Forsaken

“Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way”  –  Leo Tolstoy

13^th March 2009: It was the worst night of my life. I had advertently injected the venom of unhappiness into my family… When a child is born, the only thing that connects is the umbilical cord. But even after the doctor has severed it in order to separate the child from his mother, there exists till death an intangible connection between the two humans, a relationship which no power can annihilate, a right which no law or religion can change…. But On that evening I had put that very bond to its toughest possible test…

 

A Mother

“It happens the second Sunday of every may, we celebrate the women who give us  life and so much more, the ones who protect us at all costs, who have the courage to fight those who do us harm, who put our happiness ahead of their own but mostly we celebrate a mother’s love which is constant, internal and fair from the very beginning.”         – Desperate Housewives

 It was like any other day; I was busy in my office. Never would I have thought that life can change in the blink of an eye. At around 4am I received a call from my parents. I knew at once that it was one of those weekly reminders of my growing age and I should get married to make them proud and the society satisfied. But this time it was different. It was a proposal from a girl’s family who happened to meet all their socio-physical criteria… she was tall, obviously fair skinned, well educated and above all she was incomparably beautiful. My dad expressed his approval and I kept nodding my head insouciantly until he uttered something that rattled me up. He said “I will send you her pictures and once you have agreed, I shall commit to the girl’s family. You are my son and you know that I don’t break a promise once made….” I could feel my cell phone slipping off my perspiring hands, I wanted to turn down his offer like before but somehow his commanding voice, the faith and expectations exuding from his last sentence seemed to nip me in the bud… Even before I could say a word, I heard my mom’s voice and she kept praising the girl, how beautiful she looked and what a perfect couple we would make. She said “You always wanted a wife like Aishwarya Rai and now we have got an Aishwarya for you”… As if I had been drugged with an overdose, my conscience had ceased to reciprocate. I asked her to call me back when my dad wasn’t around her…. 

An hour later I was on a call with her. In the next 39 minutes, I told her everything and she listened with wistful silence. She was so quiet that sometimes I had to confirm if she was listening or even present at the other end. Once I had finished I realized that I had spoken either too much for her to believe or too little to convince. Nevertheless, for the first time I felt how easy it is to hide behind a lie and how difficult to come out with a naked truth. Say something mom. Please. Don’t hate me, I am the same son who bought you the best gifts every year, I am the one who bought you the priceless watch and perfumes from Paris, I have made you proud amongst your friends… I wanted to tell her so many things but every word or excuse for forgiveness seemed so trivial. Finally she spoke.

“How do plan to live your life? Don’t you need a life partner to share your happiness and sorrows?” I replied “yes and I will find someone”. And she immediately reverted “Who will that be? A girl of your choice or………….a man?” I chuckled at the idiosyncrasy of the very question but my mom’s silence reassured me that it wasn’t funny. “If you don’t marry a woman how can you father a child?” she asked.

 Dan White: Society can’t exist without the family.
Harvey Milk: We’re not against that.
Dan White:    Can two men reproduce?
Harvey Milk: No, but God knows we keep trying.

 For a moment her question seemed to churn up memories of this dialogue from the movie MILK. Before I could say anything she added “How can I die peacefully knowing that my younger son is all alone in this world with no one to take care of his needs?”

She talked about her dreams to see me settled with a beautiful woman and have a cute child, how she had longed for this day to see her best son grow up into a man capable of loving another woman. She reminded me all those wonder moments when I pampered her and brought her jewelry and cosmetics, how I complimented her every time she returned from a parlor…She asked me “You respect and care for a woman so much? How can you not be capable of loving another woman?  I didn’t have an answer to her question. All I could do is try to subdue her hysteria…  She went on and on, at times she cried and I wished I was there to wipe her tears. Her sorrow was palpable and there was nothing I could do but watch her dreams and hopes crumble down to dust.

At the end of our conversation, she had stopped crying but then, I could feel a tiny drop trickling down my eyes. I wanted to wipe it off but I didn’t, it was the least I could sacrifice for the most important woman of my life. I wasn’t sure if she understood a gay’s travesty, I wasn’t certain if she had forgiven a man who had deceived her all through life but what I did know was she tried her best to retain a mother’s love for her newfangled son.

 

A Father

 “The world is filled with good fathers. How do we recognize them? They’re the ones who are missed so terribly that everything falls apart. They’re the ones who love us long before we even arrive. They’re the ones who come looking for us when we can’t find our way home.  Yes…the world is filled with good fathers. The best are the ones who make the women in their lives feel like good mothers.” – - Desperate Housewives

 15^th March 2009: It had been 2 days since I heard from them. The silence was killing me and so was my guilt. I wasn’t sure of my father’s reaction to this unsavory truth. Has my mom told him yet? Or have they decided not to speak to me anymore? On the third day he called and the first thing he did was laugh! For a moment, I felt I was the luckiest gay man on this subcontinent, being born to a mother who cared more about my loneliness than sexuality and a father who thought being gay was funny rather than shameful. I was about to thank him until he spoke. My heart leapt and I realized I was too optimistic….

