Page 96 of One Indian Girl
‘Yes, madam.’
The hotel staff brought a first-aid kit and sprayed a pain reliever on her leg. Two waiters helped Richa mami stand up.
‘Can we take a break?’ Kamla bua said.
‘But madam, the sangeet is tonight,’ Mickey said.
‘We haven’t even had breakfast. Won’t we get weakness if we do dance without breakfast?’ Richa mami said.
She was right. Punjabis need calories, by the hour, every hour.
My cousins and I took a table by the window at our family’s dedicated breakfast buffet area. Some of them were rehearsing their steps even now. I went to the breakfast counter and picked up a plate.
‘Can I have whole-wheat toast, please?’ I said to a waiter.
‘Would you like that with peanut butter and honey?’ said a voice behind me.
I turned around. My eyes almost popped out of my face.
‘Neel?’ I said out loud.
‘Hi,’ he said. He looked the same, handsome as hell. He had gelled hair, salt-and-pepper stubble and a lithe frame. He wore a black suit and a white shirt, both crisp.
‘Neel?’ I whispered his name again, more aware of my surroundings. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘I told you. I have to talk to you face-to-face. I came to your room last night. Another lady answered. So I left.’
‘My sister,’ I informed him faintly, looking around rapidly. ‘Keep your voice low. How did you even get here so fast? Weren’t you in some copper mine in Sri Lanka?’
‘I just...’ he said and paused. ‘I took a chartered flight. Doesn’t matter. Can we talk?’
‘You chartered a plane to come here?’ I said. Neel did not meet my eyes.
The waiter brought me whole-wheat toast.
‘I have to go,’ I said.
‘I know,’ he said.
‘You can’t come here. This is our private family dining area.’
‘I know.’
‘Neel, look at me.’
He looked at me finally then, and I remembered those eyes. Those eyes and a lot more.
Hong Kong
Two Years Ago
22
‘This is your desk,’ said Bianca, a secretary in the Distressed Debt Group. ‘Look outside, you even have a Hong Kong harbour view.’
It took me a while to adjust to my new surroundings. Goldman Sachs in Hong Kong is located at the Cheung Kong Centre skyscraper in Central, occupying the sixtieth to the sixty-eighth floors. The distressed debt team is located on the sixty-seventh floor. From the floor to the ceiling windows of the glass-and-steel building, one can see the Hong Kong skyline and harbour towards the north. In the southern direction, one has views of the Peak, the top of the green hill on Hong Kong Island.
Hong Kong is an ex-British colony, now under Chinese control. The British exited in 1997, but left behind one of the most modern, developed and efficient cities in the world. Consisting of the Hong Kong Island, the Kowloon peninsula and New Territories, this city of seven million inhabitants is one of the busiest global financial centres. Compact, brightly lit and buzzing, Hong Kong overwhelms you upon arrival with its insomnia and beehive activity.
