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Manik Malhotra, a senior in the school run by Nyonika Malhotra, seems to have everything a teenager can ask for: life-defining friendships, a free pass to escaping trouble and a fashion empire title...
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Rewritten: 23 February 2024
⭒
Cabir
The crackle of a cheese-coated puff between my teeth made Mr. Malhotra raise his head from his hands. Pale unblemished skin sagged around his cheekbones under remarkable stress and, of course, age. While he had sunken in the revolving chair and had battered himself with a multitude of reputation resurrection techniques, I had mindlessly picked up the half-eaten bag of Cheetos and dug out the crispier ones from the bottom of the packet, popping one in my mouth.
"What do I do?" Dejection was clear in his tone.
"I was talking to the cameraperson earlier and –"
"This kind of carelessness and apathy to everything is not going to get him very far in life, and I'm afraid he's already gone far beyond my reach." Every phrase took copious amounts of strain to sound normal as his drooping shoulders, in one split-second, reflected his turmoil.
How incredibly lucky was Manik to have someone so deeply care for his future, to scope out threats even before he encountered them first-hand...
"Come on, Uncle. His reckless temper, you know about it." I said appealingly, flashing a hopeless grin at my role model figure.
If only someone looked out for me in that manner.
All those devastating years when I dived into battling with my identity, I had no guiding figure to tell me not to jump head first. My only muddled motivation was to bind myself to music, shield my illegal homosexuality with my craft, and keep myself sane and alive through some medium of expression. For that, I needed to practice and sharpen my rusty skills – even if Fab 5 was not with me anymore.
I drummed for a variety of artists, genres, and platforms in Manchester, regardless of the pay and benefits that came with it. The first few times were nerve-wracking, many of which were impromptu performances with less than an hour of lead-time, some of those artists had me perform, recorded my work for their purposes, and ditched me once their job was complete, while a couple of homophobic artists outright degraded me on personal grounds and shattered my spirits completely. Still, I took any scraps I could find in the bleak hope that I would find the niche I gravitated towards in one of those projects.
One day.
From that hollow crater of a series of depressive episodes, Mr. Malhotra uprooted me and selflessly took me under his wing, sharing his insightful wisdom gained through his extra years of experiencing the world, and honing me to the professional musician I currently was.
I owed everything to him, everything that I was in my adulthood was a result of his mentorship; yet at the one juncture where he truly requested my assistance, to handle his son who was once a fragment of my identity, there was nothing I could do to help.
