The Temple-goers

by Aatish Taseer

  ‘ “My mother’s here too. It’s better we meet outside.”

  ‘ “Where?”

  ‘ “Can you come to the beginning of Tughlak Lane?”

  ‘ “You know I’ll have to come by rickshaw. It’s quite expensive and far.”

  ‘ “I’ll help.”

  ‘ “What?”

  ‘ “I’ll help you with the fare.”

  ‘A silence followed. “OK,” the voice said at last. “I’ll see you in fifteen minutes.”

  ‘Jai’s desire to come to the house unnerved me. I removed my Breitling before leaving the house. I was aware as I entered the night of a pretence on my part: that this was like assignations I had known before, in other places.

  ‘The depth of the night alarmed me. The haze compressed the yellow street light into tight orbs. The faces of the figures around the chai shop were wrapped up completely in their scarves, leaving only a little space for their eyes. They gathered around a shallow dish in which they’d started a fire. A bulb in the shop illuminated the grime in its windows. I could make out the owner’s vast silhouette, over a blue flame and an eternally boiling kettle. Walking past the shop and its damp washing area, crowded with gas cylinders, crates and a young boy cleaning dishes in a metal sink, I felt I was leaving some final outpost. Though Tughlak Lane was hardly a hundred yards away, the short stretch of road ahead was deserted and badly lit. Occasionally, I passed other figures, all invisible men in their woollens; scrawny bitches, with udders flapping, crept along the edges of the road, scalloped with yellow pools of light.

  ‘Between my street and Tughlak Lane, a single fluorescent lamp flickered in the darkness, interrupting the stretch of yellow lights. I waited under it for Jai’s arrival. For the first time since I had arranged the assignation, I felt a pang of excitement twist in me, harden and settle among nerves and uncertainty.

  ‘A few minutes later, the headlight of a rickshaw charted its way through the darkness like a submarine. Jai leaned out of it, alert and ready. As soon as he saw me, he swung out of the rickshaw and ran next to it for a few paces. His ease, his obvious street smartness, were intimidating. He seemed to take charge, and when I put my hand in my pocket, he signalled to me not to and paid the rickshaw himself.

  ‘ “He’d have given you a different rate,” he said disparagingly as the rickshaw drove off. “So where do you live?”

  ‘ “Just around here.”

  ‘ “Where?”

  ‘ “Will you stop asking so many questions?”

  ‘Jai smiled. His manner seemed to change. “Come on, then. Let’s go for a walk; it’s a beautiful night.”

  ‘I had been on the verge of calling the whole thing off, but now felt a little calmer. I chose Tughlak Lane for its nearness to me, but also its beauty. The low, full boughs of the trees lining the lane formed a tunnel and the street lights buried in their canopies burnished parts of the tree with a metallic lustre. It seemed almost to plate the leaves, giving them a solidity they lacked in the daytime. Even the disease, covering the leaves of all the trees on Tughlak Lane with white blotches, now at night seemed part of the light’s alchemic imagination. The Lutyens bungalows of Tughlak Lane were home to politicians, including the heir of the country’s political first family, and the road we walked down was bounded by green sentry boxes, sandbags and high barbed-wire fences. Over the bungalows’ low red walls were ochre houses with arched verandas and large lawns.

  ‘Jai was impressed.

  ‘ “This is a VIP area,” he said quietly.

  ‘ “Yes.”

  ‘ “Are your family VIPs?”

  ‘ “No.”

  ‘ “What does your father do?”

  ‘My irritation returned, but this time Jai caught it. “Leave it,” he said. “I don’t want to know. I’ll just say one thing. Today, when I met you, I felt I’d made a friend who could help me. You know I’m not a rich man or even middle class, but I have this desire to succeed that prevents me from sleeping. And I know that if I was given just a little assistance, that small lifting hand, I would make it.”

  ‘ “What do you do?” I asked, annoyed at the mistake I felt I’d made. Only in India could you pick someone up and end up with a gulf this wide between their intentions and yours.

  ‘Jai said he worked as a chowkidar; that his family in Nepal were high caste and had not always been poor; his mother lived alone in Sectorpur; he wanted to improve her life. I felt I’d heard all this before. I was wretched about my unreciprocated desire for Jai, which had grown with expectation. I noticed his dark smooth skin in the yellow light and experienced an angry sense of entitlement.

