by Scaachi Koul
This loneliness is the worst case scenario I’ve always dreaded, the one everyone—even my own family—told me was unlikely, if not impossible. Rebellion isn’t my strong suit, neither is love, and now I have to perform both. I miss Papa aggressively because this still feels so unfair, but above all, I miss him because I understand him and he makes sense to me. I get angry at toaster ovens (TERRIBLE FOR POP TARTS), and irate when people don’t follow my advice. I’m not so good with the silent treatment but not for a lack for trying. I worry like he does, too—planning funerals and preemptively complaining about who might slight me or my family when I’m long dead. I miss Papa from before he knew the truth about me (even if I was desperate to just tell him the truth) because Papa was my blueprint for the rest of my life. It was a flawed life. I didn’t always like the outlook. But it was mine.
In any case, Papa has never been the strongest person in the family—that’s always been Mom, who carries everyone’s burdens on her back. He’s never been the most stubborn either—that’s always been me. He’s not even the most sullen—that’s my brother, at least since my birth. But Papa will crack, putting his surly contemplations about my relationship aside for good and not just in temporary bursts, as suggested last week when he answered the phone with, “The vagaries of time are taking their toll” (believe that this is him in a good mood), or the month before when he ended our call with, “You are brave, you are too brave.” Or at least I need to believe in his ability to let things go when they are ultimately out of his control, because otherwise we’re both just alone, spinning separately when we’re supposed to be in this together. I can wait for the inevitable, because it is inevitable: he will call me instead of waiting for me to call him, maybe opening with something simple and weird and delightful, and I will again forget that he has the capacity for such darkness. In its place, we can remember that we are inextricably sewn together the way children are with their parents, no matter his mood or my rebellion, and life will creep forward the way it always has: “No one should get married. And if you do get married, you should never have children. They drain you of your creativity and render you into a caricature of a shell. Know where we are? The mall, where else. Your mother is looking at garlands. What are they called? Necklaces. God, she always wants something else, doesn’t she? Anyway. What are you up to?”
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Books only exist because of their editors, so: thank you to Kiara Kent, Martha Kanya-Forstner, and Anna deVries, for their brilliant edits and for understanding whatever I was putting down. Thank you, in particular, to my dear friend Kiara, one of the best editors in the game, who is always filling a wine glass to its brim and pushing it forward, saying, “Okay, what’s the problem?” I’m sorry I emailed you at 4 a.m. all the time.
Thank you to my agent Ron Eckel, who knew this book before I did, and to whom I owe an incredible lot. Thank to you to Kristin Cochrane and Amy Black at Doubleday Canada.
Thank you to my friends at Hazlitt: Haley Cullingham, an ingenious editor who brought forth so many of the ideas in this book. Thank you to Jordan “GABBO” Ginsberg, my favourite co-worker, the best Work Dad, a generous editor and friend who has always been so patient with me. Thank you to Robert Wheaton, who gave me my first real job.
Thank you to my BuzzFeed colleagues, and my incredible editor Karolina Waclawiak, to whom I owe at least 30 per cent of this book.
Thank you to so many who listened to me whine about this project: Danny Viola, Adrian Cheung, Rudy Lee, Miranda Newman, Naomi Skwarna, Bri Tulk, Adam Owen, Danielle O’Hanley, Kellie Cornforth, Molly Coldwell, Anne T. Donahue, Andy and Tessa and Sam and Sara. I’m sorry! It’s over!
Thank you to Matthew “Baby Braga” Braga. You are my best friend and a vessel of unceasing support. Everyone else is garbage.
Thank you to Barbora Simkova, my sister. Thank you to Sarah Weinman, my Book Mom.
Thank you to Scott Deveau, the love of my life who so often carries me on his back when I am too tired. Thank you for struggling for comfort with me.
Thank you to my family: my brother and sister-in-law, Angela and Jason and Connor, Neeta and Pankaj, thank you to Virangna and Bua and Fufa-Ji and Chacha and Chachi. Thank you to my grandparents who I never got to know, and to my aunties whose names I’ve never fully learned.
Thank you, always, to my parents, my complicated, nuanced, exhausting and yet calming parents. Mom, my favourite person, who so often has run her fingers along my scalp and said, “Everything turns out okay,” and has always been right. Papa, our great protector, who fights and fusses with me in my every waking second but still calls to ask, “What is a schlemiel and how is it different from a schlemazel?” Thank you both for throwing me into the world and for pulling me back again.
And finally, thank you to Raisin, a ray of sunshine in this dark, ominous world. One day, all of this will make sense to you, or none of it will. I’m not sure what’s worse.
Scaachi
my publisher wants you to write my author bio for the back of the book
Papa
Who would have the editorial control over what I write. I need some iron clad guarantee that they do not turn what I write which would be insightful and very succinct into some post pubescent pablum.
Scaachi
I have spoken to my editor and she has guaranteed that she will not edit you
Papa
You must correct it for punctuation which is elites trying to keep bourgeoisie like us down. Here it goes:
The author of this book Scaachi Lalita Koul is my daughter, born when both Wife and I were at the cusp of entering middle age but we were deliriously happy to welcome her after a particularly painful pregnancy. I am positive, or I would like to believe that she got a lot of her material from my musings which I expressed out loud to humour her. It could also be that I was vicariously living through her. I am almost certain she has presented me in a very poignant and loving way. Or again I could be delusional. If I am presented as crank or an Indian version of Archie Bunker then my revenge would be complete because I named her Scaachi with silent C.