“You have lost your mind, son! You know so little about yourself. You are confused. You have been living alone for quite sometime and in bad company; you have been brainwashed by the Europeans. This is not in our blood, I loved a woman and so did your brother and so can u.” I wanted to speak but he didn’t pay heed. He went on and on about my upbringing and responsibilities towards my family and society. For a moment I felt as if I was a new born, a child suddenly thrown into this merciless, inconsiderate new world where everyone thought he was insane. What’s happening to me? This is not how I expected things would turn up. My dad always wanted me to marry a woman like Madonna, he always demanded I should party, watch movies only on the late night shifts; he never objected to my drinking or staying out whole night. He has been the coolest dad of all. But then, why today? How is ‘loving only a woman’ become my responsibility rather than natural instinct?

At one point I interrupted and explained to him about my feelings for a man. He listened for a while and said “Shut up!! Enough is enough. Men don’t love Men! Men don’t love dolls….You are getting married to a woman. This is for your own happiness”. His state of self denial seemed to have transcended my limit of endurance and I exploded. “This is not about my happiness Dad! Don’t lie. This was never about me. You wanted me to wear the clothes you chose, the school where you wanted me to study, the higher education what you wanted me to pursue to make you proud. It was always about you and your happiness. Do not forget, I am your son and not a slave.” He handed over the phone to my mom. I felt relieved and requested her to convince my dad. But she spoke the same language as him. For a moment I felt betrayed. I said “If you force me to marry I swear I will kill my wife and then myself. Don’t push; I can be very cruel.”  It took her a few seconds to digest the bestiality of the words I uttered and she replied “Well then, we will leave you alone and you leave us alone too. There is nothing between us anymore. The last few words seemed to have got lost somewhere between my inner voice and a mother’s agony. Once again I could feel tiny drops beneath my eyes. But this time I felt as if they were burning their path down my cheeks. There was complete silence on the phone until I heard a gentle click. Is it the phone or something that snapped inside me? I wasn’t sure until I heard a continuous beeping noise….

 

A Lover

“Don’t ever give up if you still want to try,

Don’t ever wipe your tears if you still want to cry.

Don’t ever settle for an answer if you still want to know.

          Don’t ever say you don’t love him if you can’t let him go.” – Unknown

22^nd March 2009: It had been 3 years since we had come together on this particular street of Bangalore. Nothing much had changed; the same elite shops, the hawkers hankering after every passer-by and the people window-shopping with their friends, lovers or family. Nothing much had changed except us. I still remember the day in 2006; he looked stunning in his black kurta (shirt) walking with me in the soldering heat. That was our first official date. And today after all these years I felt all my pent up memories which I thought had faded away were in fact waiting, waiting for this moment to gush in like a wild river and flood my mind.

 I hadn’t still recovered from the shock since I saw him today at my door. He had come to pick me up for dinner; our occasional rendezvous that we both indulge in once a month just to retrospect our long forsaken feelings. The moment I laid my eyes on him, the first thought that came to my mind was of regret …of letting him go, of not having tried enough to hold on to him. He looked irresistibly beautiful in his new European hair style. You have changed so much in these years… from an average, darker complexioned, ill tempered small town boy to this gorgeous, sober, well built young man. 

As we walked through the street, besides the emotions raging in me there was something else that was bothering me a lot. The million eyes staring at him… like vultures desperate to devour on his vulnerable youth and captivating appearance. He had warned me earlier about this street, also known as the “Gayopolis”, a haven for the young and the pretentious gay crowd. There were herds of men reposed like cormorants chatting, letching hideously at every possible young man passing by. At the street corner my eyes caught site of a pizza house that reminded me of something. It was at this place he had asked me for a pizza lunch 3 years ago. But I couldn’t afford. It was our first date and I had to turn him down. He probably didn’t mind but I could not forgive myself. After that day I never tasted a pizza even when I could afford it until last year when I bought him lunch at a pizza corner. While we walked past it I looked at my companion with a smile and raised eyebrows hoping it would remind him of something but he didn’t respond…. 

The street was overcrowded and I felt how much I missed the serene and cold empty streets of Europe with the street musicians playing violin. Many a times my companion came across his gay acquaintances; he introduced me to them as his friend; although the word ‘friend’ sounded disgracefully inappropriate I had no choice but to hide my disappointment with a masquerading smile. During their conversations his friends pretended as if I didn’t exist or may be they wished they could replace me for the evening. At one point of time I had to walk away from them feeling suffocated by the stench of their vicious gossips…. Who’s dating whom, who is f***ing whom, who is cheating on his partner and who has the hottest boyfriend. Just then I came across a young beautiful girl child selling red roses to the passers by. She looked tired, hungry and desperate… desperate for someone who would buy her roses before they wither away, desperate for a soul who could rescue her from this merciless and unforgiving world of self-conceited people. I pitied her, not just for her condition but for her ignorance. I wanted to tell her that very few men here would appreciate the value of a red rose and even fewer deserved to be gifted with it.

