The Reading List(83)

‘I love this book, Dada! I love Scout so much. I wish I could do adventurous things like her, sometimes.’

‘I thought you would, beta.’ He leaned over to kiss the top of her head as she wrapped her arms about him. ‘Besides, you have different kinds of adventures. All kinds!’

Priya squeezed him back, before running in to settle herself down on her usual chair, to continue reading. Naina had set this in motion, step by step, in small, intangible ways. Priya was reading a book he knew all about. He knew the world Priya was in right now. There was something magical in that – in sharing a world you have loved; allowing someone to see it through the same pair of spectacles you saw it through yourself.

Rohini put her arm around his shoulders, tentatively, pulling him back to the moment. He could tell with one eye she was scouting out the house, looking for the bits she could quickly tidy, and the bits she could add to her ‘nag list’ too, but as she began to open her mouth to speak, she closed it again with a sigh. ‘Hi Papa,’ she said. ‘How are you? I have bought some ingredients to make dinner.’

Mukesh shook his head. ‘No. It’s fine, Rohini, beti. I am making dinner. I have got all the ingredients.’

Rohini raised her eyebrows, visibly impressed.

Nikhil had googled the recipe for him and had written it out on the back of used and forgotten receipts. He’d stapled them in the correct order and they now sat on Mukesh’s kitchen counter. He’d already managed to make the filling, potatoes fried with jeera, methi, hing and raai, so softly cooked they were like a delicious stodgy lovely paste to pop in the middle. He felt like a chef: ‘Here’s some I made earlier.’

The sambal (he had cheated and had bought a sachet from Nikhil who said he wouldn’t tell anyone) was bubbling away, and the batter for the dosa themselves was already mixed. (He’d used a sachet again, but no one had the time or strength to actually grind the urud themselves. That is what Nikhil had said and Nikhil had let Mukesh in on a secret: even Naina had used the sachets as soon as they had been invented.)

‘All I need to do is fry the dosa!’

‘Dosa!’ Priya jumped up and down. It was like she was a 7 year old again.

He had managed it; he had achieved the impossible: he had made a dish that wasn’t comprised of mung beans or okra. It truly was an achievement. Rohini was stunned. She watched, in awe, as Mukesh almost successfully made the pancakes (almost, because he was a little impatient with them and they were a bit misshapen, soggy, broken up … but they tasted just the same).

‘Can I help?’ Rohini said, rolling her sleeves up.

‘No, no,’ Mukesh said. Rohini sat on the edge of her chair, as though poised to step in at any moment. But she didn’t, and Mukesh was pleased. She had grown too, it seemed. She was trusting him.

The three of them sat down together. Mukesh took his plate last. It was a new thing for him. He was being the mum, he was being Naina, Marmee too, and he loved it.

‘This is delicious, Dada,’ Priya said. ‘But I think I would have liked it even better if the filling was in the pancake and not next to a pancake mound. And also, if you were sitting with us while we ate it!’

‘I am your waiter and your chef.’

‘Papa, this is lovely. Well done you. The sambal is particularly brilliant. It tastes quite different to Mummy’s though.’

‘Do you remember what Mummy’s tasted like?’

‘How could I forget? Yours is pretty good though. Better than mine.’

He sort of wanted to tell her that he cheated a tiny bit, but it was a secret he would take with him to his grave. It was okay to do that kind of thing now. He didn’t have so long to wait.

After dinner, Mukesh expected Priya to take herself off to her favourite reading spot after clearing her plate away, but instead she came back to the table and sat down.

‘The mockingbird – you know when Atticus says it is a sin to kill a mockingbird, does he mean it is a sin to kill innocence or innocent people?’ Priya asked.

‘Erm …’ Mukesh felt his heart pound – he hadn’t actually spoken to Aleisha about this. ‘I think so.’ He said it softly, as though saying it too loudly would expose his uncertainty.

‘That makes sense! Because soooo many innocent people are hurt, or treated wrongly, in this!’ Priya’s face was defiant. ‘It made me so angry!’

‘Ha, Priya. You are absolutely right.’

‘Tom Robinson,’ Priya declared, and Mukesh nodded, his face solemn. ‘Boo Radley.’ Mukesh nodded again. ‘Dill and Jem! It’s brilliant, Dada,’ she said, still clutching the book. ‘I wish we could both talk to Ba about it too. I wonder if she had read it!’

As Priya continued to effuse about the book, Mukesh realized that Priya had paid a lot more attention to the minor characters, whereas he’d been more swept up in the main part of the story. It reminded him of Aleisha. Youngsters were very observant.

‘I think you can read whatever you want to into anything. That is the point of books,’ Mukesh said hesistantly, hoping he was channelling a little of the Atticus Finch wisdom.

And Priya nodded. ‘Dada, you’re to-tally right! Ba used to say that too, but these books are more complicated than the ones we used to read together.’

‘She did? Ba was very wise.’