Nico

FF #12
Ana and Sunita were originally friends of my friend Jiten—the three had met in their German language class. Ana is from the Spanish province of Andalucía, and Sunita is a second generation Brit of Mauritian-Indian origin.   A month after I moved to Munich from Berlin, I bumped into Ana and Sunita near the Kunsthalle, and exclamations and greetings were exchanged. Ana too lived in Munich now; she worked at the Institut für Physik. Sunita was visiting her from Berlin.

Ana and I started meeting on Friday evenings. We would explore the city, and particularly its restaurants and cocktail bars. We would try new cuisines and new restaurants. However during Sunita’s visits, we’d go for Japanese, since both women loved sushi. Occasionally other friends of Ana’s or mine would also join in for our Friday restaurant researches, widening both our social circles.

I’d heard a lot about Nico from Ana and her friends. A passionate Flamenco dancer, he was doing his PhD on Homer and his epics. I had never got to meet him until his last day in Munich. Sunita was also in town, and after we finished our Japanese dinner, we went to meet him briefly. A tall, handsome guy with unkempt wavy hair and long sideburns, Nico was in a hurry, since he wanted to go to his favourite Flamenco club here for one last time—and go home and pack after that; his flight to Heathrow was in the morning. Ana insisted that she would go and help him pack after he finished Flamenco. Sunita and Nico exchanged numbers, since she too would be moving back to London in a few months.

“And that might be the beginning of a new love story,” I teased.

Strangely, all three ignored my joke. And after Nico had left, I figured why, because Sunita commented that she’d introduce him to her gay friends in Oxford.

I was stunned. Here was a gorgeous guy, gay; and yet perhaps the only one of Ana’s friends in Munich I hadn’t met. I had just started coming out to my very closest Indian friends; but I wasn’t out to Ana and Sunita yet.

I was too disappointed and preoccupied for the rest of the evening.

I couldn’t meet Ana for a few weeks— she was visiting her boyfriend in Spain, I had a paper to submit, and so on.

But as soon as we’d ordered dinner the next time we met, I came out clean.

“Ana, I have to tell you something I should’ve told you a long time ago: I’m like Nico.”

Ana stared at me, and gave me a sad smile. Apparently one of the reasons she had never invited him to our Friday dinners was because she thought I might not be comfortable with his homosexuality. Our common friend, Jiten, the only other Indian she knew, wasn’t comfortable around gay folks.

“Actually Nico was asking about you when I went to help him pack that night… he said he found you very cute.”

23 Jun 2016

Govinda Films

FF #11
“Do you still watch Govinda films?”

It was Anurag. The voice was unmistakable, even after a decade of not being in touch. He lived in LA now, and was in town for a few days, visiting his sister. A long chain of friends and acquaintances had helped him track down my number.

We had first met in a rather crowded Diwali Party in Munich; we had common friends, and we got along very well because our sense of humour matched perfectly. We hung out a lot. Occasionally, on a Saturday evening he and I would rent a video of the stupidest Govinda films from a Pakistani spice shop; we would cook in his flat, and watch the film—others would join in for the dinner, but refuse the film.  We started seeing less of each other when he began dating a German colleague, although we would occasionally manage to get together for dinner, a drink, or a film. Understandably, Govinda film nights ended, and so did our very Indian jokes and humour if his girlfriend was around. Culture and humour are, after all, very interlinked. I moved countries, lost touch more. I got to hear from the grapevine— and a bit from him— that his relationship status was getting increasing complicated, before it descended into complete chaos. I was curious about that too.  

I picked him up from his sister’s place and we went to a café nearby. He filled me in on his work, and of course on the complications. He and his German girlfriend had broken up because she didn’t seem to be interested in taking their relationship any further ahead; he had come back to Nagpur and got married; back in Munich, his ex-girlfriend had become interested in him again; his wife had become upset when she came to know all this and had left him; gone her way. He had moved to the US. A few years later, he and his wife had bumped into each other in the US, had become friends, and had again decided to give marital life another try. It seemed to be working. Good for him.

“But Neel, what about you? There were so many girls interested in you in Munich— you flirted with each of them, but nothing seemed to happen, or at least I don’t know if anything happened. You aren’t even married yet. What’s the deal?”

I smiled.

“Ah, Anurag. As you point out, there were a lot of girls interested in me, but nothing ever seemed to happen. On the other hand, you know very well that I’m not a saint. Use your brains and think off the track a bit; what could it be…”

He frowned and looked hard at me for a second or two, and then his forehead cleared up and he gave a huge grin.

“Really! I must say, I’d never ever thought about it! But that still doesn’t answer my question— do you have a boyfriend?”

