Hold my Hand (Penguin Metro Reads)

  The last few days have been so perfect! It’s become hard for him to imagine what it would be like not to hold her hand, or not to describe in elaborate detail what’s around him. He will miss all this and he wonders if she will too.

  Their worlds are different, and although he wants to sit her down and tell her what she means to him, he doesn’t have the courage or the foresight to do so. What is he supposed to say to her? He thinks but can’t find an answer. He’s not like Ahana’s father—charming and caring and strong, or Aveek, brilliant and motivational. He’s just a geek who’s happy holding her hand, not someone who dates the prettiest girl there has ever been!

  Aveek’s the right boy for him, he concludes. He will not be around anyway and Ahana will find someone else to explore this city with, and who knows, she might be in Paris the next year, or in Brussels and will find someone better. Who would want him? he asks himself. Certainly not Ahana, who’s funny, bright and so beautiful that it hurts.

  25

  Ranbeer can pay little attention to the manual of the new aircraft, the 486, and spends most of his time thinking about Sadhika and what she must be doing in Hong Kong. It’s been a few months since they have been talking on and off, but lately, there are days when they don’t talk about losing their partners and the hardships of raising a kid alone, and they still have plenty to talk about. It’s been years since Ranbeer has had another friend.

  He clears the security checks and checks in with his company for his test flight. He just has fifteen minutes to prepare himself for the flight. Sadhika calls him to make sure he’s up to speed regarding his preparations.

  ‘It’s easy for you,’ Sadhika says, her tone almost flirtatious.

  ‘It will be easy because I know you will be on the other side of the radio,’ he says, trying to be charming. It’s been more than twelve years since he has wanted to say something that might impress a woman, let alone his colleague.

  ‘Too kind,’ she says.

  The engineers at the test hangar strap him inside the aircraft, and Sadhika is on the radio on the other side, guiding him through the checks. He can barely suppress a smile, thinking how for the first time in years, the voice of another woman brings relief. As the controls of his cockpit light up around him, he decides he would ask her out on a proper date. As he rounds up the final checks, he wonders if he has a shirt he can wear on a date. He is adept at dressing up his daughter like a model, but he sticks to T-shirts and jeans. A black shirt would do just fine, he tells himself, already feeling nervous and shaky. Ahana likes Sadhika too, which gives him confidence.

  ‘Can I have a word with the chief test engineer in private?’ he asks. ‘Sadhika Samant?’

  ‘Cutting all lines,’ the radio controller says.

  ‘Can you hear me?’ he asks.

  ‘Crystal clear. Do you have some doubts? You know the routine, right?’ she asks, concerned.

  ‘I could have asked questions about the routine without asking people to stay off the line,’ he says and takes a deep breath; his heart is pounding. ‘I wish to take you out on a date when I’m back in Hong Kong. Can I?’

  ‘Umm ...’

  ‘I asked a question.’

  ‘Sure!’ Sadhika mumbles nervously.

  And then there is an awkward silence.

  ‘I will see you when you’re back,’ Sadhika says, rather shyly.

  ‘Looking forward, ma’am,’ he says.

  The radio connections are back again. The air traffic controller gives him clearance to fly. He closes his eyes and prays for her daughter’s well-being, and thanks God for everything. He thinks about Sadhika. After a final check, he guides the aircraft to the runway, turns on the power, and winks at the picture of Farah that he keeps on the controls.

  The aircraft lifts off, and the wheels retract inside. Little did he know that the wheels would never come down, again.

  Sadhika is in the control room, watching the red and blue lights, the tiny graphs drawing themselves on the charts of paper, taking notes, but she’s still shivering from the two-line conversation she just had with Ranbeer. She feels like a teenager, but she’s sure it’s nothing new for Ranbeer, who’s used to reducing women to a mumbling mess of nerves.

  Concentrate! Concentrate! she tells herself.

  As the lights blink in front of her, she can’t help but think of the hard times she has gone through without a single ray of hope to help her carry on, and of the man who wears T-shirts like he’s still twenty-five years old, who just asked her, a mother of an eight-year-old, on a date. She’s excited! This would be her first date, since her marriage was an outcome of an elaborate arranged set-up where the parents met first, horoscopes were matched and then over a single coffee shop meeting both the parties were expected to say a yes to marriage.

