by Vasudhendra
That bastard must have seen the cash inside when I opened the drawer, Mohanaswamy thought. ‘Son of a bitch, he has looted me!’ he screamed, took the towel off his waist and flung it on the floor. He staggered into his bedroom and plopped himself on the bed, with his face buried in the pillow. It smelled of Derrick. Mohanaswamy went berserk. ‘Idiot, idiot!’ he cried out, repeatedly swatting the pillow on the bed.
He could feel his temples throbbing with anger. He thought of calling the police. But they would ask for details. He toyed with the idea of informing his friends. But they were probably busy with their families. They would at the most show sympathy. Worse, they would laugh at him. Mohanaswamy swallowed his pain in silence. He made his bed and he lay on it.
Right then the landline phone rang. He jumped off the bed, and picked up the receiver. ‘Derrick!’ he cried.
‘It’s me, your mother, Mohana … I have been trying your mobile for quite some time, but I am getting a switched off message.’ Subhadramma was on the line.
‘What happened, Amma, why are you calling so late?’ he asked impatiently.
‘Mohana, your father’s condition is very serious. He is trying to speak but phlegm is choking him, he is unable to utter a single word…’ she continued.
Mohanaswamy was completely frazzled as he sat on the bus. He had had a tough time registering a complaint about his lost credit card. The girl on the line asked him his card details before registering the complaint. But all the details were saved on his iPad which Derrick had stolen. He had to ferret out a heap of old receipts and invoices. By the time he was done with the procedure, he was completely worn out. Luckily, Derrick hadn’t used his card. Then, he had to inform his office about his missing iPad. The cost was to be borne by him. While money wasn’t a big issue, loss of data was. To cap it all, his colleagues had bombarded him with scores of questions.
Mohanaswamy was exasperated. In exchange of a few hours of pleasure, he got more than he had bargained for. He resolved not to bring strangers home again. Booking a room in a hotel seemed the best bet, even if it meant paying good money for it. But then again, that could be even more scandalous because he had heard that some hotels installed CCTV cameras in rooms. Then, what options were left?
His mother was calling him every hour. ‘I think your father’s death is approaching. He is still weeping. He is worried about you, that you are not married yet,’ she said over the phone, crying miserably.
Mohanaswamy was at his wits’ end. What is weighing on my mind the most? Is it my father’s imminent death or the loss of my iPad and other valuables? It is better if my ailing father passes away. It will be a big relief. As these ignoble thoughts came to his mind, Mohanaswamy was consumed with guilt and shame.
Of late, his relation with his father had gone cold. But as a child he had been very attached to his father. He would look forward to playing with him as soon as he came back from work. Sometimes his father would take him to the Sunday shandy. Perched high on his shoulders Mohanaswamy would feel on top of the world. During Deepawali, he would go to the market with his father to buy crackers. It was fun bursting them early morning on Naraka Chaturdashi. Both father and son would go to the barber shop together. Sitting on chairs next to each other, they would look at each other in the multiple mirrors on the walls. In some mirror, their eyes would meet and his father would wink at him with a smile. That would make little Mohanaswamy blush.
Mohanaswamy was very proud when he passed his pre-university exams with flying colours. He went around town with his head held high as people heaped praises on him. His joy knew no bounds when he got a seat in a reputed government engineering college in Bengaluru.
But that had somehow not really pleased his father, who seemed to be in a dull mood. One day, he summoned him to the backyard of the house. ‘With my meagre salary, I can’t look after your expenses in a city like Bengaluru. I also have the responsibility of marrying off your sister. You know everything,’ he said, wringing his hands.
Mohanaswamy was moved. ‘Don’t worry, Appa, I will take care of my fees and other expenses. I will find some job and work my way through college…’ he assured him. Thereafter he never asked his father for money. He worked as a newspaper vendor in the morning and as a waiter in a hotel in the evening. There were embarrassing moments when he had to throw newspapers at the doorstep of some of his classmates, or when he had to serve tea and snacks to girls from his college who came to the restaurant where he worked. But Mohanaswamy did not lose heart. He paddled his own canoe and never went cap in hand to anyone, including his parents. Now he was proud about hard work. His efforts had paid dividends. He repaid his education loan within just three years of taking up a job. Money was no longer an issue for him.
But what hurt him was his father’s indifference towards him. He noticed that he and his father were drifting apart. When he went home during holidays, his father wouldn’t talk to him with the same love and affection. He wouldn’t take him to market. When guests came home, he avoided introducing him to them. Appa had changed. But Amma had not. She was the same doting mother, who seemed to have quite forgotten that her son was an adult and not a child any longer. He missed her when he was in Bengaluru but when he went home he sometimes felt suffocated by her smothering love. After he finished his engineering degree and got a job, she was after him to get married. ‘Why do you say no to marriage? What is wrong with you?’ she cried. Then she would seek divine intervention by performing some puja or the other. On somebody’s advice she even performed Srinivasa Kalyana, the wedding ritual of Lord Thimmappa, for eleven consecutive weeks. But even that did not help as her adamant son stuck to his guns. ‘This Lord Thimmappa is shameless. He will get married any number of times but has no concern for my son!’ she would shower curses on her god.
