Editor’s note: This is not a work of fiction but the narrative had acute semblance to that of a short story and hence although this piece was submitted as a personal essay, it is published in the fiction section.
My story takes place in the mid 2000s of India when mobile phones could only call people and send texts, when the internet was used to send emails, mostly, and was accessible to the chosen few. It was in those days of modern antiquity, I and my roommate decided to go on an adventure. We were in our late teens but had become adults in the eyes of the state. Thus, we could vote, drive a motorbike and a car. We could also get married and have sex or (better may be) have sex and forget about marriage but we needed to put in a lot of efforts to even imagine either of those possibilities. Instead of going for very lofty ambitions we aimed a little low and decided to watch a porn film. We wanted to see what all the fuss was about and whether or not it was worth getting married for. As hard it is to imagine today, porn was not available a click away. Also, it was legally banned. Like a connoisseur of the underground of films, one had to scamper in obscure lanes, one had to nurture a trusting relationship with the DVD shopkeeper. But even more importantly, one had to be a cis-man to buy porn. Others simply couldn’t go to a DVD shop, look into the eye of the shopkeeper and ask for it. Since we had neither the time nor the will to go through the straightforward way, that is to become a man and then to nurture a bro-ship with the shopkeeper, we tried another way. If a lone woman can’t access porn, we thought, at least a team can build the confidence, and we formed one! My roommate’s friend invited us to a slumber party at her house since her parents were away. We all decided to make it spicier and watch our first ever blue film the same night. Since we were a team of 7 young women, braving the prospect of awkward conversation and judging eyes didn’t seem impossible. We wore our usual clothes, armed ourselves with our backpacks and covered our faces with scarves as women in India usually do to protect their face from the sunburn. Although a face-covering scarf allows them to access intimacy in the public place without exposing their identities. They can hug their boyfriends on the motorbike and roam free as long as their face is covered. We bravely marched to the DVD shop but lost our confidence as soon as we heard, “how can I help you, madam?” from a young man with sincere looks. “We are just looking around…” said one of our bravest women. He relented and got busy with other customers. We rootled in the stacks of DVDs but didn’t see our target. One of us finally went to a mysterious box in the corner and we smelled victory. She took few title-less DVDs with the blank cover and waved them in the air to celebrate her conquest. The busy man took notice of her gestures and almost ran towards her leaving everything behind. “That’s not for you, madam!” he nearly shouted. “I can show you some interesting Hindi films.” He hopelessly dangled a piece of carrot in front of her but she didn’t even look up. “I am not looking for Hindi films,” she muttered. “We have a good stock of Hollywood films too! Have you watched Mission Impossible?” Our woman got enough of the charade. She finally looked up right in his eyes and said in her calm and firm voice, “this is exactly what we are looking for. Let us find the films on our own, please!” The abashed man dropped his shoulders and walked away. We all got relieved and picked a DVD. We quietly went to the counter, paid the money and walked out of the shop without saying a word to each other. Once a few feet away from the shop, we took our masks off and burst into laughter. We could not believe that we had done it. Of course, we quickly went home and made the screening preparations as though we were organising the Cannes festival within a few hours. “Am I wearing the right clothes?” one of us mused. One of us shook her, “Madam, you are only going to watch porn, not be part of one.” Once the room was dark and curtains were drawn, we switched on the film and waited with the bated breath. We were like air-tight jars tightly shut to prevent spilling our excitement and potential embarrassment. We had instructed ourselves to behave well, no matter what emotions the film might stir. Finally, the film started. Two Indian people, a scrawny man and a curvaceous woman entered the room, (in the film, I mean) and they began to undress each other. We looked straight at the screen, with our eyes wide open and pretended that each one of us was alone. As the minutes passed, a loopy Bollywood song burst in the background as they stopped undressing and began to shower each other with talcum powder. Well, this was totally unexpected. Their talcum powder session went on forever. They were now powdered like red bean mochi balls but they did not proceed to expose their other parts. We realised that this was as good as it was going to get. We preferred to mask our disappointment for a while. “Maybe the final act is too brutal, hence the lengthy preparations…” we consoled ourselves. We finally gave up and forwarded the film to the end. The couple was still half-clad and caked in the talcum powder. They refused to reveal the secret of the final act. One of us got up and paused the film and finally exhaled the disappointment, “shit yaar! This is not the one we wanted to watch!” “I know….” Rest of us crooned in the chorus. “as if we have never seen half-naked men in Bollywood films!” another fumed. Our clucking and chucking was followed by brainstorming. We talked about going back to the shop and shouting at the man in the shop for letting us choose such a vapid film. Although we knew that we were not going to let him hand us a film anyway. It was our day to select our own fantasies. (So what our own fantasies turn out to be a foolery?) Plus, it was too late at night to go back. “The shop must have been closed by now” We muttered under our breath and accepted our defeat. We observed silence for a few minutes in our grief but we soon flocked the refrigerator to treat ourselves with ice-cream. As we gulped the cold and creamy lumps, we reckoned our milestone and an equally disheartening failure. We slept pretty soon, not without cracking jokes and giggling endlessly about our quixotic adventure though.