  She starts wondering what she should wear on the date. Black would be flattering, she thinks. She needs to shop.

  Just land this plane, she thinks to herself, and Ahana and she would go out shopping for her date with her father.

  Little did she know she would never get to buy a dress for her first date.

  26

  Deep is back in Ahana’s hotel room, sitting on her bed, while Ahana is on the piano pressing random keys. Today has been strange. Ahana, usually chirpy, and sometimes cranky, has been neither. She’s been mostly quiet, hardly uttering any words, and even her fingers didn’t reciprocate to his caressing them.

  ‘Do you need some time alone?’ he asks. Ahana nods. Deep leaves the room.

  Ahana buries herself under the duvet, fighting her feelings for Deep, fearing rejection, scared that he would laugh at her for even thinking that there was a possibility that a normal boy would want to be with her. But surely, he has felt it too. A part of her believes that he knows they are more than friends, and he’s a far cry from Aveek. Deep has had far more chances to kiss her, and Ahana knows she wouldn’t have resisted.

  Lying in her bed, she constructs an elaborate scenario where she tells Deep what he is to her, and Deep understands. Every time she imagines that, she also imagines him telling her that though he likes her, they belong to different worlds, and they can’t be together. And though she is broken in her daydream, she finds the strength to carry on in her life because she’s glad he understands.

  She’s still lost in her constructs when the phone rings.

  ‘Hello? Who’s this?’ she asks.

  ‘Hi, Ahana, it’s Sadhika. Are you in your hotel right now?’ she asks, her voice broken and softer than she had last heard.

  ‘Yes, I am. What happened?’

  ‘I don’t know how to put this, darling, but I know you should be the first to know—we’ve lost all radio contact with him . . .’ she says nervously.

  ‘WHAT?’ Ahana shudders. ‘What do you mean you have lost all radio contact with him?’

  There is silence and she can hear her breath. ‘He was on a test flight and ten minutes into the flight, the radio communication broke down. We are looking for him.’

  Ahana’s stomach churns and almost instantly she feels like puking. The words Sadhika just said hang in the air around her, echoing.

  ‘Ahana, are you okay?’ Sadhika asks concernedly.

  She wasn’t okay. Her feet buckle and she falls on the ground, her eyes are open, and her breathing is laboured and shallow. She’s still clutching the phone, Sadhika’s screams echoing through the receiver. She can hear, ‘Are you there? Are you there, Ahana?’ from the other end, but she lies paralysed on the ground, Sadhika’s words wrapped around her neck, choking her, and she’s frothing, struggling for breath, and the words don’t leave her.

  Lost all radio contact. Lost all radio contact. We are looking for him. We are looking for him.

  She keeps saying these words under her breath, trying to understand the implications, trying to run away from them. It’s her dad. What do they mean, no radio contact? What do they mean they are looking for him?

  She brings the phone to her ear again. Her entire bo
dy is revolting and disintegrating, rejecting the words Sadhika has just said.

  ‘AHANA! ARE YOU THERE?’ Sadhika is still screaming. ‘I have sent you a car. It will pick you up and get you to the office. We are doing the best we can.’ Sadhika’s voice is betraying her reassuring words.

  ‘YOU’RE LYING! YOU’RE LYING!’ Ahana screams and she throws the receiver, which hits the closest wall and spills to the ground. Screaming and crying, she runs out of her hotel room, miscounts the steps and collides with the door of the elevator. She rides it all the way down, crying and sobbing, the words turning her brain into mush. Everything is okay, she tells herself as she walks to the hotel lobby and then outside. I just need to get to the office and confront Sadhika and find Dad.

  She has forgotten her cane in the hotel room, but it’s too late, and she has already started running in the direction of her dad’s office, barefoot and without her cane. She’s running, she’s running, trying to remember where she’s going, trying to push Sadhika’s words out of her head, the smiling face of her father flashes in her mind, the face she last saw when she was five, and she’s crying. And then she’s crashes against a pole and falls headlong on the ground.

