A short story by Shaleen Rakesh

I was assuming it was six o’clock in the evening. There was supposed to be a clock on the terminus façade but I never saw it working. The ongoing drizzle drowned the chatter of nearby radio. It was nearly time to head home now, alone. I had dressed just right for the evening. The clothes had the right measurement and style, I thought, but to what avail? My sense of anticipation was vanishing with the fading light. If you want to know my location, this was the Inter State Bus Terminal, or ISBT at Kashmere gate, one of the few gay cruising spots in the city in those days.

This was the summer of 1991, a month or so before Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated by Tamil guerrillas in Chennai. For what it was worth, the politics of social and sexual contact at ISBT was far more interesting to me than what political leaders lived and died for. Sexuality was nowhere on the agenda for political parties. One headline in the Telegraph read ‘Hostels in IIM Ahmedabad Hotbed for Homosexuality. Minister Questioned.’

The evening show at the nearby movie theatre had ended, and I was distracted by the crowds not to have noticed where he came from. When I saw him, he was leaning against a wall on the pavement opposite me, rolling a cigarette. My hearts seemed to run backwards. He dug the matches from his pocket, but they were damp, and he had to strike three before the fourth one caught. I observed him intently: he was of medium height like me, his limbs were sturdy; he had straight black hair, a tanned oval face, not unpleasant though smudged with a beard and thick moustache, a short straight nose, and a pair of intense dark eyes. Uneasy, staring, then shifting, those eyes were filled with demand. The eyes of a man who feels he’s owed something. But who doesn’t feel owed something?

I slowly walked up to where he stood and asked pointedly ‘What made you stop here, specifically?’
‘Just chance. I saw the loo. And then because of your face.’
‘What makes my face different from others?’
‘That’s it. There’s nothing different about it.’ The man ventured an embarrassed smile.
‘It’s a face like lots of others. It inspires trust.’
‘You’d be making a great mistake’, I said, and we laughed.
We smoked for a few minutes in silence.
Hotel Paradise in Daryaganj as anything but. We may well have slept in some haystack or barn.
‘Go ahead and undress, and give me your shirt.’
I examined his shirt, seam by seam, to fill in the pause.
I looked closely at his thin body.

‘How come you’re not circumsized? I thought you were a Muslim.’
He was silent for a moment, then said ‘I never said I will tell you my story’, and moved closer to embrace me. It was my first time. In the morning, as he prepared to leave, I asked him if he would ever get married. He said ‘I already am. Isn’t everyone?’

I was left to pick up my dirty underwear and absorb what he had said.

Then I started walking. Walking without knowing where I wanted to go. Walking to keep walking. Walking because I was walking. The sky was black as smoke and so was my head. There was no sense of liberation. No welcome song to the world of grown-ups. No way to figure out what I’d won or lost in the previous night’s encounter. That’s how it was – all confused.
So I walked and thought ‘Why did God make me? What was my sin? What if this wasn’t my sin but my mother’s? What if it wasn’t a sin at all?’ I got carried away. For three months, I didn’t speak kindly to another human being. It’s best for a wanderer not to talk to anyone. He should talk only to another wanderer.

And I did. After six months of despair, I decided to go back to ISBT, where I saw Deepak for the first time. There was no choice, there was no hiding-place there. In any case, he would have seen me anyway, coming straight towards him. He looked startled, more dumbfounded than frightened. It seemed to me that he wanted to run. We stood side by side for what felt like a lifetime. Actually, it was five minutes. Neither of us had uttered a word. It felt like a wrong moment. Then I sensed movement, and felt his hand brushing against mine.

‘What’s wrong? Are you feeling okay?’ I heard myself saying unexpectedly.
‘Come with me.’
We started to walk towards a nearby college campus.
‘Why do you come here?’ I asked.
‘Having no choice is an advantage. I have no choice.’
‘What’s your name?’
‘I’m fed up with living alone.’
‘I asked your name.’
‘Deepak.’
‘I’m Shaleen. Hi.’
‘Shall we stay here the whole night?’
‘Better not. I have a family to get back to. Don’t you?’
‘My family is dead’, he said.
‘Sorry.’
Sex can be so liberating. Though I’m not used to it in classrooms or deserted college campuses. I was learning something her, in this classroom. It wasn’t like the first guy. Deepak was different. Afterwards, we walked for a long time in the faint glow of the stars and moon. The ground was firm but gave no echo of our footsteps. The wind had dropped and not a leaf stirred.

I found him again when the next day broke. He called me and I stumbled over a chair in a rush to pick up his call.

‘You are my lucky star.’
I felt my heart climbing. I felt like buying a bunch of flowers.
‘I’ve been waiting for you to call. And ‘m trying to remember what you look like.’
‘Have you seen the Coffee Home at ITO opposite the Times of India building?’
‘Yes.’
‘Meet me there at two for lunch. Hot vadas, idlis and sambar.’
We ended up ordering a lot more. He ordered a special plate of paper masala dosa.
‘Are you going to eat it all?’
‘Why?’
‘You’ll become fat.’
‘Could you pass some salt please?’
‘I want to take you home.’
‘What home?’
‘Mine.’

He didn’t ask for any more information. He just came. At three in the morning. I introduced him to my mother. Her head hurt and throat became parched. This was entirely news to her. Despite the abruptness, I think she took it rather well. But she couldn’t get it out of her head for weeks. We couldn’t go on living as we had. I had to choose and the choice was hard. On the one hand, there was a thousand-year-old weariness, a fear and horror of solitude; on the other side, there was Deepak, yes, and the promise of love. The answers were not easy.
My mother was incredible.
‘He is our guest.’
‘What about bhaiya?’
‘I’ll handle it.’
‘The neighbours?’
‘I’ll tell them he is my adopted son.’

What sort of game was I dragging her into? I thought I had perfected the art of inventing trouble. The arrangement was fairly unsteady and the journey full of bumps. Everybody kept an eye on each other. Deepak, meanwhile, was at an immediate disadvantage. He seemed to be playing not only for himself, but as a champion of something or someone. Me? We had begun to feel like and to resemble travelling companions holed up in our bedroom, which was beginning to look more and more like a motel room. In the morning, we would collect our knapsacks and move off.

After six months, we decided to move out of my home and live separately in Delhi. I didn’t really want to go anyplace, or rather, I didn’t know where I wanted to go. I didn’t even know if I wanted to go anyplace or do anything. I was just rebelling. It is stupid to say the young are strong. You understand many things better at thirty than at twenty, and you can also bear them better.

For that matter, if you were to ask Deepak his age sincerely, what could he say? Twenty if you go by the papers, a bit older when it came to his joints, his lungs, his heart. And on his back, a mountain of years.
Our flat in Tehmur Nagar was small but convenient. So we set off again, abandoning ourselves to a new life of being together. It was a long road we walked for a long time. Me ahead, it seemed, and Deepak behind. There was no time to turn back or ask questions. It was in those tiny rooms that we learned the language of love and domesticity. We travelled to Old Delhi in public transport buses, snickering all the way. We dreamt of the future. We lived. Life had opened out in front of me and I rushed to embrace it.

December 2013. The newspapers flash that India has criminalised homosexuality. Deepak and I don’t quite understand what has happened. Life has thrown us many challenges but this one is particularly strange. After living together for twenty years, we are told our life and love is a criminal offence? Where do we go from here?
I get a call from mom. She says she loves me and the courts know nothing. Deepak has been so upset I don’t know how to handle him. Mom calls us over for a meal. I know it’s going to be a long day.