The First Time (Love in No Time #1) (2 page)

Chapter Two

My mother introduced me to
Gone with the Wind
when I was in high school. My aunt was in love with Rhett Butler since
her
high school.

I wanted to find out why so I asked my mother, “Who is Rhett Butler? Is he a famous
Bollywood
hero I don’t know about?” My mother replied, “No, just a famous Hollywood hero.”

And the next day, she sorted through our expansive library at home and brought me a rather dusty, rumpled copy of a small book called
Gone with the Wind
. As I read the hopeless love story of a Southern belle and a rogue gentleman, I began to somewhat understand why my beautiful aunt spent her whole life searching for Rhett—in her husband, her male friends, even her neighbors.

For you see, she always imagined herself to be Scarlett O’
Dubey
, very headstrong, wildly entitled yet curiously seeking a love she had read about but didn’t quite know how to recognize or receive in her own culture that made cattle of women to be bought, sold, and tethered to the right bidder.

So in reading the opus she condemned herself to an impossible desire; of desiring the imagined (therefore unreal) extraordinary—a man with a face, a body, and a sexual aesthetic that is not transcultural.

No Indian man could ever be even a faint shadow of Rhett.

He would be cultural anomaly and an anomaly by definition is not real.

And imagining an anomaly while living a real life was living death.

In reading of Rhett, I could understand her lived trauma as Scarlett O’ Dubey. But unlike my aunt, I disliked Scarlett.

I thought her to be selfish, conniving, and not worthy of the love of a man whose hands alone were their own fable—hands big enough to span a woman’s waist and powerful enough to squeeze her life out.

I was more Jane Eyre than Scarlett—a different woman from a different time and place. I didn’t see myself as self-righteous but rather as self-respecting. I wasn’t strategically conniving only brutally straightforward. I would never claim to like a boy even if I was as smitten as he was with me. I liked the attention, of course, but I didn’t know how to behave with them one-on-one. I wish there were an Indian boy manual that would explain the whys and the wherefores so teenage life was not all about circumventing the parameters of a boy-body and avoiding all manner of boy-talk directed towards you, rather obliquely. I never knew what to say to a boy who didn’t know what to say to a girl (so I guess a girl’s manual was needed too).

Boys were so awkward in their arrogance, sandpapered by hormonal reactions that were as unfamiliar as they were exciting but had nowhere to go. Emotions were not socially practiced. So these were not socially received, even if there was an intention to give.

Books, I got and received well.

Books were fun, more fun then boys could ever be.

Yet, this was exactly the problem.

In the absence of social practice called infatuation what help was the “love” between Jane Eyre and Mr. Rochester in
my
cultural life?

If I could imagine myself as Jane Eyre, where was my Mr. Rochester—rich, jaded, angst-ridden yet absolutely in love with his Jane in that soul-stirring style?

If I could imagine Mr. Rochester as flesh/ blood mould of richness and purity of emotion, then what use will this manifestation be in everyday life I live in a small city called Gurgaon, Delhi’s technology suburbia?

A small city in every sense of the word—small minds, small hearts, small imagination, and even smaller practices in human emotion. Sometimes even the hint of practice appeared vile and degenerate.

A small city where boys appeared to be on the prowl for unsuspecting girls in public spaces, busting their busts while driving past them on their scooters at forty miles an hour (enough speed to cause serious neck and chest injury).

A small city where boys knew the address to every girl they fancied or didn’t so they could write them letters in upper case English font (for the sake of remaining calligraphically anonymous) calling her mother a whore and her father a regular visitor to the whorehouse.

Oh, yes,
this
is the small city I lived in where boys who as men would remain boys in exactly this way except that they would now possess a wife (yes, possess is the right word) they could abuse each day of their life seeking revenge on womankind for their adolescent life lived without requiting a “pure” emotion that as it aged without intellectual care mutated into everything dark and crazy.

So what was Jane Eyre to do when she stepped off from the pages of the book into the fatal reality of a small town on the edge of a famous colonial city, the winter capital of the British empire in the 19
th
century, and found that love was not blind, it was a mutating amputation—that she as a character had meaning only in imagination.