  She starts bleeding from her elbows, one of her legs feels like it’s broken, and she screams for help, but it’s late in the night and she can feel the quietness around her. She doesn’t know where she is and there seems to be nobody around. She keeps weeping, the blood trickles from her elbows to her palm. She feels like dying, that very moment, she wants to die and never come back. She’s alone, she’s all alone, lying on the street bleeding, while her father’s lost in the radio silence somewhere. She’s crying. She slams her fists against the pavement as her legs fail to support her when she tries to stand up.

  Minutes pass by and she’s sick and weak and bleeding, wailing and lying alone on the pavement. Her mind’s playing tricks and she’s passing in and out of consciousness. Then slowly she comes to and finds her cell phone in her pocket and thanks her stars. She calls her hotel and asks the man on the front desk to connect her to Deep.

  ‘Ahana? Where are you?’ Deep asks. He can only hear her wailing. ‘Are you okay? Where are you?’ He asks again.

  ‘DAD!’ she screams.

  ‘What? What happened?’

  ‘He’s GONE!’ she howls. ‘THEY CAN’T FIND HIM!’

  ‘Where are you?’ Deep asks and she only replies in wails. It takes him ten attempts to get a brief idea of the direction Ahana had run towards. He runs out of the hotel, frantic and scared. He can’t help the tears that flood his eyes and blur his vision. His body’s giving away and he’s trying not to think about He’s gone and They can’t find him. What does that mean? After walking fifteen minutes, he spots Ahana sprawled on the ground, breathing heavily, her eyes barely open; he can spot blood all over her. She’s holding her leg and sobbing.

  ‘Ahana! Wake up!’ he slaps her face but she’s just moaning and whispering the word Dad. ‘Where’s the office? WHERE IS THE OFFICE?’ he shouts into her ear. She gives him her Dad’s business card.

  He waves to a taxi, and gingerly carries her into it. She’s still only half-conscious, crying and begging Deep to take her to her dad.

  ‘He will be okay,’ he keeps repeating and running her hands over her face. She punches Deep’s chest repeatedly. Deep doesn’t have the courage to ask her what happened, and he tries to stay strong and not cry with her.

  The car reaches the front of the building and he helps her get down from the cab. She shrieks in pain as she puts her feet to the ground. He supports her on his shoulders and they walk slowly towards the building. He keeps saying soothing words to her but she is stammering and sobbing.

  After placing Ahana in a wheelchair, the guard takes them straight to the twelfth floor. As Deep walks into the waiting room, pushing the wheelchair in front of him, Sadhika is already there, along with two of her colleagues, and she has tears in her eyes.

  27

  Sadhika runs to Ahana, who steps out of the wheelchair and falls on the ground, wailing, her voice cracking. Her shouts are inaudible; her mouth opens wide but there’s no sound, just an empty shriek of horror and despair. Sadhika motions at her colleague to get a doctor. She sits on the ground and wraps her arms around Ahana, who buries her head in Sadhika’s chest and cries. Sadhika, whose face looks tired and dead and pale, runs her hand through Ahana’s hair and keeps whispering into her ears. Only Deep can see that she looks broken herself.

  He can’t bear watching Ahana like this, on the floor, bleeding and crying.

  Sadhika helps Ahana lie on the ground while the doctor tends to her wounds. He dresses up the cuts and the bruises on her elbows, and inspects her leg. Ahana winces when he touches her ankle, and Sadhika slaps the doctor’s hand away. ‘Later!’ she snaps from behind her teary eyes and the doctor walks away. Sadhika keeps rocking Ahana in her arms, whispering and mumbling into her ears, kissing her from time to time, saying it will all be okay, lying that her father would be back soon. Hope and happiness lie crumpled on the floor in front of Deep and he’s distraught, helpless and angry.

  Deep is furious at the pointlessness of it all. He blames her father. Why did he have to fly planes for a living? He feels like grabbing Ranbeer by his throat and chide him for being an irresponsible father, slap him, and maybe bring him to life. Such an asshole! Deep thinks, with his swanky bike, that charming smile, the endearing demeanour and the fancy, faulty planes. He’s so angry he can kill someone.

  An hour passes by but it is as if the news just broke of her father’s disappearance. Sadhika and Ahana are still wrapped around each other, the rhythm of their sobs now resonating. Sadhika’s colleague, a man in his early thirties, walks in and asks if Sadhika can spare a moment. Sadhika’s eyes widen, Ahana is all ears. The bad news is finally here, Deep thinks, and sits near them. Sadhika staggers to her feet, asks Deep to hold Ahana and walks out of the room with the colleague.