  ‘We passed a house where a wedding was taking place. The blackish-orange heads of mushroom heaters, halogen floodlights and colourful satin cloth that skirted the tent’s white roof were visible from the street. Indian bagpipers in kilts played over the din of voices and laughter. In the dark foliage on the edge of the party, fairy-lit in places, chauffeurs and uniformed banquet staff lurked among steel cauldrons and the light from naked bulbs. Jai wanted to go in. He guessed correctly that I knew whose party it was.

  ‘We had come to a crossroads on Tughlak Lane. Ahead was a busy main road; on either side, dark service lanes; and behind us, the tunnel of twisted, gold-plated leaves. I looked up and noticed sharp, razor-edged barbed wire coiled around the bent necks of Tughlak Lane’s street lights.

  ‘I slipped my hand over Jai’s shoulders and led him into a dark service lane on the left. We entered those little streets of Lutyens’s Delhi, devoted entirely to servants’ quarters and dhobis. In the now much thicker darkness, I ran my hand over Jai’s chest and stomach, feeling its slim firmness through the cheap, synthetic fabric of his shirt. Jai, who had spoken without stopping about his aspirations, said, “You know, when I came here tonight, I thought I would be spending the whole night with you.”

  ‘ “I know, but we can’t go to my house.”

  ‘ “Why?”

  ‘ “Because of the servants…”

  ‘ “But…”

  ‘ “Because you’re like a servant too,” I snapped.’

  Many different things – my familiarity with Tughlak Lane; the need for respite from the story and its creative-writing theme; the blunt violent line bursting from the author’s dead lips; the memory of Delhi in the winter – came together to make me look up and around the room, like someone surfacing for air. The others were captivated. The older woman’s braceleted wrist was rooted firmly on the author’s shoulder; another tall, young man, also in rubber chappals, took notes; Sanyogita listened wide-eyed; only Ra noticed the disturbance near the door of the lamp-lit room, and by following his eyes mine came to Aakash in a red Puma T-shirt, leaning against his tricep in the doorway.

  ‘Ash-man,’ I breathed.

  ‘Yes, man,’ he replied, relishing my surprise, then puckering up his blackish-pink lips as if about to blow bubbles, mouthed, ‘Lul. Lul. Lul.’

  I lowered my head, laughing silently, but Sanyogita saw me.

  ‘Baby!’ she hissed.

  I pointed to Aakash. She looked up, smiled and gestured to him to come over. He hesitated, then made his way swiftly through the crowded room. A few silver-haired women watched him keenly; the men looked gloomy and irritated. The creative writer stopped his story, perhaps from wonderment at Aakash’s appearance so far from Junglee. As soon as he had sat down at our feet, the writer began again.

  ‘Jai didn’t mind. “I want you to know,” he said, “that any time, I mean any time, night or day, you can call me and I’ll come. If you have friends, whatever. See, the thing is, living in Delhi, I’ve developed a taste for money and I’m willing to do anything for it.”

  ‘ “Do you want money now?”

  ‘ “Man, what are you saying? You’re my friend.”

  ‘On our right, a village of washing lines appeared. The white clothes that hung limply from bamboo poles in the cold night had a morbid, ghostly aspect. Further on, a park with a thin grass cover and
a sandy surface was coated in dew. Suddenly a pack of dogs leapt at the gate of the park, growling, barking, showing teeth and gums. I jumped back. But Jai, as assured as he had been with the rickshaw, raced forward, picking up a stone on the way. When the dogs didn’t run from him, he flung the stone with a fast side throw and hit one of the dogs on the cheek. I heard the impact of the stone against skin and bone and the easy cruelty of it chilled me. The dog howled at so shrill a note that the others melted into the darkness of the park.

  ‘Just ahead, there was a servants’ colony. In the open doors and windows televisions flashed. A girl in a red sweater combed lice out of the hair of another girl and the smell of winter clothes in need of airing arose. The walls of the servants’ colony were mildewed and blackish-green in places; some windows were bricked up; and in one the powerful, pythonic roots of a peepal tree slid into, and cracked, the front drain and wall.

  ‘I pulled Jai back into the darkness.

  ‘ “How much?” I asked.

