back, mumbling a ‘thanks’ to him. Now that we both weren’t allowed to stay in the same house, we barely saw each other. In fact, this was the second time I was seeing him since we left the house together. The last time was when Mom invited both of us for a secret lunch when Baba was at work, a week after I’d officially left my job.
I had protested, telling Mom I didn’t want to come to a house where I wasn’t welcome. To that, she’d asked me to shut up. ‘I’m inviting you to my house. There is no question of anyone else having a problem with that, especially when the said person will not be home anyway.’
And I really couldn’t argue with that. Honestly, I did miss her. It was a nice, relaxed afternoon with no awkwardness between any of us. Mom asked me where I was staying and I told her at a friend’s house on rent—he had a spare room and someone to share the rent with—which wasn’t entirely untrue.
Another way we were connected was with this three-sibling gr
oup on WhatsApp that Saloni had created the night after we were thrown out. She had named it ‘NMW, we’ll always stay together’. It was over the top and I rarely replied on the group, especially when the other two chatted incessantly about mundane details of their life, but I did read every text and download every image, even if it was nothing but a picture of a tiresome teddy bear flashing ‘good morning’ in my face.
By the time they left, the restaurant was overflowing with customers. There was a valid reason for it though. The food was practically free.
On our Facebook page, we had invited everyone who lived in the city to join us for the inauguration. The ‘pay-as-you-wish’ tactic for the first day of the opening had worked wonderfully in our favour. While my restaurant page barely had a hundred likes, that particular post garnered thousands of likes and shares. People tagged their friends and colleagues in the comment section and while it all looked positive, I only saw the effect of it in the evening when we had no place to house the dozen diverse groups in the wait list, some college kids, some office colleagues, some families and some dates.
Somehow, Vartika conjured up a few plastic chairs for the waiting customers and kept them engaged with salad and snacks. But the greatest thing she did that day was keeping the Copper Club closed for the night. Her entire army of chefs and servers, in addition to my own staff, were on the clock.
While the official time of closure was eleven, the final customer left the place at three-twenty in the night. We didn’t ask them to leave, of course, neither did we close the gates for anyone who came after eleven. But by three, we were all too exhausted to cook for ourselves. So instead, we boiled some eggs and stuffed them between slices of bread and shared a quiet, satisfactory dinner in the kitchen. And even as I could barely keep my eyes open, I knew I had reached a place I never wanted to leave.
ISHAAN
‘I
t was a loss,’ I told Vartika a couple of mornings later. One of the perks of working close to her was she could drop by practically any time of the day. ‘Of about thirty thousand.’
Vartika had the bills of all the people who dined in Melting Pot the first night. Although they didn’t need to pay, most of them gave five hundred to a thousand rupees, some even dropping a hundred. One particular college group of five gave one rupee each, laughing their way out the door. Not that I was complaining. I had expected it. But one rupee? Really?
‘Well, we saw that coming, didn’t we?’ she said, keeping the bills back in the drawer. Just then, one of the servers came in, looking for me.
‘Sir, there is someone calling for you.’
‘Tell them the chef’s busy,’ I said, cleaning up the counter and putting a pan over the stove. ‘If they wish to talk, they can send in a message.’
‘Um, they aren’t looking for the chef, sir. They are looking for you, Ishaan Adhikari.’
I glanced at him. Taking off my apron, I headed out and saw a group of three girls waiting at the entrance. They greeted me halfway. They looked like they were in their late teens, college freshers.
‘Hello, are you Ishaan Adhikari?’ the one with specs asked.
‘Yes.’
‘Are you, by any chance, brother of Arihant Adhikari?’
This gave me a weird feeling. ‘Maybe,’ I said tentatively. ‘Why?’
The three of them giggled and for a second, I wondered if Arihant had already published a book or something.
One of the girls clarified, ‘We saw his post on your restaurant last night and it was the first time he actually revealed your name as the owner of it. He didn’t say you were his brother, but since you had the same surname, we wanted to check.’
‘What … exactly … did he write?’
‘Oh, just the generic stuff,’ the girls with the specs said. ‘About food and all. But that’s the thing. We’ve followed his blog for months now and all this time that he was talking about his unnamed mysterious older brother, we now know it is you. It is you, isn’t it?’
I didn’t have the time to deal with this. So I said, ‘I’m not really sure what you’re talking about. Maybe you can show me the link where he has reviewed my restaurant and I’ll let you know?’
One of them turned her phone and I saw his website. ‘Thanks. Now that you’re here, why don’t you order something?’
‘Sure! We’d like all the things you served him. He especially seemed to like blueberry mojito. So make three of those. And the rest as given in the article.’
‘Sure,’ I told them as they slipped into the seats. ‘Will send it right away.’
