The One Who Wrote Destiny

by Nikesh Shukla

  ‘What’s it about?’

  ‘It was about my family. About my sister, about twin shit, and about how we both hated being Asian growing up, and rebelled against anything Asian because we were desperate to be white. It was going to be called “A Lovely Bunch of Coconuts” or something. But I dunno – now that she’s passed, I’m not mad about the idea any more. Nothing is being said about a living breathing person. It’s being said about a dead person. There’s almost too much tragedy in it. It’s just not working. I don’t know.’

  He sighs.

  ‘It sounds good, I guess. I mean –’ I pause. ‘Yeah, so I guess we’ll be stuck together for a month. This’d better go well. You’d better fall in love with kathi rolls, my friend.’

  ‘I only dine at the Tempting Tatty in Edinburgh,’ he says softly. ‘You were going to say something about my idea. But you stopped. Tell me. I need a sign whether to do it or not.’

  ‘How truthful do you want me to be?’ I ask, weighing up the options in my head of how to give headline feedback to a headline idea.

  ‘Really truthful,’ he says, looking at his can of Red Stripe, lifting the ring-pull and snapping it back and forth repeatedly.

  ‘Don’t bother, dude. “A Lovely Bunch of Coconuts”? Who the hell wants to listen to that? I mean, being British Asian isn’t a binary thing – it’s complex, layered, nuanced, there are many types, tropes, archetypes – but what even is a coconut anyway? It’s outdated, dude. I don’t know. Just be you, you know?’

  He looks disappointed, takes his glasses off again and cleans them.

  ‘The thing is, that is me. That’s my story.’

  ‘Fair enough.’

  ‘Yeah,’ he says. ‘My sister told me I was being too self-hating. I didn’t really think I was, and irrelevantly so too. I never thought about any of this stuff growing up. Race shit. Suddenly everyone’s talking about diversity and you start to notice it and then once you notice it, you can’t unsee it. Suddenly I’m obsessed with it, and still figuring it out. And I’m starting to wonder what I’ve let slide ’cause I just never thought about it before.’

  ‘I don’t mean to pick you up on it. You’ve only really given me the blurb for a show you’re still writing.’

  ‘I always thought that talking about race was lazy, before. Like, I just wanted to tell jokes, to large rooms of people. I want to make arenas piss themselves. That’s okay, isn’t it? I don’t imagine myself getting there by doing the Indian thing. But now that my sister’s died, and I’ve started thinking about family, I’ve realized she’s the thing I wanted to talk about. Us, our journey. I’m struggling with articulating it because . . .’

  ‘You’ve never really thought about before?’ I’m trying not to get angry and/or throw my kebab roll at him. ‘I get that it’s important to you to talk about it. But does it still need to be said? It feels like we’ve moved on. Also, your show should be about you and your sister.’

  I pick up my paneer kathi roll and bite into it so we can turn our attention to the food. It’s too hot.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he says, spooning some dhal into his mouth. ‘A few months ago, I was trying to tell jokes. This is delicious, by the way,’ he adds as consolation.

  He unfolds the kathi roll and removes the kebab and onions from it. He reaches for the sachets of sugar, tears them both as one and sprinkles the grains on to the kathi, before re-rolling it and eating it.

  ‘The closest I can get,’ he says. ‘My ba used to make the best sugar rotlis.’

  ‘What happened to her?’

  ‘I don’t know. We drifted apart. She was in Kenya, we were here, in London. We were too lazy to write letters. It’s sad. I really remember her. Maybe my show should be about her and my sister and me – we spent this week together, where it was like, I don’t know. My dad left us with her, a stranger, and we’d never met her before, and we all just had to get on. We were in Mombasa, we didn’t speak Swahili or Gujarati, and she didn’t speak much English. It was wild. My sister fell in love with a donkey called Little Vijay, and then it got killed.’

  ‘That sounds more fun than “A Lovely Bunch of Coconuts”. Write that show.’

  I stir my dhal to cool it down and watch as he lifts the can of lager to his mouth, letting it hover for an excruciating ten seconds.

