‘Hey, you remember the day we met..?’

It had been days since they had a proper conversation. Too much time together can do that to people. For five years they had been telling each other every single thing that happened in their separate lives and every single thing that they wanted to happen in the life that they were building together, one step at a time. At first it used to be things like how she didn’t like the three-day stubble that he always had on his face. It was not like he was growing a beard. He didn’t like being clean shaved, but he did it anyway because she wouldn’t let him kiss her otherwise and that he knew was a sacrifice worth it.

Sometimes when there was a match that he really wanted to watch till the end, he would ignore her calls for supper. Then she would come sit beside him on the sofa with a plate, he would absent mindedly open his mouth and she would feed him while he cursed the umpires for an unfair decision with that mouthful. She didn’t particularly like it but she knew he appreciated it because it reminded him of his mother. Now, five years later it was like there was nothing left to say. They felt at ease just sitting there leaning on the bedrest reading their separate books, not talking. Just knowing that the other was there on the opposite side of the bed was enough. But something was different tonight.

‘Hmmm..?’, he hadn’t heard what she had asked.

‘You remember the day we met.?’, she asked again.

It struck him as odd that she would ask this question just before bedtime. He kept aside the book he was reading and looked at her. She had her eyes on a book that she was pretending to read and she was fidgeting with a strand of hair that fell on her face. He knew there was something on her mind.

‘I think so, why..?’, he said weighing his words carefully.

‘This book I’m reading, the guy and the girl meet exactly how we met.’, she said without taking her eyes of the book.

‘On a train..?’

‘Yes, they see each other for the first time and they fall in love.’, she looks at him and attempts a smile.

He had seen her smile a thousand times and had been proud that most of the time it was him that put it on her face. But tonight he knew right away that she was faking it.

He reached out and held her hand. It was cold and she was shivering.

‘Is there something you want to tell me..?’, he asks her feeling her getting tense.

She waits as if searching for the right words,

‘I’m scared… .. I’m afraid I’ll scare you too if I say it.’, she looks away.

‘Hey… come here.’, he pulls her into a hug and kisses her forehead.

He caresses her hair trying to calm her down.

‘You know what…. you gave me the biggest scare of my life when you took five seconds too long to say yes when I was on my knees with a ring five years ago. I promise you there’s nothing you can say that can scare me more.’

She let out a faint laugh and sat upright. Now she was smiling and he knew it was real. She was staring at him as though she was upto some mischief and she said,

‘You remember the other day we went shopping and you had to pull me away from a baby buggy that I thought was too cute.’

‘Hmm, I think I do.’, he said still oblivious.

‘Well, in a few months you’ll actually have to buy it.’

Gays, Transgenders and Indian Railway

I hate crowded trains, and I don’t mean crowded as in you don’t get a seat. I’ve travelled in trains where if you turn your head sideways for some reason, you might find your face in an awkwardly close proximity to another man’s face. A few times it got too crammed that I had to make telepathic pacts with strangers like… ‘you keep your foot between my feet and I keep mine between yours and we pray to God that the train doesn’t jerk’. To quote the hilarious Mr. Russel Peters, “In India grown ass men hold hands and walk down the street as if there’s nothing gay about it” and like most other stereotypes this one too is true to an extent. I mean us Indian guys, we may start off with a handshake and may end up holding hands and idly swinging it for the entire length of the conversation. We don’t realize that by international standards, it is as gay as it gets.

Don’t take me wrong. I bear no prejudice against gay people or any other community for that matter. Infact, my rapport with the Transgender community of the various railway stations of Andhra Pradesh is a legend of sorts within my friends circle(I wonder where the hijra’s stand on the telengana issue). There are forgotten memories that you wish you could remember and then there are those you wish you could forget but can’t. This particular story belongs to the latter category. I was returning from a trip to Kolkata and at a station some hijra’s got on the train  ‘begging’. Well, it was more like extortion. I feigned sleep wanting to be left alone, but they would take none of it. One of them caressed my cheek(on the face, to rule out any confusion) and the other started clapping her…. Errr, his…… errr, fuck it… the other started clapping her hands in front of my face. I awoke from my feigned sleep with terror at the touch.

