The Boatman

by John Burbidge

  TAKING THE PLUNGE

  Flora Fountain, the five-way intersection in the heart of Bombay’s bustling business district, was one of my favorite parts of the city. From a touched-up postcard, you could almost believe it was Rome or London, with a white-painted statue of the Goddess of Abundance perched elegantly in the midst of swirling traffic and the ceaseless procession of red double-decker buses. Close to Victoria Terminus with its gothic gargoyles and the shady boulevards of the nearby Fort area, it became a centering place for me.

  It had now been six months since my return to India. I had learned to navigate its side streets and alleyways just like an old Bombay-wallah. I knew exactly where to find the best fruit juice, the cheapest rice plate, and the most well-stocked, English-language bookstore. The city’s once-regal buildings offered glimpses into its imperial past that allowed me to escape momentarily into a bygone age. But on closer examination, their imposing facades gave way to things much less exotic. At ground level, Flora Fountain was home to another of the city’s many enterprising groups—the street vendors—purveyors of everything from imported Rothmans cigarettes and ‘Rolex’ watches to pirated videos and foreign currencies. Their illegal stalls cluttered the pavement, forcing pedestrians to walk on the road instead. Periodically, truckloads of police would descend upon them in a ruthless scourge designed to clean up the city, only to have the vendors defiantly return a few days later.

  On most days, I walked briskly to try to avoid salesmen’s unrepentant attempts to interest me in their wares, while hoping not to twist my ankle in the gaps lurking between the well-worn stones underfoot. But on this steamy afternoon, I was early for an appointment with one of our regular donors, so I adopted a more leisurely pace. Many hawkers had already taken to the pavement for a nap beside their carts. Meandering along, I came upon a stall with several tables displaying tattered covers of dog-eared paperbacks. I wasn’t one to buy anything off the street, but since this seller didn’t seem bothered whether I did or not, I decided to take a look at his stock.

  Surveying the table, I was intrigued by the variety of material on offer, ranging from Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov to Christopher Isherwood’s translation of the Bhagavad Gita. As edifying as these may have been, they were much too heavy for my taste. Most of my reading took place on long overnight train rides or tedious bus journeys, during which I had mastered the art of reading standing up, wedged among numerous other bodies, holding on to a seat with one hand and the book in the other. In order to grip my attention, I needed material that was easy to follow and highly action-oriented, so I tended to go for Leon Uris, Robert Ludlum or James Clavell novels. But there seemed to be no such titles today.

  Just as I was about to move on, something at the end of the table caught my eye. It was the February 1981 issue of Sexology Today, a thin magazine not much larger than an average paperback. I don’t know whether it was the word ‘sexology’ that did it or the magazine’s bright orange cover, but I was intrigued. As I scanned its contents, one article caught my attention. Titled ‘A Search for Love: One Man’s Experience with Homosexuality,’ it had been written by a Californian journalist. I skimmed through the article and decided to buy the magazine. After handing the man behind the table a few rupees, I shoved the copy into my satchel, glanced around to make sure nobody had witnessed my act, and headed towards Fort for my meeting. Throughout the 30 minutes I spent in the director’s office, my mind kept wandering from the subject at hand to the magazine in my bag. Straight after the meeting, I made for the first restaurant I could find, ordered chai and samosa, and pulled out the magazine, opening it to the article that had so captured me.

  Just below the title was a brief summary: ‘The story of one heterosexual man’s daring decision to become involved in the gay world in an attempt to resolve his sexual conflicts.’ I was hooked. Just this line stirred something deep within me. Without reading the body of the article, I had a strong sense that I had been meant to find it. Nevertheless, I did have several misgivings. The author lived in California and I was in India, worlds apart in every way. He stated that he was in therapy to deal with deep-seated family conflicts, which did not mirror my situation. But what galvanized my attention was his claim that homosexuality was simply a layer of feeling that prevented him from realizing his true heterosexual nature; a tantalizing theory, but not one I was ready to swallow whole.

  I had never been consciously aware of my attraction to young men until I came to India. During my first stay a few years before, several strapping village lads had caught my attention with their swarthy hues, tempting smiles, and playful manner. But I had never seen them as potential sexual partners. And I’m sure my own emaciated appearance never offered any incentive to them, should they have had any desire to make an overture. But ever since I had regained my health and returned to India, things had been different. India didn’t seem to be the devouring monster it had during that initial visit. I was reveling in city life with its cascading diversity and never-ending change of scene. Everywhere I turned, in buses and trains, offices and cinemas, walking down the street or eating in a restaurant, I kept noticing young men whose beauty and charm begged me to reach out and touch them.

  But I wasn’t a poofter, a homo, or any of the other degrading epithets I remembered from growing up in 1960s Australia. I was a decent, earnest young man trying to make a positive contribution to the world. How could I possibly be like that? Then again, there was that foreign-languages teacher in high school who would invite me to his home on the pretext of helping him grade papers, then ply me with beer and crayfish. And the Anglican priest I had met in a small country town who insisted on taking me out to dinner at one of Perth’s finest restaurants whenever he came to the city. Neither had overtly demanded sexual favors of me and I had had no interest in them, but clearly they had earmarked me as promising potential. In my naiveté—or was it denial?—I had dismissed their solicitations as misplaced attempts at friendship. But India was different. This time, I was the one with the yearning to connect with young men. I wanted their friendship and more. This strange urge rising within me was like a swelling tide that I couldn’t ignore.

