What was more, he often barged into my room without knocking, kicking the door open like the angry young men of Hindi films. This, of course, could be viewed in two ways: it was an assault on my privacy if I was caught in an unguarded moment I’d rather have kept to myself; on the other hand, at times I deliberately took off my pants and masturbated, hoping he would walk in. But these calculations misfired, for he invariably came in at the wrong time.
Conversation, when we were safely locked up in my room, often revolved around sex. He would tell me about his encounters with prostitutes and the girls in his school, and a twinge of jealousy would tear through my chest. ‘You look like Mithun Chakravarti,’ I would say, ingratiatingly, and he would go red in the face. Then, confiding in me, he’d tell me how Ahmed, his uncle and employer, owner of Moonlight Tandoori, exploited him, and I would feel helplessly sorry, and my feelings would show.
Once when he entered, I was reading a book with a picture of a cow on the cover, and he found this so funny that he held his stomach and laughed. The laughter was contagious. After a while I found myself laughing too, unable to answer his questions on what the book was about (it was actually a lesbian novel), or why I was reading it, and we laughed till our eyes streamed and our bellies ached.
Soon it was clear that Khalid merely sought an excuse to come up to my room every evening, whenever he was free from orders. Sometimes, it was to play a game of numbers which we enjoyed greatly: you thought up a number in your mind, halved or doubled it, added or subtracted as you were instructed, and in a few minutes you were told what your number was. Or it was to ask me whether I wanted to have a haircut, say, and had to be shown the salons.
By the end of October, I was writing the following entries in my diary: I love K: dangerous emotions developing. He’s a little chicken. Feel fucked up. I’ll be leaving in a couple of months. Because of him want to dress and look good . . . today he called me his darling, said he hasn’t a friend in this country to whom he’s so close.
2
I started having my dinner in the kitchen of Moonlight Tandoori because it gave me a chance to feast my eyes on Khalid, his fragile body and husky skin, as he prepared naans in a large tandoori oven. There were, at any time, at least three or four hangers-on in the kitchen, distant relatives of Khalid and Ahmed, who belonged to rival Asian restaurants in the city. Notwithstanding their presence, Khalid would look at me slyly and smile. ‘Why is your blood so cold?’ he asked me one evening in his British Asian accent, as I was munching my food and he was putting hot naans on my plate, and wondered whether it was because I was a Hindu, whom he associated with cows and vegetarian food. The reason was that I was constantly complaining about the weather. That was a particularly rewarding day. Early in the evening, he was bold enough to tickle me in the ribs in Ahmed’s presence, much to my embarrassment. Later, as I sipped coffee in my room after dinner, he wanted to know why I was never seen in sleeping clothes. Before I could frame a convenient answer, he pouted his lips and went, as Ahmed called out to him from downstairs. Such acts made my heart pound, and fed my fantasies when I put out the lights.
Then came Guy Fawkes Night. As soon as it grew dark, there were bonfires all around. Khalid came to the restaurant in a temper because Ahmed had cancelled his holiday at the last minute. He was hoping to walk through the town with his friends; he’d even bought firecrackers to celebrate. I was secretly happy—days when Khalid was away from the restaurant were unbearable. Yet I was pained, for I couldn’t see him sulking. I tried to cheer him up by giving him a present, a Warwick University T-shirt. I said I hoped it would inspire him to study well and join the university. He accepted it shyly, and said, ‘You should have bought a jumper for yourself, brother.’ Then he showed me another T-shirt with the words ‘Beep You Bastard’ printed on it, which amused him very much. He tried out my present and looked a killer.
‘You’ve bowled me over,’ I told him, and he did not know how to respond. ‘Bhaisaab, it’s okay if one of us was a woman,’ he said with some hesitation. I pinched his cheeks. He shrieked and implored me to handle him gently, as a man would a woman. I told him we should be pen-friends. This didn’t seem to interest him very much, and he changed the subject, asking me how I liked the fitting of his trousers. I inspected them and couldn’t take my eyes off his cock. Then he reverted to the topic of pen-friends, and said I shouldn’t look for grammatical errors in his letters. I took a sip of the alcohol-free beer he was drinking (halal beer in his lingo) and asked him if he minded. He said I could take anything I wanted. He wouldn’t mind.