‘Paisa dena Raja…… dena….’, they started talking in their ugly sing-song manner.

To get rid of them, I start frantically searching my pockets for change. Finding a two rupee coin, I give it to them.

They stared at me with contempt and said, ‘2 rupayein jaake tere amma ko de, ab toh das rupayein nikaal’.

However frightening the situation was, demanding 10 rupees was outrageous. So I said,

‘Nahin doonga’, and crossed my arms across my chest.

The taller among the two glared at me, pulled me forward catching me by my collars my face mere inches from hers and said,

‘10 rupayein nikaal, varna lip kiss de doonga!!!!!’

 I saw bright red lipstick engulf my vision and gave up.

Thankfully, before I was lip-raped, my friend(to whom I owe my life) who was sitting beside me gave her a 10 rupee note and my lip-virginity was spared.

They say you never forget your first…….

I say you never forget what could’ve been your first…

The Tatooed Derriére

Warning : This might come through as ‘unsahikably’ narcissistic and nonsensical… but since you are already here, go ahead.

I’ve always tried to hang out with ‘cool’ dudes. It has helped me on countless occasions to project a pseudo-cool image of myself. Once you’ve had an entrée to their peer group, keeping ‘cool’ takes quite an effort. You’ve to keep yourselves abreast of the various profanities in vogue and buy branded underwear(it’s all about the inner beauty) so that you don’t become the odd one out; brownie points if you can ‘outbrand’ them. You’ve to listen to music of the likes of Linkin Park and Eminem, be opinionated about their latest song and talk about it as if Eminem were your cousin. You’ve to permanently reserve part of your brain for the sole purpose of coming up with witty punch lines, double entendre, vulgar jokes, etc…. it’s like training to be a Stand-up comedian. Given my less than reputable sense of humour, it’s a miracle that I’ve not had to sit up late in the night thinking up jokes and writing them down. Oh wait… on second thoughts I think I might have done that a couple of times. Coming up with a joke isn’t as much of a big deal as is the execution. You’ve to rehearse the joke like a meticulously prepared screenplay, manipulate the conversation towards something that resembles your screenplay, wait for the right moment and then jump in with the joke…… the process is exhausting and demands commitment.

Once you’ve found some footing within the group, it’s time to find and assume your role in it…. I mean you’ve to ask yourselves,

‘Am I the guy who sings parody songs with quirky lyrics or am I the guy with the incessant supply of toilet/potty jokes..?’

‘Am I the nerdy intellectual kinda cool guy who can quote Christopher Nolan or David Fincher movies and can talk volumes about why Inception and Leonardo DiCaprio are respectively the best movie and actor of our time.?’

‘Am I the weird geeky kinda cool guy who can tell you the significance of the new tattoo on Angelina Jolie’s derriére..?’

One day all this stress got to me and I confessed,

‘Dude, it’s too damn difficult to be cool!!’

One of them after due consideration of the statement spoke,

‘You know what’d be cool?’

After a moment of ‘wait-for-it’ he says, ‘getting a tattoo!!, you know.. like Angie in ‘Wanted’...’

‘On my butt..?’, I laugh at his suggestion.

‘No idiot, on your arm or somewhere else… how can you even compare yours with hers.’

Snide as it was, that comment sorta opened a pandora’s box. But in between the opinions and insights on derriéres that followed, compelling arguments were made in favour of me getting a tattoo.

Some months later when my right arm was at the receiving end of the pain caused by an inked needle, I found myself wishing…

‘If it weren’t for Angie and her bum…’

P.S

All the cool guy characteristics mentioned here are very real and bear direct resemblance to some guys I hold in high regard.