  I read and re-read the article. It was as if a light had suddenly illuminated what had been there all along. By my third cup of chai, I had decided to take heed of this message I had so mysteriously received. No more would I feign sexual interest in women to please others. No more would I ignore the intensely strong pull that Indian men exerted on me, pretending it was merely some cross-cultural fascination when I knew it was much more intrinsic. Just as the author had taken the plunge and immersed himself in the gay world to discover who he really was, so would I embark on a determined effort to ‘test my gay potential.’

  But how was I to go about this in a country and city where I was an outsider? Unlike America and Australia, India had no gay bars or bathhouses, let alone publications, drop-in centers or support groups. If there were gay men in India, I didn’t have a clue where to find them. Only later would I discover that I was surrounded by them almost everywhere I went—at least by men who had sex with other men, most of whom would never call themselves gay, and with whom I had little desire to associate. But there was also a percentage of young men who truly were attracted to their own sex at the core of their being. They came from every caste, religion, linguistic group and economic class. In the next two years, I would come to know members of virtually all such groups. Just then, however, my big question was where to start looking.

  My first feeble attempt was not encouraging. Before I boarded the No. 7 bus to go home, I bought a copy of the evening English-language paper, as I often did, usually just for the crossword. On this occasion, though, I found myself perusing the classifieds section at the back. As I scanned the columns, my eye honed in on a brief ad hedged in a corner: ‘Broad-minded young man wishes to meet others similarly inclined.’ And a phone number. What on earth did ‘broad-minded’ mean? Was it a euphemism for kinky sex? Was he gay or str
aight? What was his agenda?

  Two weeks later, I bought another copy of the paper and this time went straight to the classifieds. The ad was still there. I couldn’t resist it any longer. I found a public phone in a nearby restaurant and dialed the number. After several rings, a heavy male voice came on the line.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Is this 372958?’ I inquired.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Did you place an ad in the evening paper?’

  ‘Yes.’

  I hesitated for a few seconds, trying to compose my next sentence. I didn’t want to preempt his answers but I desperately wanted to know what he had in mind.

  ‘You said you are broad-minded.’

  ‘I’m so broad-minded it hurts when I think.’

  Since this conversation was going nowhere fast, I decided to cut to the chase.

  ‘So, what are you interested in, sex-wise?’

  There, I’d said it! He had to commit himself now.

  ‘Almost everything,’ he replied.

  ‘With men and women?’

  ‘Why not?’

  I was about to slam down the phone, but something told me to give it one last chance.

  ‘Would you like to meet?’ I ventured.

  ‘Would you?’

  I wanted to say ‘Hell no’ but couldn’t bring myself to. Instead, I found myself muttering a pathetic ‘yes.’

  ‘Okay. When and where?’

  I gave him the name of the restaurant I was in and suggested that we meet in two days, at the same time. He agreed. As I put down the receiver, I noticed the tension in my hand. I had no intention of showing up for the meeting, and suspect he didn’t either. If this was what it would take to meet someone, I was not sure I even wanted to try. I needed a completely different approach.

  * * *

  It was quite improbable how I stumbled upon it. One Sunday after lunch, I was sitting on our front porch looking down at the teeming pageant on the street below. Hawkers in shabby rags pulled overloaded carts many times their body weight; paan-chewing clerks with pressed shirts overhanging their narrow trousers went in and out of the municipal building opposite; young women working at the Mother Teresa Home ambled along in their impeccably clean blue and white saris. I’d seen this spectacle hundreds of times but it never failed to absorb me.

  Without my noticing, Rakesh entered the porch and plunked himself down on the wicker chair beside me. Thin, gawky and with a mustache much in need of trimming, he was noticeably different from most of his Indian colleagues. Unlike them, he had grown up in a city that had taught him things about life that his village counterparts would only learn by hearsay or from Bollywood movies.

  ‘So what are you up to today?’ he asked.

  ‘Nothing much,’ I replied. ‘I just need to get out of here for a while. Tell me Rakesh, where’s all the action in this city?’

  Assuming that I was probing for places to pick up women, he proceeded to give me an impressive list that went far beyond the infamous ‘ladies in cages’ in nearby Kamathipura Lane. Then, quite offhandedly, he added, ‘But be careful if you go down to Chowpatty Beach. That’s the San Francisco of Bombay.’

  I nearly fell off my chair, while trying to maintain a ho-hum façade. His last sentence sent me reeling back to the article in Sexology Today. Like a piece of dialogue artfully placed in a movie script, these six words catapulted me into a whole new universe. They were the missing pieces of the puzzle, the next precious clue in the game I had decided to play. For once I didn’t mull over the pros and cons of what I should or should not do, but took the unusual step of letting instinct direct me. After indulging in a little more idle gossip, I excused myself, changed into my light blue pants and striped cotton shirt, and headed out the door before my left brain had a chance to kick into caution mode.