Before leaving my room that night, with his usual ‘take care of yourself’, Khalid sang two Bengali songs in a croaky, unmelodious voice. I suddenly saw him as terminally ill: he would go away, no matter what I did. But while I was around, I was going to make the most of it.
3
I decided to have a heart-to-heart talk with Khalid. It was with some courage that I brought myself to tell him I wanted to speak to him. He was puzzled. Didn’t we do that every day? But this was different; it had to be private, within the confines of my room, preferably before the restaurant opened so that no one was around. ‘What about?’ he asked, his face growing serious.
The next day he did not pop into my room to say ‘hi’ when he came up to change into his working clothes. When I went down to see him, I found Ahmed scolding him for various lapses. After Ahmed left the kitchen, I asked him how he was. He was grumpy.
I brought up the topic again. When . . .? He evaded the question and continued to fret for a while. Then he promised to see me the next afternoon. But he was still uncertain what it was about. ‘Give us a clue,’ he said several times during the evening, chopping vegetables, kneading dough. It was my turn to be evasive.
As expected, he did not turn up at the appointed time. He arrived three hours later, at restaurant time, wearing my Warwick University T-shirt. ‘Sorry, brother,’ he said as he rushed into my room, and left at once.
The whole of the next week, we weren’t on speaking terms. I was even glad. But he wouldn’t leave me alone. On the eighth day, he entered my room as if nothing had happened. I decided to cold-shoulder him. ‘I’m busy,’ I said, ‘got to finish a paper,’ and he went away. When I went down for dinner, he tried again, but I maintained the same strategy. Don’t know how to cope, I wrote in my diary that night. K’s playing havoc.
Eventually, it was I who capitulated. As I was going to my room one evening, I found him in his, smoking. I knocked, and we became friends again. He said many sugary things that gladdened me. I took his hand, repulsed a little by the corns on his fingers, and kissed it again and again. Both of us were happy. But when he produced a ring from his pocket and said it was from his girlfriend, I felt awful. He’s ragging me, he enjoys doing it, I told myself.
For a while I resolved not to confess to Khalid. Things improved. We even had sex mentally. Sometimes, he would change his trousers in my presence. At other times, he would discuss his wet dreams. Once, he drew my attention to the hair on his legs and said everyone in his family had hairy legs. ‘I’m going to make love to you,’ I ventured to say, and put my head on his lap. He did not resist but spoke of my need to have a girlfriend. ‘You are better than any girlfriend,’ I replied. My day was made.
Then I was worried about his future. Was he going to slog it out in rotting kitchens all his life? I wished I could take him with me to India, to Bombay, to give him a decent education and change the course of his life. I sort of got to understand the cast of his mind and knew exactly how to humour him. When he sulked, I discovered it was not because of me, but because of problems with his parents or Ahmed, often on account of his lafdas with the young Asian girls of the neighbourhood. ‘You don’t have the brains to tell who loves you,’ I said to him once, when he was in a lousy mood, and brought him round. Ahmed unexpectedly walked into my room, and I had to cover up, saying, ‘He’s confessing.’ Ahmed responded with an ‘I haven’t heard’, shrugged his shoulders, and
left the room.
4
Sometime around the middle of November, Khalid and I went out to the movies. It was on one of his off days. He picked me up at five in the evening, when it was already dark, and we walked to the city centre in the stinging cold. With a fur coat almost reaching my ankles, and a balaclava and gloves, I looked like a bandit and terrified people on the road. The film was Ghost. I bought Khalid a pack of Benson & Hedges cigarettes and paid for the tickets, although he protested, saying I was a guest in the country. On the way to the theatre, and later as the movie was on, I tried very hard to hold his hand, but he just wouldn’t yield. Perhaps he would have, if we were in India or Bangladesh. But in the West, one had to be careful about one’s behaviour in public. I left the theatre feeling somewhat disappointed at the loss of an opportunity.
