The Late Evening Show

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 a 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 Delhi in those days.

It was the summer of 1991, a month or so before Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated by Tamil guerrillas in Chennai. For what it’s 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 a Hotbed for Homosexuality. Minister Questioned.’

The late evening show at the nearby movie theatre had ended, and I was distracted by the crowds so that I did not notice where he came from. When I saw him, he was leaning against a wall on the pavement opposite me, rolling a cigarette. My heart 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 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 is anything but. We may well have slept in some haystack or barn.

He started to undress. I examined his shirt, seam by seam, to fill in the pause. I looked closely at his lean body

‘How come you’re not circumsized? I took you for a Muslim.’

He was silent for a moment, then said ‘I never said I would tell you my story’, and moved closer to embrace me. It was my first time. Later, as he prepared to leave, I asked him if he would ever get married. He answered ‘I already am. Isn’t everyone?’

I was left to gather my strewn clothes and absorb what he had said.

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. And that is. where I saw Neel for the first time.

There was no choice, there was no hiding-place. 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.

‘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.’

‘Neel.’

‘I’m Alankar. 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 on deserted college campuses. I was learning something there, in that classroom. It wasn’t like the first guy — Neel was different. Afterwards, we walked for a long time in the faint glow of the stars and the 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 soaring. I felt like buying a bunch of flowers.

‘I’ve been waiting for you to call and I can’t wait to see you again.’

‘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. I ended up introducing him to my mother at three in the morning. She was taken aback by the news and the abruptness of its announcement. She couldn’t stop thinking and talking about it for days. Meanwhile, Neel and I were pretending that all was well, while in fact, everything was shrouded in lies and secrecy. The question was how long we continued in that way? Could we sustain our secret relationship?

On the one hand, there was a thousand-year-old weariness, a fear and horror of solitude; and on the other side, there was Neel, 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 problems. The arrangement was fairly unsteady and the journey full of bumps. Everybody kept an eye on each other. Neel, 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 looked more and more like a motel room. In the morning, we would collect our knapsacks and move on.

After six months, we decided to move out of my home and live separately in Delhi. I didn’t really want to go any particular place, or rather, I didn’t know where I wanted to go. I didn’t even know if I wanted to go any place at all 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 Neel his age, what could he say? Twenty if you went 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 Neel 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 traveled 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. Its certainly never been dull since I met Neel. I now meet every morning with hope and happiness. And although my sexuality remains central to my existence, it isn’t any longer the problem it was in my early youth. I guess I must have come a long way.