  ‘ “For what?” Jai said.

  ‘I squirmed. I longed to be able to speak to him in English. I had no language in Hindi for what I wanted to say. At last, I said for a kiss, but it sounded absurd.

  ‘ “What a guy you are, you want to pay me for a kiss!”

  ‘I leaned forward and kissed him. His lips didn’t move; I tasted chewing tobacco on them.

  ‘ “Come on now,” Jai said, “what do you really want to do?”

  ‘ “I want to suck your dick.” ’

  At that moment Aakash looked up at me, his eyebrows dancing with amusement. I had hoped he wasn’t following the story.

  The creative writer’s tone became urgent: ‘Jai pulled me further into the darkness. We were near the washing village. He took me behind a grey electricity box; it had a rusting base, and a thick black wire, partly buried in the earth, spiralled out of it.

  ‘ “Then suck,” he said.

  ‘I was struck by his freedom; and opening Jai’s flared jeans and pulling down his baggy villager’s underwear, I felt I was dealing with a man who could always satisfy his appetites. And this was what had made me feel the limitations of being a Western-educated homosexual: in the love I had learned, there was a grammar, a language, living rules of conduct, all useless now.

  ‘Jai’s arousal grew; he undid my trousers and reached for my penis.

  ‘ “How come your dick is so much bigger than mine?” he said, holding it up from the base with his palm. “You must give your girlfriend a really good time. Does she suck you?”

  ‘ “Yes,” I lied.

  ‘ “Where is she?”

  ‘ “At home.”

  ‘ “Why? Doesn’t she take care of you?”

  ‘ “Her parents don’t allow her out late at night.”

  ‘ “Where does she live?”

  ‘ “Greater Kailash.”

  ‘Though I lied, I felt it was somehow necessary, part of a social pretence. Jai, now obviously aroused, suddenly grabbed me and pressed himself against me, rubbing and shaking in a comic way. His movements became instinctive. With the same ease, the assuredness that had intimidated me, he turned me around and wanted to enter me.

  ‘ “No!” I said. “Are you crazy? Don’t you think about protection or anything?”

  ‘He misunderstood. “Fine, you come inside me, but then you’ll have to give me something.”

  ‘ “What?”

  ‘ “Just a little money, whatever you have.”

  ‘ “This is not about money.”

  ‘ “OK then, let me just seat my dick on you,” he said, choosing a formal word used in relation to kings and thrones.

  ‘I had never considered how important the vocabulary surrounding a sexual act was. I submitted to the new word, as if working under a new law. It was only when Jai’s arousal grew further and he tried again to enter me that I fought him off.

  ‘ “Bas,” Jai said, “I’m about to drop.” I was also close to climax when Jai with some panic in his voice, said, “Don’t drop any on me.”

  ‘It was then that I caught a glimpse of his Brahmin’s thread, dangling from his shirt and vest. It tickled me to see this small notion of sexual cleanliness come out of him so late into everything. Somehow this unexplained barrier – a caste horror perhaps – had survived. Now, for the first time, I felt as though I had some power over this man who had flaunted his freedoms, whose strong sweat and polyester odour filled my nostrils and made me feel wretched. Close to climax, I slipped my right hand behind Jai’s smooth Nepalese neck, pressing it lightly, and with my left, in a single wrenching motion, sprinkled watery drops of semen over the shaft and uncircumcised head of Jai’s penis.

  ‘He recoiled with disgust and began furiously wiping his penis. I squeezed out the last few drops on to his small closed fist and the dusty edge of the road.

  ‘Then putting a hundred rupees in his shirt pocket, I began walking away. I wasn’t envious of him now, but worried he might follow me to my house. I felt him grab my wrist and turn it over.

  ‘ “You don’t wear a watch?”

  ‘ “No.”

  ‘He smiled bitterly. “A hundred rupees is very little.”

  ‘ “Enough for a rickshaw,” I replied, and turned away.