I was to wake up early the following morning and go to one of my high-school classmate’s wedding. She had decided to get married as soon as the state allowed her. It was an arranged marriage. She used to be my classmate, a pal and someone for whom my high school sweetheart had dumped me a year ago. I made him the hero of my life’s film. We expressed our longing in a clandestine way since the small-town romances were always blown out to be scandalous. Our courtship involved longing stares and an occasional handshake, that’s all! I moved to a big city to learn to earn my freedom, to make space for my desires including the ones which are not granted by the decree of marriage. Although without the luxury of mobiles and the internet, keeping in touch became hard. I naively believed that our time apart will someday be rewarded. One day I heard the news that he had got involved with my high school friend. I agonized when he unceremoniously dumped me I could not antagonise my friend for whom he dumped me. She had come to live in the same city where I moved. We kept in touch. A year later, she decided to get married to another man after getting dumped by my high-school sweetheart. She invited me to her wedding.
In the morning following the porn fiasco, the other six women at the slumber party woke up with me and fussed over me while I got ready for the wedding. The hostess of the slumber party lent me her best Saree and others meticulously did my hair. I went to the wedding, met old friends from school. My high-school sweetheart was not invited. The porn adventure of last night had evaporated from my mind. I spent the day with the bride, assisting her to change into a new Saree for each ritual. We both were dumped by the same man but it was not the shared pain that got us closer but the fact that he didn’t matter to either of us by then.
The bride left with her husband in the evening. The farewell was emotional. I stayed back to help her parents to wrap up the festivities. I looked at the empty wedding hall with a heavy heart. The whole day I danced to the rhapsody around me. The re-shaped faces, simmering laughter, warm embraces, the re-openings of the black-box of high-school anecdotes that had got lost in the passage of time…everything simmered and bubbled on the surface of my mind. And the awkward porn couple from the previous night popped up. My lonely laughter sounded loud in the empty hall. I returned to our tiny apartment in the evening and found my roommate sulking. She was too bored to stay indoors. We went for a walk and strolled in a public park. It was strangely empty for a weekend. As we sat down and talked of the wedding, the truth that had been suppressed for many years popped up. One of my classmates from the school had accosted me at the wedding and had inquired about my well-being with a lot of concern in her eyes. I had assured her that I was okay. She exclaimed, “oh thank goodness! I had heard how heartbroken you were when he dumped you after winning the bet.” The bet in question was placed between my sweetheart and his friends. He claimed that he could make me fall for him, others did not believe. Once he succeeded at his project, he moved on. I don’t know how but those words had brushed past me. While talking to my roommate about it in the evening, the cinders of the terrible truth got blown back to life. I never knew that he had placed a bet to win me. Me and my roommate fell silent as we listened to the birds in the park hurriedly return to their perch. In the dwindling sunlight I saw everything sharp as if a myopic finally got their glasses and regained the view of the world they didn’t even know existed. My romantic dream that I had incubated for many years had ultimately tumbled down and broken open on a heated asphalt…. I had not looked back at the spilled yoke. That day I was forced to look at it.
There have been many more heartbreaks in love and many more disappointments in sex. The powder scene from my first porn film keeps reminding me that sex is messy and does not have a fixed destination. It can be ludicrous and unsightly but it is all okay as long as the people involved in it are enjoying it. I still do not know the final destination of my own desires. They travel on a slippery road and at times take a great fall. So far, they have managed to get up and walk again. Looking back at that day, I realise that a friend offering their best Saree to make you look pretty and invincible is an act of intimacy I sincerely desire even today. The shooting stars of the perfect romance and sex rarely appear on the horizon. They can also vanish even before one can take a pretty picture and store it. But when the night seems gloomy and the sky looks pale, even holding hands is plenty of intimacy.
DoubleSpeak 