  Deep holds her hand again and looks into Ahana’s mourning eyes, which are screaming for someone to save her. He feels the world as they know it is coming to an end.

  Going missing and gone are two very different situations, and Deep knows that as they wait for Sadhika to deliver the bad news. He feels like he’s holding someone who’s already dead; she’s slowly disintegrating into pieces in his arms, he can feel her breath giving away, her soul draining out of her petite body.

  The door opens and Sadhika walks in through them. Deep’s eyes are stuck on her, ready to face the worst.

  Sadhika sighs. She says, ‘The jerk is alive!’

  Ahana looks in her direction, tears streaming down, confusion written all over her face. Sadhika adds happily, ‘Your dad is alive, Ahana! He’s unhurt and is on a plane back to Hong Kong!’

  ‘FUCK!’ Deep mouths out aloud. Sadhika bends down and Ahana jumps into her arms like a ninja and they are laughing and crying all at once. Then they are kissing each other all over, and Sadhika is saying, ‘I told you he would be okay . . . I told you he would be okay . . .’ and Ahana is saying, ‘I hate him so much! I hate him so much!’ Everyone in the room is crying and smiling, including the doctor and Sadhika’s colleagues and Deep, all of them shaking hands and hugging and high-fiving each other.

  ‘The bastard ejected the aircraft at the last moment, right before it exploded. Not a scratch!’ the colleague says.

  ‘NO ONE calls him that,’ Ahana snaps. ‘Maybe she can,’ she adds and points towards Sadhika.

  ‘I would never call him that!’ Sadhika says and hugs Ahana tighter.

  ‘Can I?’ Deep asks, quietly. ‘I really want to.’

  ‘Just this one time,’ Ahana says.

  ‘That bastard!’

  Everyone laughs.

  Deep, Sadhika and Ahana sit around in a tight circle waiting to hear from Ranbeer. They are smiling. Ahana has not stopped grinning, and every few seconds she breaks out laughing and saying, ‘This is the best day of my life, forever.’

  And then
they laugh.

  Three hours pass by, in which Ahana and Deep tease Sadhika like she’s a teenager, and she shyly smiles like one. They ask her about Varun, her eight-year-old son, of whom she shows pictures on her phone and Deep goes, ‘Aww!’ For Ahana she plays a video of Varun talking and Ahana finds his voice cute and adorable. The doctor bandages Ahana’s foot and tells them that it’s just a sprain, and Ahana says she can’t even feel any pain any more.

  It’s not until four in the morning that Ranbeer barges in through the door and Ahana leaps up and limps to him, almost missing him, but Ranbeer picks her up and kisses her all over her face.

  ‘DARE YOU DO THAT AGAIN!’ Ahana screams and hits him wherever she can.

  ‘I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry. I promise,’ Ranbeer keeps saying, and looks over her shoulder towards Sadhika, who’s crying as well, her hands over her mouth, looking so beautiful. Slowly, Sadhika walks up to Ranbeer and kisses Ahana on her head.

  ‘It’s not just me who wants to kill you now that you’re alive,’ Ahana whispers in her father’s ears. Both Ranbeer and Sadhika smile shyly.

  ‘Don’t you ever do that, ever!’ Sadhika says, her eyes welling up again.

  ‘I never intended to miss our date,’ he replies and then they hug each other.

  Deep just looks from a distance and cries before Ahana calls him over and they all have a group hug. Deep and Sadhika tell the father–daughter pair that they need to rest but they are in no mood to listen.

  ‘I JUST GOT MY DAD BACK!’ Ahana exclaims.

  ‘AND I JUST GOT BACK FROM THE DEAD! I NEED A DRINK!’ he shouts enthusiastically.

  ‘But we need to get to the bottom of this,’ Sadhika says, concerned. ‘Did the technical team tell you what went wrong? I mean someone has to be—’

  Ranbeer puts a finger on her lips to shut her up and tells her it’s a conversation for some other day. Ahana joins in to insist on the need to celebrate the day and Deep and Sadhika’s words fall to deaf ears.