After the film, fresh with the exploits of Whoopi Goldberg, we walked to his house, a modest dwelling in the Asian part of the town, where he introduced me to his mother. She knew no Hindi or English and I do not speak Bengali, so we couldn’t really communicate, except through Khalid. I could see he was not too comfortable having me there, and wanted me to take my leave as quickly as possible. His mother wanted me to stay on for dinner, but my vegetarianism provided a convenient excuse, for they had prepared fish. So she brought out some cakes, and Khalid was quick to point out that she had made them with her own hands. Then I got up to go, mumbling a scarcely audible ‘namaste’ which he objected to, wanting me to say ‘salaam wallikum’. I had to try it out thrice before I got it right; his mother was amused.
Khalid walked me a part of the way to the restaurant, up to the George Eliot Road. For once, despite his warm, fishy blood, I saw him shivering, and felt concerned. I asked him to buy a fur coat like the one I had, but he said it would cost a hundred pounds, which, roughly, were his wages for the week. When I promised him one on his birthday, which was next month, he smiled and said I was lonely, he would get me married!
5
‘I fancy you,’ I blurted out to him at last. It was in the smoke-filled kitchen when no one was present. He was peeling onions and there were tears in his eyes. At first, he pretended not to understand. ‘I have sex with women, not with men,’ he retorted, sniffing. Then he stopped talking to me completely. Days passed: his lips were stitched. When he had to speak, to find out, say, how many naans I wanted, he spoke very rudely, and threw the naans into my plate. Thus spake my diary: Knew my disclosure would have that kind of effect. I’m the sinner, you see, incarnation of the devil. Worried he might tell on me.
Seeing me in the dumps but not quite knowing why, Ahmed at once came to my rescue. He put me in his car and drove to a brothel where he said I’d find the loveliest of European girls. Small girls, big girls. Blondes and brunettes. He couldn’t understand it when I spurned his offer. ‘I’m just missing home, that’s all,’ I said, as he insisted on finding out the reason for my mood. I told him to drive back to the restaurant. ‘Think of us, we’ve been away from our motherland for years,’ he grumbled, taking a U-turn and accelerating, and stopping outside some other Indian restaurant. I read his thoughts: why was I seen so often in the company of his nephew and employee, when he, the owner of the restaurant, was nearer my age and status?
I was now Khalid’s enemy. The naans were still thrown into my plate, but that was our only contact. I began going down for dinner very late, usually after ten, when the place was packed with customers and everyone was busy, and came up immediately after my meal. Khalid’s off days were now a relief; I felt much better when he wasn’t there. Once or twice I said ‘hi’ to him as he was occupied with sundry chores, but he did not respond. I got it: he wanted to see, hear and speak no evil.
When they finally closed the restaurant for the night, cleaned up and left, and I was alone again, I would sneak into Khalid’s room and examine it. The dressing-table had cigarette butts scattered on it. His clothes were everywhere: shirts, trousers, underpants. Sometimes, I picked up his underpants, sniffed them and masturbated. That was therapeutic.
Then I apologized. ‘I’m sorry if I offended you,’ I said one night as he came up to smoke. He was silent for a while. Then, ‘We all make mistakes,’ he pronounced, his face very grim. ‘So why don’t you speak to me?’ I persisted. ‘No time, sir,’ he shot back.
Suddenly, he offered me a cigarette. I said I would accept it only if he made it up with me. He undid his fly and fiddled with his underwear.
The next day he asked me what I would like for dinner. I said cauliflower, but he served me brinjals. He was eating an ice cream, and left it unfinished to prepare my meal. (Since England is a fridge, this is okay.) As I ate, he kept asking me how the food was, eager to hear it was good, and although it wasn’t as divine as the stuff dished up by his uncle, I praised it to the skies. When he touched the frying pan and burnt himself, I helped him wash his hands in a basin of cold water.
But who had won? He had cleverly manipulated me into being his friend once again, as any other male might be, and such a platonic relationship was now unacceptable to me. ‘I thought of you as my older brother,’ he said to me around this time, in a tone that reeked of betrayal, and I dismissed it as incestuous rubbish. So when he tried the food trick again, bringing me some chicken dhansak to taste for the salt, I refused, saying I had vowed never to touch meat. I also discouraged his visits to my room, for he was not prepared to sit and chat, not till I’d got that ‘unclean’ thing out of my mind. We had thus reached a stalemate. Even his birthday came and passed off uneventfully: I merely wished him and asked half-heartedly for a party, to which he ungraciously replied that Muslims didn’t believe in parties. They had one every Friday!