In this ash of a world then Jane Eyre as a book lighted secret fires in caged hearts—one of them was mine.

She became my minder of that which is impossible—love in a time and land that couldn’t possibly resolve the Victorian dread of sex mixing with the Brahmanical guilt of selves as unworthy of colonial consideration, even less of admiration and at this conjunction of reinforcing guilts—desire, the female desire had lost, was lost.

But I was still more Jane Eyre than Scarlett.

Only this time I wanted to embrace the undeniable angst that seemed to slip out of the pages of a novel and envelop me like froth in the light kind of claustrophobia.

Was love impossible without angst?

If angst was essential to love then in inviting angst was I inviting love in too?

And if love did arrive then would angst stay and run through my blood as love ran through it?

Was that okay?

Actually, I wasn’t thinking so deep when love arrived because I didn’t know then how ready I was for it, even if I couldn’t pre-emptively measure the proportion of angst that would accompany this nasty, nasty emotion.

Chapter Three

Did I tell you about Tarun Dhanrajgir? Well, you need to know of him in order to get why I had been so primed to allow love to slip into my life-world.

I “met” Tarun on TV.

No, I wasn’t on TV with him rather I was one of his female audience who tuned in every Sunday to watch him play the desi Mr. Darcy in the desi version of
Pride and Prejudice
called
Trishna
(thirst).

His was the face of love—not quite a model’s face even though his claim to fame was modeling men’s formal clothing for Mafatlal Fabrics, a high-end retail clothier.

The hair was all wrong. It was barely not a mullet. The black curly mop-cum-plateau atop his perfectly round shaped head were sharply trimmed at the back of his head but then flared into smaller, curly tresses at the nape of his neck at the same time covering his shirt collar.

The side-burns were long too measuring exactly with the tip of the ear cartilage. Some would say the sideburns added to this deliciousness. I would agree except that for me the cleft in his chin was what added to delicious devil-may-care persona, a cleft so deep that only a knife expertly held and brandished could have carved on an unassuming unsuspecting moment. Maybe it was self-inflicted, maybe in his childhood when a fascination with gleaming sharp-edged objects was not accompanied by the knowledge of its destructive potential—the knowledge itself, more times than not, accompanied the experience of just that form of self-destruction.

It was called learning the hard way.

But whatever the learning, the cleft sat well on that long, beauteous face and made it interesting—a face that could have a scary story to tell to someone, asking the wrong questions without a degree of compassion but with enough disdain to evoke selective confessions, grudgingly. The mouth, the eyes, the forehead were ordinary yet their final configuration with that incredible cleft was transfixing, at least to me.

I still remember the day I saw ads for
Trishna
on Doordarshan, India’s nationalized TV service. It was starting that Sunday (September 25) at 9.00 a.m. At 8:45, I was sitting before the TV in my favorite chair; one I could sink into not because it was plushy, leather bean bag kind but because the nylon straps were shredded and no longer taut. These made the bottom feel cupped and comfortable, a comfortable that could as easily change to uncomfortable if the shredded straps finally failed to hold up a decent weighing bottom, whose weight had now become disproportionate to the diminishing tensile strength of the straps. I expected the inevitable but for now was game to testing the chair like one would a good, crotchety friend. You know the score. You know crotchetiness is to be expected. It will show itself without warning. Yet you feel compelled to believe in the warmth of the friendship that stays like the faithful chair in that corner of the house, waiting for you to use it at will. And I was certainly using this chair at will for this delightful moment.

The camera tried to extend the suspense of revealing the identity of the Indian Mr. Darcy but you could see the impatience of the hands panning the camera and the invisible voice directing the apparition in white to meet his invisible, breathless audience for the first time.

I wasn’t aware that I had stopped breathing with a piece of watermelon, half-bitten in her mouth. My body was suddenly cold like the refrigerator door had been left open somewhere and all the frigidness had escaped to envelop me. As shivers crawled up my stomach and onto my arms, my mouth opened to drag back in some air and the watermelon piece slithered out to create as if a passage for the in-drawn air. I coughed and then breathed in almost simultaneously. My eyes, my watery eyes never leaving the screen or the man looking at me through the screen glass.