 The street had soon started to resemble the RLD of Amsterdam except that there were promiscuous men desperate for free sex instead of white blonde girls with a price tag on their couch. It was almost midnight but our restaurant was surprisingly thronged by a huge crowd. What was more surprising was the sudden change in my ex-lover’s behavior. He had turned silent and kept looking at a shady staircase nearby. Before I could ask him anything, he said “This was the place….where we did it.” I knew what he was referring to. This was the exact place where he gave his first and last infamous public kiss to his last boyfriend, a lover that wasn’t me. As far as I remember he had always been a reticent man deft in concealing his emotions but unfortunately even today, he hasn’t been quite successful in mastering the art in front of his first love. 

“I still love him a lot. I still miss him and cry for him almost every night. He still looks so beautiful and handsome.”  These were his words when I met him soon after his last broken relationship. All these years, I had consoled myself thinking that he never loved me truly because he wasn’t capable of loving anyone. But now I learnt that he never loved me because I wasn’t good enough for him; an unrequited love is a painful affair but to watch him love someone else so dearly is a death wish.

It was 1:00 am and he had become the dream boy or fantasy partner of almost every girl and gay man around our dinner table. But no one looked at me. Have I become really too old and unattractive? Where is all the attention that I used to relish in Europe? After dinner as we strolled I wanted to hold his hand but was afraid… that it might remind him of his ex-lover and the wonderful moments they both shared. On our way back, I sat on his bike with my hands clasped to the rear handle. After a kilometer he turned his face and said “There are other things on this bike you might wanna hold on to.” Without a second thought I wrapped my arms around his chest as firmly as I could and rested my face on his shoulder. The entire journey I kept my eyes closed… my mind was being inundated by countless revelations. First time it occurred to me that I had been holding on to something that I had lost long time ago. And today I realized that he had gone too far away; it is true I had loved this man but when he was within my reach and today he stands taller than me as a handsome, beautiful prince with choices, admirers and lovers way better than what I could offer.  

Before he left my apartment he gave me a warm hug and I regretted that I just made an irreversible mistake. Knowingly or unknowingly, once again I had let him create some new beautiful memories of tonight, memories that will remain afresh for days and nights to come, memories that will haunt me every time I get up on a bike or walk the same street with someone else. When I went to bed that night fragments of the evening kept flashing in front of me like an old documentary… the staircase where he tossed my love for someone else’s, the emaciated face of the girl trying to sell the red roses, the warmth of love as I held him on his bike and the minute long hug….. I could feel water droplets garnering fast at the corner of my eye and an impregnable darkness settling around me…..I had just lost the last star of my life and had reached the darkest hour of my night. I never knew when I fell asleep…..

And a Life without Them 

“A tragedy need not have blood and death; it’s enough …that it all be filled with that majestic sadness that is the pleasure of tragedy.” – Jean Racine

A few days ago, I was sitting in my balcony reckoning the ones I had lost and those I wish I didn’t.  And the question that I continue to ask myself: Was that all worth it? What have I really gained by loosing so much?  I had just narrated everything to my best friend a day before and he said “You were always a bad friend and now a bad son.” Where did I go wrong? How can I be a bad friend and son just because I refused to be a husband?  

As his words kept echoing, my eyes fell on a child riding a tri-cycle. He was giggling and screaming in joy when suddenly another child barged in and pulled out the happy kid. He stood there alone watching his momentary happiness being taken away by someone else. Although the giggling had disappeared, there still remained discernible traces of a smile on his face. He wanted to cry but didn’t because he knew he had no choice. The cycle didn’t belong to him and neither his parents can afford the same, after all he was the son of one of the impoverished construction workers…. At that very moment, in the smile of the forsaken child I realized where I went wrong; I was wrong when I demanded the doll, when I took my family and friends for granted, when I refused to let go off things even after I had lost it… I was wrong all these years.

If the price of a man is in the love he has accrued through life, then his life is the price he has to pay if he looses that love. 

Yes, If you ever walk into my bedroom of my parent’s house you will come across lot of things….Toys that speak of happy days which would never come back to that house, the poster of a beautiful woman who had been the perfect alibi to a man’s darkest sin, a doll that reminds of an irreversible mistake and a family portrait in front of the monument of love (the Taj Mahal) that tells us one of those age old stories: a story of a prodigal son who decides to reveal his darkest secret, of a mother whose cherished dreams wither away faster than her youth, a father’s ego that refuses to perceive the hidden agony brewing inside his son’s helpless soul, an elder brother who demands his younger sibling to get his brain ‘fixed’ by a psychiatrist and lastly a lover who fails to rekindle ‘the old flame’ in the darkest night of his ex-lover. Yes, everything that had happened might seem like a familiar tragic story to all of us but what’s more tragic…is that it had all happened to me.

 

The End