I reminded him that this also meant he had slept with a gay guy: after all, I used to sleep over on Govinda nights.

“Indeed! Let me tell my wife and create some more complications! By the way, Govinda no more acts in movies, so which're the stupid films we can watch now?”

22 Jun 2016

Thou Shalt Not

FF #10
Vidya’s locker was wide open, and the pinkish wrapper looked like the packet of biscuits she often shared with us. We had just finished our Chemistry practical classes; our lockers were right outside, along the passage. The first semester had begun only a month ago and we were getting to know each other. But Vidya was a good sport, and I could be a tease.

“Yay! Vidya has biscuits again!” I loudly announced and put my hand inside her locker to grab the packet.

My fingers felt something soft. The rapidity with which the brain inputs data, calculates and concludes is formidable: this couldn’t be biscuits; it was a woman’s locker; the object was soft; the wrapper was pink; one sees ads of all kinds on television. I felt blood rush to my face, my ears warm. I withdrew my hand within milliseconds, turned and rushed away. Vidya didn't seem to be around, but there were three other classmates in the proximity, and each had witnessed and understood the incident. The two girls were looking at each other with shocked expressions, or so I thought. The other witness, Subbu, followed me.

“Tell me Neel, what did you find inside Vidya’s locker?”

I admitted that I couldn’t be sure, but the object in the pink wrapper felt suspiciously soft. He knew exactly what I was thinking it could be.

“You don’t have sisters, do you? No wonder you are ridiculously naïve about feminine secrets. Forget Chemistry practicals; I, Subbu, am going to impart to you the most important practical lesson of your life: thou shalt not pry into feminine belongings!”

*

Almost a year later, a bunch of us, close friends by now, were spending a long weekend in Mahabaleshwar. All three rooms in a guesthouse had been booked. The girls were sharing the two small ones while the guys got the big room. I happened to go to the room Vidya was sharing. Two pink packets, similar to the one from her locker, were lying on the bed.

They contained face tissues.

21 Jun 2016

Litchis

R #1
Every summer, we two kids and my mother would visit my maternal grandparents for a month. Their house was traditionally built in four separate sections surrounding a large dirt courtyard. The toilets and the bathrooms were outside this core area. There was no running water; buckets of water would be drawn from the well next to the bathrooms. Despite our entreaties we were forbidden to draw water from the well, in fact we weren’t even allowed to go near it without adult supervision. There was a large unmaintained garden around the house. There were bushes of aparajita and sandhyamalati all around, with blue, red, pink, white and yellow flowers. I remember a large cage-like trellis for ridge gourd, a vegetable my grandfather was particularly fond of. There were pumpkin and bottle gourd patches as well. And there were huge fruit trees. The fruit from the mango trees weren’t all that good, we were told, so the mangoes were plucked unripe and sour for making pickles, chutneys and panna, or to be eaten with salt, chilli powder and a bit of mustard oil. In addition there were a couple of jackfruit and guava trees and a rather messy jamun tree.

But to us the most memorable were the litchi trees. There were four of them, old and majestic. The litchis ripened during summer, coinciding with our visit; there must have been a few hundred kilos of litchis harvested from these trees. Each year, a few months before the season, the produce would be sold to a fruit supplier—he would be responsible for taking care of the fruits and their harvesting, and most of the produce would belong to him. The man, in a vest and chequered lungi, would arrive with a couple boys in tow. They would set up elaborate but crude contraptions of metal drums, pulleys and ropes on the branches of each litchi tree, and these ropes would connect to their cots. We would watch mesmerized. Pulling on the ropes from their cots would make clanging noises on the branches. They would clang away all night for a couple of weeks to drive away the hordes of greedy fruit bats swarming around the ripening litchis. A few more men, women and children would arrive on harvest day. They worked in an impressive streamline: men or older boys would climb up on the branches with sickles and pluck bunches of fruit that would be passed on to folks below, loaded on to baskets and heaped. Others would sort the fruit, throwing excess twigs, leaves or other debris into another pile, to be burnt later. This exercise would last an entire day.

My grandparents would get a small share of the harvest, large enough to have with breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks in between for weeks, as well as to give away to their neighbours. We would be excited about peeling the beautiful pimply reddish skin off the fleshy fruit, examining near the stalk for worms, and popping them into the mouth. After a week we would have had enough, and the litchis would have to be coaxed on us. A large bag of the fruit would also accompany us back.

My maternal grandparents died three decades ago within a few months of each other. Their house and garden was sold off soon after, as four or five different plots. I guess the litchi trees might have been cut down by now. Litchis seem rare and quite pricey these days. I try to pick up a bunch whenever I see them with vendors, but I’m always disappointed. I guess it is difficult to bring back childhood, other than in memories and stories.