Nothing had made my body react like this ever.

He was doing nothing on the screen except turning to look at me and only me. His white coat-pant ensemble with a mauve shirt underneath, unbuttoned at the top but not enough to show the hairy character of his chest like any Bollywood hero, somehow glowed under the studio lights giving me somehow a ghost like aura.

And then he spoke, “I am sorry if I surprised you . . . this is my home after all.”

For that split second, between him moving his lips and the sound of words being released into the microphone, I had feared a fatal flaw in his voice—a voice without a low baritone. I had feared a child’s voice but what I heard was better than any adult’s voice I had heard.

Mr. Darcy had stepped off the pages of Austen’s novel into a sexy national audio-visual.
Trishna
was here to stay.

“Remain thirsty my friends” or as the ad goes!

Chapter Four

It was turning into a nice day. The sun didn’t burn every follicle in my body and my body didn’t feel water-logged. I didn’t need to pinch-prick the front of my
kurta
to dislodge it from its sticking point on my stomach. I didn’t have to use the kurta as a towel, catching trickles of sweat, escaping through the hem of my bra every two seconds.

I felt nice, dry, clean and happy.

I felt as if something good was about to happen.

I had this feeling in my gut but knew better than to live the day out believing this feeling to form and manifest its truth. I sat at my desk at my new work place (an ngo in Delhi), behind a thick bamboo wall that served as a separator between my side of the room and hers and hers too. I needed to write a few new lessons for the education project in Banda district of India’s most populous state, Uttar Pradesh and check this off my list. I just started work with this new ngo working to empower rural women and girls through education in some of the poorest regions of the country. I was hired to do field research and based on that create lesson plans on real world topics like water, air, food, health and so on. The assumption behind such a curriculum was that women would come for an education only if it had meaning for their lived realities and more knowledge was power. In a way I was responsible for crafting a curriculum that would invite and then retain women and girls through the duration of a study camp or like. So I had to write good lessons and write them fast. The deadline, for the lesson on the politics of water in Banda, was the next day.

At the end of the day, I liked checking off my dos on the huge calendar above my desk. The colorfully crossed out items of the day were markers of my productive potential realized in a small way in finite time. I never wanted to leave a task undone because if I did, it would hang over my head like the fabled Damocles’ sword. One unfinished task is all it would take for that sword to slice vertically through my body rendering it holistically useless to conduct any order of the day henceforth.

I had closed my eyes for a good one minute and when I opened them I was thinking of all the tasks that I needed to check off my calendar, organizing the sequence of their completion, imagining and putting together all things needed to finish these tasks as efficiently as possible. This meant I was working in fast forward mode even when I had not put my pen to that crisp lined paper in front of me.

When I finally let the ink slide into proper forms on the paper, I heard the phone ring in the outer office.

It rang and it rang and it rang.

Either everyone was busy or everyone was waiting for someone else to pick up the phone.

On the tenth ring someone did pick up and snapped an angry “hello” into the receiver.

You could almost hear the shallow breathing emanating from every corner of every room in the office. Everyone seemed to be waiting to hear her name announced as the one the caller asked for. I never got calls at the office so I continued to walk my fountain pen across the paper. So I nearly jumped out of my skin when a hand dropped without warning on my shoulder and a bored voice confirmed that the call was for me.

For me? I didn’t understand. Who could be calling me here? My heart skipped not in a good way. I didn’t like all this skipping of the heart shit. I didn’t want any news from home because that could never be good.

I picked up the phone expecting to hear my mother’s concerned voice sharing some disconcerting news.

Instead I hear
his
voice! I didn’t give him this number so how? When? Why? And why was I feeling such nervous happiness to hear from him? And why was my face so warm? I dropped my voice over the receiver. My sudden desire to be conspiratorial stemmed from a sudden onset of shyness at speaking with the object of my wetness before an eager audience, of women no less.

Did this mean that I really liked him?

And him calling me in the middle of the day meant that he liked me too? He was asking, “Do you need a ride home today? I am leaving a little early from work to deal with some shit at home. Thought I’d ask.”