  Most Bombayites seem to go to Chowpatty Beach to escape from something—the relentless routines of home and work, the prying eyes and ceaseless demands of family, or the deafening cacophony of taxi horns, bicycle bells and screeching brakes that penetrate every corner of this sprawling octopus of a city. In my case, the highly regulated, cheek-by-jowl communal life in the fishbowl we called a staff residence was reason enough. But it was not only that I was running away from something that led me down to Chowpatty Beach that warm April afternoon more than 30 years ago. It was as though I was being called there by a voice deep inside me that had been struggling most of my life to make itself heard. For some unfathomable reason, I decided this once to listen to it.

  The 20-minute bus ride to Chowpatty seemed to take hours that day. The sea of people, vehicles and gray-faced buildings became a blur as the double-decker bus lurched from stop to stop before finally arriving at the beach. My stomach writhed, not from the spicy aloo gobi I had eaten for lunch but from the heightened sense of anticipation building up within me. As the bus slowed down, I prepared to leap from the back door, a maneuver I had perfected since Bombay buses rarely come to a complete halt. My feet hadn’t touched the ground when a sharp double twang rang out, as the conductor yanked on the cord to signal the driver to move off.

  All at once I was in a starkly different world. There was still noise but it was a more modulated, lighthearted noise, interspersed with the pleading voices of children begging their parents to buy them balloons or let them have pony rides. The pavement was still flooded with people but they were strolling and chatting, not feverishly strutting to and fro. A potpourri of smells still enveloped me but not the same nauseating odors of urine and rotting garbage I’d left behind in the city’s snaking streets and byzantine bazaars.

  I looked around to survey the scene and get my bearings. The alluring whiff of peanuts roasting and kebabs grilling over glowing charcoals competed for my attention with pau bhajis and bhel puris sizzling in what looked like last week’s oil. Normally, I stuck to my rule of not eating street food in India. But today was different. I felt ready to step over these lines that I had carefully drawn to protect myself from the vicissitudes of life. I turned to the peanut-wallah and ordered a hundred grams, which he masterfully scooped up and slipped into a newspaper cone.

  As I nibbled on the warm nuts, I called on one of my basic principles when in a new place—thoroughly scope out the situation then hone in on aspects of greatest interest. Observe details, take mental notes, and decide on a course of action. I headed down the promenade in the direction of Nariman Point at the other end of the beach where the Air India building and the Oberoi Towers hotel proclaimed another India, so different from the one I had known while working in villages. As I strolled along, I noticed I wasn’t the only foreigner enjoying this seafront promenade. But it wasn’t the fair-skinned firangis who caught my eye; it was young Indian men with their lithesome build, beckoning manner and natural beauty. Did they know how attractive they were?

  I must have been quite preoccupied with these thoughts because when I paused to check my progress, I was amazed how far I had come. I was beginning to feel a little weary, so when a family vacated a bench, I moved right in on it. Such luxuries seldom remain unclaimed for long in India. No sooner had I sat down than another young man materialized beside me. He was probably in his mid-thirties, a little portly, and with a yellowing shirt hanging over his cuffless trousers. I was pretending to ignore him as I finished the last of my peanuts, when he asked, ‘Excuse me, do you have the time?’

  I had often been asked this question while working in villages where people laboring in fields never wore watches. Watches, like pens, seemed to exert a curious attraction on Indians as some kind of prized status symbol, quite apart from their monetary value. But this was a different question from the one villagers plied me with, not merely because it was articulated in precise English, but, as I would later discover, for a wholly different purpose.

  ‘It’s about 4.30,’ I replied.

  ‘Accha. You are from abroad, isn’t it?’

  Fearing that I was about to be subjected to the usual interrogation Indians routinely
inflict on foreigners, I made an effort to get up and leave.

  ‘That’s right,’ I said, hoping he’d get the hint.

  ‘You stay in hotel?’

  ‘No, I live here…with friends.’

  I decided to add the last two words in the hope that he would lose interest, but he was not to be deterred.

  ‘You want anything? Hashish, girls, money change…’

  ‘No thanks,’ I said, and turned away. Something about him warned me not to reveal my hidden agenda. I headed back to Chowpatty. By the time I reached the beach, three more men had asked me the time. Strange, I thought, that there should be such a strong interest in the time of day on a Sunday afternoon, when many people were off work.

  As I ambled along, I noticed several young men walking hand in hand, some with one hand draped around another’s shoulder or waist. This sight had jolted me when I first encountered it in India, though I soon realized that it was not uncommon. In Australia, such behavior would have meant only one thing and could have had serious repercussions in the wrong place at the wrong time. But in India and much of South Asia and the Arab world, it would not raise an eyebrow. Young men felt free to express their friendship and affection for one another in such ways. Sexual interest was not implied, although it may not have been out of the question. How I wished I had been able to experience the same while growing up. It made me want to scream out, ‘Don’t you know how lucky you are, to be able to do this?’