20 Jun 2016

Persuasion

FF #9
“Wake up! Kaalmegh day!” There was urgency in my younger brother’s voice; he didn’t want me left out.
It was still rosy outside the window. We, the co-conspirators, could hear my parents in the dining room, my father was saying something rather loudly about Kaalmegh. We jumped out of bed. Kaalmegh couldn’t be missed.
My parents had been discussing Kaalmegh since a while, or rather my father had been telling my mother about it, and how healthy it is, how getting up early everyday and drinking Kaalmegh would make him even stronger than he is. The previous evening, we had all made a trip to the medicine shop across the street to buy Kaalmegh. My father explained that Kaalmegh means dark clouds, and this is a magic medicine made by sadhus thousands of years ago to make men stronger and wiser. Today he would start drinking Kaalmegh.
We got to the dining room just in time. My father filled half of a white cup with water, and poured a spoonful of Kaalmegh into it. The black liquid gradually spread until the water became very dark. This is exactly how dark clouds look when it is about to rain, I told my brother. We held our breaths as my father gulped it down.
We witnessed this ritual the next morning, and the next. My brother and I both had the same question, a joint plea: “Could we also try a bit of it?”
The question seemed to shock my father. He shook his head gravely and said, “No, no. It would be too bitter for you guys.”
“But I do like karela, I like its bitterness,” I protested. My brother too claimed that he did-- but that’s not true, my
mother always has to coax him to eat his portion.
My parents looked at each other, and my mother confirmed that we both indeed liked karela. My father reluctantly agreed to let us try Kaalmegh. Two more cups were fetched, half filled with water and a teaspoonful of the dark liquid was mixed into each cup.
We both downed our Kaalmegh in no time. I saw my brother grimace. I am sure I did not. But it was certainly bitter, perhaps more so than karela, nevertheless not as bad as my father had suggested. And I like bitter stuff, I told myself.

*

We brothers continued to drink a cup of watered Kaalmegh every morning for half a year, and then both of us absolutely refused to have anything more to do with it.
A decade and a half later, my father admitted that he had stopped drinking this awful Ayurvedic concoction as soon as we had volunteered ourselves into it. He hadn’t expected us to continue with it for the six months that we did.

19 Jun 2016

Dust

FF #8
“Give me a rag before you leave. Your books seem dusty; I’ll dust them if I’m bored of my novel while you’re at work.”
There were three large open bookcases in the living room of my small flat. I protested a bit, but then I handed her the feather duster—I was getting late and didn’t have time to argue with my aunt. She had arrived the previous night. There was enough food in the fridge for her lunch; I had refused to let her cook, since I insisted that her visit was to be a break from all that. I would take her sightseeing after I got back from work, and then she was staying for the entire weekend of course.
I only remembered several hours later, possibly too late. Just before she had arrived, I had pushed my gay literature collection —novels and volumes of short stories; no pornography, I hasten to add— in a hidden pile to the back of one of these shelves. I wasn’t out to the extended family, you see.
I feigned a headache and left work quite early.
She was sipping coffee and reading her book; she offered to make me some coffee. After some small talk, she mentioned that she had dusted two of the bookcases, but had been too tired to do the middle one. This, incidentally, was the one with the hidden stack.
I only managed to scrutinize the shelf in question after I had dropped her at the airport, early on Monday morning. The books weren’t quite the way I thought I’d arranged them.
My cousins in-the-know would have intimated me had there been gossip about me in the family grapevine. Nor has the aunt asked me about marriage since.

17 Jun 2016

Laughter

FF #7
I dreamt of Sudha’s laughter last night.
We used to find it easier to laugh at Ravi’s jokes if she was around at the department get-togethers. We would all join in, either because laughter is infectious, or because watching Sudha laugh triggered it— she would throw back her head and have a hearty laugh, her curls and her body vibrating at different frequencies.
I hadn’t expected their son to be 16 years old already, I once remarked to them.
She had giggled, “He was a mistake!”
“And Madam didn’t even realize that he was coming until it was too late—imagine!” Ravi had joined in, shaking his head, “We had no choice but to get married!”
They looked into each other’s eyes and smiled; an eloquent smile, I remember thinking at that time.
I refused to believe the gossip when it reached me. Apparently he was having an affair with one of the PhD students from another department. Someone even pointed the girl out to me.
I finished my dissertation and I moved to Germany and then to the US, and gradually lost touch with Ravi.
Several years later, I saw a news article posted in the institute network on Facebook. Ravi had committed suicide. It mentioned that he had been estranged from his wife and son for a decade.
His suicide note blamed his loneliness.

16 Jun 2016