6
At last, the countdown began: in ten days, I would leave England—and Khalid. I came back from the university with a large suitcase loaded with books, which he offered to haul up the stairs for me. He looked happy that evening. His father had unexpectedly arrived from Bangladesh. ‘What did your father get you from home?’ I asked. He made a face and explained that his father had fled from the police and come to England as a refugee.
The day after Christmas, Khalid did not report for work. Ahmed was justified in chafing because the week between Christmas and New Year is always the busiest for restaurants. I quietly instigated him to phone the fellow and summon him: these last few days, I wanted him near me all the time. But he wasn’t at home, according to his mother. Ahmed asked her to send him to the restaurant as soon as he returned. My eyes were fastened on the door, and every time someone gave it a push, my heart quivered. But Khalid never appeared that night. I went to bed hungry and downcast.
It was on the next day, when there were barely forty-eight hours left for my departure, that Khalid finally realized I was leaving. He sat by my side as I had my dinner, neglecting his orders, and said he suffered from racial prejudice in England; that he would definitely come to Bombay and ask me to show him all the film stars’ houses. And when on New Year’s Eve, amidst all the fanfare on the streets and in the restaurant, he came up to greet me as I was giving the finishing touches to my packing, he hugged me uninhibitedly. I was in the toilet shitting when he came, and he drummed on the door and asked what I was doing inside for so long. ‘What does one do in the toilet?’ I exclaimed. Afterwards, he sat on a chair close to me, and I kissed him on the mouth. Then he unzipped, took out his stout, pink, circumcised cock, and allowed me to suck. The New Year was ushered in.
7
I January is my last day in Britain. Khalid accepts the twenty-pound note I give him and serves me my last supper before I board the Flightlink Coach to Heathrow. The meal is made up of brinjals, and he tells me of a brinjal that, when cut open, was found to have had the words ‘Allah-u-Akbar’ inscribed on it. Then he launches into a sort of harangue on Islam, repeating the things he’s heard from the imams at prayer meetings on Fridays. When he talks about the tortures of hell, I suggest that in spite of its drawbacks, it is an exciting place. He does not agree; holds that t
he followers of all other faiths are infidels and bastards.
I finish my meal and wash my hands. The taxi arrives. On Ahmed’s instructions, Khalid helps me stuff my luggage in the boot, but before the taxi starts he hurries back to the restaurant. His naans are burning in the tandoori oven.
A Mermaid Called Aida
A Review
After the success of his very first documentary Nadia—the Fearless which was a fine tribute to this amazing woman of yesteryears’ Indian screen who did all her extraordinary stunts herself (today’s hero/heroines, please note), Wadia was on the lookout for another subject.
In January 1996 as he sunbathed in Goa, Wadia had the pleasure of meeting a fabulous transsexual—Aida Banaji. As he delved into her real story, he made a new friend and found the subject for his new documentary, A Mermaid Called Aida.
Rizwan Gubitra, also keen to produce a film on transsexuals, joined forces with Wadia. They then interviewed Aida on camera over a three-day, eight-hour session. Family and friends who were interviewed refused to be on film and perforce Wadia had to create prototype characters to reflect their mindsets. On the screen, it is Aida herself as she is today who tells the story (along with inputs by raconteurs who represent the people in her life) of her traumatic childhood and adolescence. This method of narration leads to some confusion, specially as to the time sequences.
The documentary attempts to unravel the harrowing struggles of a child born as Adi Banaji, to fulfil his desire to become a woman. The boy, Adi, loved to dress up as a girl and was allowed to do so but only at home. Around the age of six, whilst playing ‘doctor-doctor’, he discovered that he was different from the other girls and was promptly thrown out of their circle. He still liked to play with them and shunned rough boyish games. Around the age of thirteen, he had ‘bumps’ under his nipples. He desperately hoped that he was going to be a girl.
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