  ‘I’m really sorry,’ he says flatly, before taking a long slow slurping sip of his Red Stripe. ‘I’m not amazing company at the moment. I’m trying to write this show and be hilarious and also my sister’s just died. And I want to tell jokes about her, but it feels too soon. I didn’t even know she had cancer for the longest time.’

  Raks eats more dhal.

  My kathi roll is cool enough to eat. I do so in three silent bites, letting the grilled paneer and pepper squeak against my teeth. Raks checks his phone. He finishes his makeshift sugar rotli and pushes the plate away, holding his can of Red Stripe in one hand and his phone in the other.

  ‘My sister was like a Big Bang Theory character,’ he says. ‘She was quite bizarre. I never quite got how to be with her because she would judge me whatever I did. And I needed that. She, in her own way, was pushing me to be better at everything I did by showing me how unimpressed with my choices she was. Our mum was like that, apparently. According to my ba. Constantly making you seek her validation. It’s genius, actually. The ultimate tool for ambition-building. I just . . .’ He puts the can of drink down, and scrolls mindlessly at his phone. ‘I saw her will, and her final wishes. She hired you. My sister hired you from beyond the grave. It’s all so strange. She died suddenly. We found out she’d been diagnosed with cancer for two months or something and hadn’t told us. And she had this accident, where she nearly drowned. She confessed everything to our dad. We moved her into his flat and I looked after her. I stopped doing gigs and previews for a bit, and we just hung out. Me and my sister. And it was just so funny. Being twins, you have these silent reference points and in-jokes and it’s where you feel most complete, like yourself. I thought I could write about her and me and how we were and how we are and how we ended up. Because we came back together. She died while we were watching Star Trek 2. We were slumped on Dad’s sofa, and he was ordering pizza. Our heads nearly touching, her hand resting on mine. She whispered, this is the happiest I will ever be, and cried. It was such a sombre moment that the film became heavy and sad. At the end, just to make the moment lighter, I yelled KHAAAAAAAAAAN like Kirk does, and looked at her, but she had passed. The happiest she will be, she said.’

  ‘I’m really sorry. It was a strange will request. But the more I think about it, it’s really beautiful.’

  ‘Yeah, she wrote so specifically in her will, like she knew you. And knew she was dying. That’s just her. Find someone who looks like her to come to her funeral, and do the handshake we’ve been doing since we went to Kenya when we were kids. And it would freak me out. But it was her way of saying goodbye.’ He sniffs. ‘It’s beautiful, actually. She just wanted to say goodbye. I always thought she thought I was a prick. But she must have thought enough of me to ensure she said goodbye. Thank you.’

  I nod. I reach my hand out to touch his. I remove it when I realize how oily they are. I wipe at his wrist with a napkin.

  ‘Do you think I’ll be a sell-out if I do “A Lovely Bunch of Coconuts”?’ he asks.

  ‘What?’ I say, admiring the old photo of Gama the Great, a pehliwan wrestler from the Edwardian era, on the door of the men’s toilets. The women’s toilet has Hema Malini as Basanti dancing for her life on broken glass to save Veeru from being shot by Gabbar Singh; her arms are crossed above her head, her chest is pushed out and she looks demure but anxious. She may have been a shrieking victim in that film but she was also strong, independent and nuanced. The men get a strong silent type in Amitabh Bachchan’s character. The women get a heroine who dances to save a man’s life.

  Maybe I should try my hand at Bollywood. My Hindi’s not terrible.

  It’s a better idea than this morning’s o
ffer – naked, covered head to toe in silver paint, wearing an elephant mask and having gravy thrown at you.

  ‘Do you think I’m a sell-out?’ he asks again, assuming I’m thinking very hard about the answer and not wondering what I’d look like naked with silver skin, and whether getting paid £50 plus breakfast is worth it to satisfy my curiosity.

  I deflect while I think.

  ‘Do you think you’re a sell-out, Raks?’

  He laughs. ‘Of course not, I think I’m fucking hilarious. I feel like this show is not a good idea.’

  I sigh. Why must everyone I go out on dates with turn romance into advice-seeking? Can’t they read books and online blogs when they want to learn something about themselves? It’s what I do.