  ‘After a pause, and once the protections of haze and street light had settled between us again, I heard yelled down Tughlak Lane the words: “OK, Krishna. Remember, call any time you like. Jai is there.” ’

  The creative writer folded away the story’s pages and rested his large veiny hands, with their fleshy, nail-bitten tips, on his kneecaps. There was no applause, but the room soon filled with praising remarks. ‘Bold theme’, ‘exploitative values’, ‘neo-colonial alienation’, ‘Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code’ were bandied about. Aakash listened with fascination; I read the gold letters on the back of his red T-shirt. They were the destination points of a Grand Prix: Sakhir, Hockenheim, Silverstone, Interlagos. A few minutes later, the creative writers disbanded for the summer. The Brazilian music picked up, dinner was laid out on the dining table – hummus, kibbeh, pomegranate salad – and vodka tonics in clear glasses sweated in dark hands.

  Aakash drank purposefully, filling his glass two or three times. Whenever he’d catch my eye, he’d open his mouth wide and pour the remains of his drink down his throat. Sanyogita, drinking cold lethal vodkas straight, had slipped her arm into his and was taking him round the room, introducing him to Emigrés at Home. She could always include people, especially if she sensed they were important to me. The creative writers, especially the greying women, delighted in the attention Aakash paid them.

  I heard one coo, ‘No, now what is left for me? I’m no spring chicken. How can I get in shape so late in the day?’

  ‘No! Whaddyou saying, ma’am? You’re still a very young, beaudiful woman. Aakash is there, no?’ I heard in reply.

  Then Sanyogita: ‘Come on, you big flirt. Stop charming the chappals off these old women.’

  I was scanning the room for the author of ‘The Assignation’ when I heard whispered in my ear, ‘Help, I’m Jai!’

  I swung around and saw Ra.

  ‘Hello, darling. So good of you to grace our creative writers’ circle with your presence. So tell me, no? What’s happening?’

  ‘Not much. We’re off tomorrow.’

  ‘He’s quite the little dish, your trainer?’

  ‘Ash-man?’

  ‘Hash-man. What did you think of the story?’

  ‘You know, I know him a little, the author. He comes to Junglee as well.’

  ‘Really? Poor Kris. Always so down in the dumps.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Tch, you know, these Hindi-speaking gay types have a very tough time, hiding from the parents, sneaking off with chowkidars, the self-loathing – it’s all too squalid.’

  ‘He can’t be all that Hindi-speaking if he lives in Lutyens’s Delhi and went abroad for university.’

  ‘First generation. And he doesn’t live in Lutyens’
s Delhi, he lives in Sectorpur.’

  ‘I thought you didn’t know where Sectorpur was.’

  ‘I do now. In the kingdom of the divine Chamunda! He just writes about Lutyens’s Delhi; it’s his creative milieu. His father owns Jorbagh Taxis, you know?’

  ‘How do you know so much about him?’

  ‘It’s not what you think; we’re like two sisters.’

  ‘Like three sisters,’ Mandira said, hovering up with a Scotch and soda. ‘Hi, Aatish, nice to see you out. Sanyogita tells me you’ve been being very pricey.’

  ‘No, just work, Mandira,’ I said, feeling a sudden dread at the mention of the word. ‘It’s not really coming.’

  ‘I’m sorry to hear it,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘But come out and have some fun, yaar. You’ll feel much better. How can you write anything if you stay cooped up in your flat the whole time?’

  There was a lull. Ra looked nervously around the room, as if feeling the burden of keeping the conversation alive. Then his eyes glittered and he beckoned us closer.

  ‘Got some goss?’ Mandira giggled, taking a step forward.

  Ra nodded his head vigorously. Then grabbing my head and Mandira’s as if about to bang them together, he wetly whispered, ‘Jai’s not just any chowkidar; he’s his chowkidar!’ And letting go our heads, he shrieked with laughter.

  His laughter coincided with a disturbance at the far end of the room. The double doors overlooking the park and mango tree flew open. A wall of wind and spray blew through the flat.

  The creative writers gasped in one voice, ‘Rain, unseasonal rain!’

  The months before the monsoon were months of anticipation. The flowering trees, the glare, the blackness of shadows each played their part. The heat was to be endured and complained about, its dryness marvelled at; it was not meant to break like this, at the hands of a mutinous dust storm.

  The older people, as if distancing themselves from an impropriety, said their goodbyes and began to leave. But for the young, rain was rain; what matter when it came. Sanyogita hitched up her long skirt and ran on to the little balcony. Of the four or five people who remained, only Aakash looked grimly on the scene, muttering, ‘Not good, not good for the fields.’