I needed to focus. He was offering me a ride home. How freaking sweet was that. But sweet was not the word that fit him. It never sat well on him as a compliment even when the gesture could only be described as sweet. So I only thought sweet and did not utter so on the phone. But I couldn’t leave as early as he was offering to. I had deadlines to keep and items to check off my list. And I never let boys not let me keep my deadlines. Meeting deadlines meant being paid whereas meeting with a boy, in this case, maybe not even pay in kind. And meeting this boy and riding behind his ultra cool scooter did not mean that much either, at least not yet. I convinced myself of this equation even as I remained unconvinced of my ability to resist the web of imagination he had unfurled with this one phone call. I could imagine marigolds, vermillion, zari saris, and gold jewelry—all markers of an Indian bride.

Damn! All this representative imaginings in and through one phone call! What the hell is wrong with me? Deep-seated desires were streaming forth hurriedly and without normal logic of everyday living. I almost dropped the phone back into its cradle. I needed that electronic connection terminated in order to snip my related wild imaginings. But he needed to know why I couldn’t leave with him and my garbled explanation about deadlines didn’t seem to be the answer he was looking for.

So I finally said yes to being picked up and going to my mum’s house despite having no such plans! And as soon as the “yes” slipped through my lips, I felt, no, heard him smile into the phone! Odd, so odd! I didn’t understand this connection to him that tuned me into his expressions of certain emotions even when I couldn’t see him or smell him! This just didn’t make sense. As I put the phone back and straightened I felt a sudden rush of blood to my head.

Whoa! What is that?

A phone call did not make me dizzy?

Such rush of blood from a certain stranger-boy-man offering just a ride home? Nah! I must have low sugar, I surmised. I walked into the kitchen and picked an apple. As I bit into it, I realized something. No, the apple was fine and delicious. I just felt myself smile too.

Smiling about what?

Him
inviting me to take a ride with
him
home? C’mon. This is sad, not happy. Happy would be getting my pussy licked, my ass fucked into oblivion in a very nice way, especially if this happens to the first time such a thing happened. A boy offering a girl a ride home, especially a boy who happens to be also my brother’s very good friend and who knows my family well enough not to fuck with their daughter/sister, is what it is—a considerate gesture. My smile immediately dissipated at this thought and since all I could do was wait for 5:30 p.m. to roll around the block in the form of a decent looking man-boy in his psychedelic helmet on his black scooter, I decided to shed for the moment all romantic meanderings and get some more work done. I decided to tackle my annual report. I knew that the report would keep me focused and calm and beyond silly on a work day. I needed calm before the storm that was the ride on the back of his scooter.

I must have focused on the report a little too intensely for I was startled out of my sandals when something brushed ever so lightly across my right cheek. I turned and froze. There he was standing right there, in my work space, in flesh and blood, psychedelic helmet tucked in the side of his left arm.

He looked good, real good. His pale mauve shirt was buttoned just below is suprasternal notch and matched his light grey pin striped trousers well. His black dress shoes looked shiny and new even though the leather had a thin layer of Delhi dust on it. And then I noticed that he was watching me watch him take him in. A smile played on his lips that were barely visible underneath that well manicured beard.

I never knew a boy-man who sported a beard like him. The beard was he and I wouldn’t know him, I think, if he decided to let the beard go someday. And that dense mop of hair—wow! It sat like a cloud of fluff on his disproportionately shaped head giving it a seemingly good proportion.

I couldn’t take it anymore. I was so annoyed with myself for gawking at him without any invitation that I just sprang to my feet, hitting hard the steel leg of my work table. Tears sprang large in my eyes as the pain radiated through me. I immediately sat back down in my chair and began to feverishly rub through the muscle to relax it and maybe reduce the trauma.

I looked at him with blurred eyes and said “hi” and then immediately followed it with a “sorry.”

I suddenly felt him close. He was bending down to take a look at my leg but he didn’t reach out to touch. His hand hovered close to my knee and stayed there.

He asked, “Are you ok?” as his hand couldn’t seem to cover the distance to my hurting knee. I nodded and then immediately grabbed my bag and hobbled upright.