  ‘You don’t need to be anything,’ I say, picking the kebab off his plate and biting into it. ‘You certainly aren’t required to be self-hating. You don’t play to the white crowds any more. You play to a new world which is slowly realizing that non-white people are also nuanced. You don’t need to be the voice of all the brown people any more. There’s enough of them around now that you don’t represent all of us. We don’t only have Goodness Gracious Me any more. We can admit that East is East was problematic. We can say Bend It Like Beckham was a cheesy white man’s wet dream. We can say that Cornershop didn’t need the validation of Fatboy Slim. Why do you think you need to be the spokesperson for us, the ambassador to white people? Why even tell them things? You think I tell white people places like this exist? No way, man. This is our secret. This is the secret spot that you keep sacred so the balti houses and tandoori houses can thrive. We, us, the brown people, take our business where it belongs. Don’t ever think you need to be the voice of a generation. Because that is the quickest way to being a sell-out.’

  ‘I think I get what you’re telling me,’ he says, smiling. He takes his glasses off and places them on the table, then looks at me, with sad eyes, as though we’re really seeing each other for the first time this evening. ‘Whatever I do, it has to be real to me, not just a trope. No big statements. Just me.’

  ‘Just you,’ I say.

  ‘But funny . . .’

  ‘That’s kinda important,’ I reassure him.

  I order a kulfi because I know he wants to go. We sit in silence and admire the artwork. I notice that the tiles around the room are the exact same ones used in my family home’s downstairs toilet. I stare at the uneaten food on his plate and wonder whether I can finish off the rest of the kebab.

  ‘A Man’s Actions Are More Important than His Ancestry’

  Mukesh. Edinburgh

  I watch my son take selfies with fans, and sign his DVDs, and I feel proud that he is doing what he was always meant to do. He reminds me of Sailesh. Sailesh loved the attention but at the same time wanted to hide from it. It was too much for him. It’s amazing what you remember, the more you play it in your head. The same goes for Rakesh. I sip my pint and wait.

  Rakesh eventually walks towards me. As he does, three people congratulate him on a brilliant show.

  ‘What did you think, Dad?’ he asks.

  ‘A show about a donkey?’

  ‘It’s a show about Neha,’ Rakesh says. ‘I wanted her to live for ever.’

  ‘It did not have many jokes.’

  I did not mean to offer this criticism. I could hear people laughing all the way through, chuckling, big laughs here and there, but I did not find any of it funny. It was all the truth. It was all about us. There is nothing funny about us.

  ‘I didn’t expect you to laugh, Dad,’ Rakesh chuckles. ‘A show called Little Vijay, all about the time you abandoned your kids with a stranger in the middle of Mombasa, it doesn’t exactly paint you as father of the year.’

  ‘Stranger? Eh,’ I remind him. ‘That is your ba you are talking about. She is family, not a stranger. You are very sentimental.’

  ‘I know,’ Rakesh says.

  Two more people approach him and say they loved the show, interrupting me. One says that it made her cry. I want to talk to Rakesh about his sister. I have not seen him since the funeral and I want to tell him about the day she and he were born. It is just us two now. We have to stick together.

  ‘Shall we go somewhere else?’ I say, interrupting their conversation.

  ‘Sorry,’ Rakesh says to the people he is talking to. ‘This is my dad.’

  ‘Your son is fucking funny, mate,’ one man says to me. His girlfriend nods. ‘So fucking funny, mate.’

  ‘Thank you,’ I say. ‘I taught him everything he knows.’

  We are in another pub. It is quieter, near our hotel, near an Indian restaurant I would like to try. I ask Rakesh what I can get him.

  He puts his hands on his hips and thinks.

  ‘Okay. I was going to head to another spot at the Stand at midnight. Can’t drink too much.’ He looks at his watch. ‘Okay. Sure, I guess I have an hour before I need to be there. I mean, what sort of drink are we talking? Is there a price limit – are you, like, beers, wines and soft drinks only? Or am I allowed a whisky chaser? If so, can I go for a decent whisky, given that we’re in Scotland, or do I need to go for a high-street whisky? What if the wine I want is served by the bottle only? There are so many variables.’

  ‘Rakesh, beta,’ I say. ‘I am your father. I will buy you whatever you want.’

  He orders an ale. I order a vodka and soda. We sit at a table.