In the kitchen, I told Manoj to make the order, then excused myself to read what he’d written. He had uploaded it last midnight. I wondered when he got the time to write. Underneath the review, there were eighteen comments and on his Facebook page, about fifty likes. In his review, which was the latest post, he had praised almost everything, the ambience, the food and all the observations he made. He had requested all his readers to try the new place, promising they won’t be disappointed.
‘You know how there are some places you go to for the first time and feel like you’ve come home, to a place you could rest your soul in?’ He’s written. ‘Well, this felt like home.’
Finding a quiet corner in the pantry, I locked the door and called him. ‘Hello?’ He sounded tentative.
‘Hey,’ I said, leaning against a rack. ‘Ishaan, here.’
‘Er…’ I heard a smile in his voice. ‘I have your number. You don’t need an introduction.’
‘Right.’ I cleared my throat. ‘So… how are you?’
I heard a chair being dragged back, then his footsteps. ‘I’m fine. How is it going?’
‘It’s going fine.’
‘That’s nice!’
“Yeah.’ An awkward pause followed. ‘I hope I’m not disturbing you.’
‘No. This office is cool, one of the reasons why I like it.’ He paused and I heard a door creak open, then shut close.
‘Okay.’ Staring at the extinguisher on the wall in front of me, I decided it was best to get to the point. ‘I read your review on my restaurant.’
‘Oh,’ he sounded surprised. ‘Well, before you blame me for being too nice to you, let me clarify. I really did like the place and everything about it. I’m not biased.’
I wondered why he thought that I would think he could be biased towards me. I had never given him any reason to be. ‘I know. I… really liked it,’ I said, punctuating my words with hesitation. ‘I called to say thank you.’
‘Really?’ he paused. ‘You’re welcome.’
‘And congratulations,’ I said. ‘For becoming famous and all.’
‘You know about that?’
I shrugged, knowing he couldn’t see it. ‘It was all over social media.’
‘Which you hardly use,’ he said slowly, ‘if I’m not wrong.’
I gave his observation skills less credit than it merited. ‘My friend showed it to me.’
‘Thought so.’
‘How was it?’ I asked, wanting to keep the conversation going. ‘The popularity.’
He sighed. ‘Unexpected and very short-lived. But nice. I learned you can either shut out the world or welcome it in. The fear of opening up will paralyse you at first, but once you see the people walking in do not carry knives but flowers, you’ll begin to trust them, and in turn, yourself.’
I mused on his words, agreeing to the truth behind them. I had remained secluded most of my life, but when I let people in, I was surprised to see all those willing to lend me a hand.
A shadow of silence cast upon us that I didn’t know how to brush past. Finally, he took the reins in his hands. ‘But you know publishing is a whole different scenario,’ he added. ‘I’m beginning to doubt myself as a fiction writer. It’s incredibly difficult to convince publishers. I might have a better chance with a girl, you know. It seems I can hold their attention and entertain when I’m writing about my own life. But not so much when I’m telling a story.’
> ‘But you already have so many readers,’ I reasoned.
‘About twenty-nine thousand two hundred and seventy-eight, to be precise.’
‘And … that’s not enough?’
He scoffed. ‘Wish it worked that way. But no, it’s not.’
I didn’t understand his industry, so I didn’t press it. ‘You’re good,’ I told him, not knowing what else to add. ‘When Vartika showed me your blog, I read three of your posts. If it’s any comfort, I think you have a talent.’
‘Wow,’ he breathed. ‘Thanks. Didn’t think I’d get to hear that from you.’ I didn’t think I’d do a lot of things either. It was wonderful how swiftly your life could spin on its axis, turning your around to a completely different world-view in a short span. ‘Vartika is the girl I met?’ he asked after a while.
‘Yeah,’ I said, adjusting condiments in the pantry alphabetically. ‘The one you met.’
‘Right.’ He faltered for a moment. ‘She your girlfriend?’
I didn’t see why I needed to lie to him. ‘Since past few months.’
He took a second longer to say, ‘Well, congratulations.’
Putting my phone between my shoulder and ear, I reached to grab mustard and mayonnaise at the back. ‘Have you talked to Baba since, you know…’
‘No. I haven’t even seen him. Have you?’
‘No.’ We were both quiet for another few seconds, connected not only by blood but with similar circumstances.
‘Er, Ishaan?’ he called when I was out of topics.
‘Yeah?’
‘Do you think maybe we can meet somewhere for dinner this weekend? Just the two of us. It’ll be nice to hang out for some time, since now we don’t go home all that much.’ I didn’t answer for a couple of seconds. ‘Of course, that is if you don’t already have other plans. I’ll be completely okay with that too.’
A Long Way Home Page 24