“Let’s go,” I said before I dallied further into my misery. I hobbled ahead of him not liking the idea of having to go down three flights of stairs. I clench my teeth in dreaded anticipation but then feel strong hands grip through my armpits. He is helping me negotiate the stairs without putting too much weight on the leg that is still hurting. I am warm now. His palms are radiating a heat right into my underbelly that is all pleasure and no pain. The pain is almost forgotten.

And then panic hits me—did I put any deodorant today? Damn! My sweat like any sweat does not smell sweet. It can be a stinky embarrassment. And I didn’t want to be embarrassed anymore with him hovering all over me!

God! Does this never stop? I just pray now asking God to prevent him from smelling his palms after. If he did I know he would never come back to be my occasional cabdriver/savior. We make it downstairs and his scooter is parked on the side of the street. He helps me up on the back seat before parking his delectable ass in the front and firing the scooter to life.

As he prepares to disengage the brakes to drive, he twists around to look at me and asks, “Are you ok?”

“Should we stop somewhere to grab a bite?”

“We could if you are hungry or just want to eat for the heck of eating at 5:30 in the evening?”

“I am in no hurry to get home, are you?”

I just nod which means “yes” to everything he has asked including being in no hurry to get home.

I see his eyes crinkle. I know he knows that he didn’t need to ask me. I was due for a semi-abduction by this man who wears his beard so well. He could abduct me for a bite anytime, I say!

He decides to take us to a small strip mall in Vasant Kunj in South Delhi It is a short fifteen-minute ride. I am not sure what we could find to eat here.

He intercepts my quizzical look and says, “You are hungry and so am I. There is great salad bar here, if you are interested? We can always go to Nirula’s if you prefer something like a pizza or a burger, even?”

I nod again. I am officially voiceless now. No words seem to form or release from my mouth ever since he walked into my office. I think I am suffering from shock. He has already turned towards a small shop tucked in the corner of the mall. I follow him in. It is cool inside. My eyes focus and I see a variety of salads lined up in ice cream like containers in the glass glazed freezer. I choose the small size of the macaroni salad and he chooses some strange concoction that has cabbage and cauliflower in it. Ugh! I take my wallet out but he pulls my arm back gently pushing me aside. He fills my space and hands the cashier a single large denomination bill. She hands him back the right change. He smiles at my thank you as he walks out of the shop, grabbing some plastic silverware on the way.

Why are we going back out into the heat? Couldn’t we eat here in this goodness coolness? I follow him to ask but he has already seated him at the picnic-like table with an umbrella. Well, at least he is in the shade. So I let my questions go as I stand beside him to eat my tiny bowl of macaroni salad. I don’t sit for some weird reason. He seems to think so too because he looks at me with that arched brow but saying or telling me nothing. I just smile while continuing to stand and eat my salad with great focus.

From the corner of my eye I see him shift in his seat as if he is trying to get a better view of me as he eats. I can feel him look at me between bites then immediately looking away as if he didn’t understand why he was looking. I keep my eyes steadfast on my salad. “So how are you?” he asks.

I look at him. His eyes are on me completely as if he is really interested in my answer to a courtesy question.

But my answer is a cryptic “good.” He stares at me for a good three seconds and then shakes his head before going back to his weird salad concoction. What was he expecting me to say? I wonder. We are quiet. Even our eating is quiet. Apart from the occasional vehicular noise, the early evening in Vasant Kunj was relatively calm. It seemed like the afternoon heat had driven its denizens away to hibernate in their cooler nests. It was quiet. And then it wasn’t.

I hear this plaintive, gut-wrenching cry of a man and I see him almost immediately. He looks torn like something or someone has pulled away viciously at his clothes, his skin, and his hair. Every pore of his body seems to be turned inside out, carrying the scars of some vicious assault. And then I noticed a child clinging to his bare chest. The child wore a dirty, shredded shirt but nothing else. He was naked below his waist. The man was letting out a guttural cry of pain every few seconds that was echoing through the dullness of the space we now occupied. He seemed to be crying out for someone but no one in particular.