  ‘Where shall we eat, bwana?’ I ask, rubbing my stomach and winking.

  ‘Dad, I have to do another set tonight. I don’t know if I’ll have time. But we’ll get breakfast tomorrow before your train, yes?’

  ‘I came here to spend time with you. We need to spend more time together.’

  ‘Yes,’ Rakesh says. ‘We do. It’s just, it’s Edinburgh. It’s kinda like the busiest time of the year for me.’

  ‘You are hiding here,’ I say.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I have not seen you since the cremation.’

  When Rakesh left the wake, I followed him, to try and get him to come back. I saw him talking to a girl I did not recognize, and I watched them walk off together, to the park. My son has been broken by the loss of his sister, I know this. They did not realize how similar they are.

  Rakesh takes after me in that he is a storyteller, and a funny one. Sometimes. While Neha was like Nisha, stubborn, headstrong, right.

  Seeing this boy succeed here makes me happy. I did not think he could take this life. Growing up, he was so sensitive. Especially to criticism, particularly from Neha. She would never let him have it easy. If it was wrong, she would tell him it was wrong. If it could be better, she would tell him how to make it better. If it was good, it was not good enough.

  When Rakesh told me he was going to be a comedian, I added up in my head the cost of sending him to university. The amount of money it cost me to get him to find out that he wanted to tell jokes to strangers.

  A girl approaches Rakesh. She looks familiar. She smiles at me as he rises. They hug.

  ‘Hi,’ she says to me.

  ‘Dad, this is my friend Laila,’ he says.

  ‘Pleased to meet you,’ Laila says.

  I remember her from the funeral; the girl he chased after like a madman.

  ‘Friend?’ I ask.

  ‘Friend,’ Rakesh says, nodding.

  ‘Raks, man, that show, it was perfect.’

  ‘Thank you, that means a lot,’ he says. ‘I have you to thank.’

  I watch them talk for a few minutes and look around the room. One of the things I still find strange in the UK, even after forty years, is how it feels to be the only brown people in the pub, yaar. I immediately worry that Rakesh and his friend are talking too loudly.

  I remember when Rakesh was a little boy. Watching him run around the house, with a T-shirt on and no nappy, it was the cutest sight. Neha sitting and reading. And Rakesh running and running, wanting me to look at him.

  Before Nisha died, she said to me, about these children,
‘Be kind to them, always kind.’

  And when I collected them from their ba, she said something similar: ‘Both of your children can change the world. They have that in their destiny. Support them. Be their father, not their friend.’

  Everyone had so much advice for me. All the time, advice. Every day, new advice. as though they knew how to raise two children with no help.

  Rakesh notices me as he says goodbye to his friend.

  She says goodbye to us both and leaves, smiling.

  ‘You hungry?’ he asks me. ‘I need to line my stomach.’

  We are sitting in a chip shop, with a jacket potato in front of each of us. They are drowning in beans, covered by a thick layer of cheese.

  It is my son’s Edinburgh tradition.

  Go to the Tempting Tatty. Get the jacket potato with cheese and beans.

  ‘How often do you eat this?’ I ask.

  Rakesh tries to answer but his mouth is full. I hold my hand up to say stop.

  ‘I do not want to see the contents of your mouth,’ I tell him.

  I reach into my overnight bag. I am lucky that my train was delayed and I did not have time to leave my things at my hotel before Rakesh’s show.

  I pull out my small glass container that used to contain cinnamon. Now it has chilli flakes.

  I sprinkle some on my potato. Rakesh stops eating and looks up at me. He pauses, slightly disturbed by my action, and looks around. I put the container down between us. Then he slowly breaks out into a smile, picks it up and sprinkles it all over his potato.

  ‘I’ve got chilli flakes in my overnight bag, swag,’ he says.

  ‘Pardon?’ I reply.

  ‘It’s a Beyoncé thing. This is amazing, Dad. I love this. I love that you travel with this. Ready to chilli everything. The chilli man.’

  ‘Your mum used to call it Indian-style,’ I tell him, laughing. ‘When we were out, and I added chilli to something, she’d say, chicken burger Indian-style. Or cucumber sandwiches Indian-style. Or jacket potato Indian-style. It always made me laugh.’