After he started getting a big, fat pay cheque at the end of each month, he tried giving money to his father whenever he went home. His father hesitated to even touch it. ‘Give it to your mother, I don’t want it,’ he would say. But his mother would take the money. She would proudly tell her friends about it.
Although Subhadramma loved her son a lot, it was difficult for her to understand his sensibilities. It was only Mohanaswamy’s father who could faintly discern his behaviour which he found to be very different from the boys of his age. Subbaraya used to read The Hindu newspaper everyday and had become familiar with terms like ‘gay’ and ‘homosexual’. Once or twice he had even discussed the matter indirectly with his colleagues. Though his son had not revealed it, he doubted whether his Mohana’s temperament was akin to what he had read in the newspapers. He had noticed that Mohanaswamy took more interest in feminine tasks. He would keenly draw rangoli designs in the veranda during Sankranthi festival. Like his sister, he loved applying mehendi on his palms. Initially, Subbaraya dismissed all these as childhood tendencies which he assumed would fizzle out as his son grew up. But once, when Mohanaswamy was in college, he saw him secretively wearing his sister’s bangles, and sensed that somewhere something was seriously wrong.
Subbaraya was under the impression that people called ‘gays’ were a group of perverts living in far-off big cities like Mumbai or Kolkata. So he was scandalized when a thing called homosexuality came knocking on the doors of his orthodox family. He didn’t have the nerve to ask his son directly. He couldn’t share it even with his friends and colleagues. Whenever the topic of homosexuality came up for discussion at his office, he would be all ears. ‘Such things happen if parents don’t raise their children properly. A father should realize that just sowing a seed is not enough. He should also know how to raise the tree,’ a colleague had once remarked. His words pierced Subbaraya like a sword and left him wallowing in guilt. Where did I go wrong in bringing up my son? he would often ask himself.
An incident had taken place during Mohanaswamy’s high school days that worsened his father’s worries. There was a well in the backyard of their house. Subbaraya used to bathe by the well every morning. He would remove
all his clothes except his striped briefs, draw water from the well by lowering a pot into it and pour water over his body. After his bath, he would wipe himself with a towel and wrap it around his waist, while sliding his underwear off. Then he would wash the underwear on the raised stone platform, spread it out to dry and then go inside the house.
While Subbaraya religiously washed himself every morning by the well, what he did not notice initially was a pair of small eyes watching him all along. The moment he started pouring water over himself, Mohanaswamy would run up to the terrace, taking the stairs. ‘Why do you run so fast? What’s the hurry? Go slowly!’ he had chided the boy a couple of times. But when it became a daily affair, he was perplexed. ‘Why are you running to the terrace now?’ he asked but did not get any convincing answer. He grew suspicious and started watching him closely. What was little Mohanaswamy up to? To his horror, Subbaraya realized that his son ran to the terrace to catch a glimpse of his nude body.
The truth was not only saddening, it was nauseating. The next time he saw Mohanaswamy running to the terrace, he upbraided him, ‘Oye, Mohana, why are you going up the terrace? Come down. Go inside and study.’ He gave him a beating and after that, Mohanaswamy did not go to the terrace when his father was bathing.
As Mohanaswamy grew up, Subbaraya realized that overall, his son’s gait, body language, tone of speech and behaviour matched what was written in the newspapers about gays. And this realization was a bitter pill to swallow.
His worst fears came true following another ugly event. They lived a small house. There were no separate rooms for parents and children. They all slept in the middle yard – Mother, Father, Mohanaswamy and his sister Janaki, all next to each other – spreading mattresses on the floor. The parents would wait till late night for the children to fall asleep so that they could have their moments of intimacy. As time passed, even the parents lost the interest and patience to wait till the children slept. They would doze off along with children.
Once, in his sleep, Subbaraya felt a hand clasping his private organ. Assuming it to be his wife, he stretched his arms towards her. But she was in deep sleep and was quite irritated to be disturbed. ‘Take your hands off, it is so humid! Why don’t you simply go off to sleep?’ she snapped and turned to the other side. Subbaraya was confused. But when the same incident repeated itself the following nights, he grew suspicious and turned to look at Mohanaswamy, sleeping next to him. He shook him in an attempt to wake him up, but Mohanaswamy did not open his eyes. You can’t wake a person who is pretending to be asleep. Subbaraya was shocked. Unable to stomach his son’s behaviour, he sat up, put both his hands on his face and wept silently.
He did not mention the incident to his wife because he knew it was of no use, she simply wouldn’t understand. But he brought about a change in the sleeping arrangement. He told her, ‘Our children are growing up. From today onwards let them sleep in the other corner, a little away from us.’
She resisted the idea. ‘Why? They are still small, let them sleep near us, else they will get scared,’ she said.
But Subbaraya was firm in his decision. There on, the children started sleeping away from their parents. Mohanaswamy sensed the motive behind his father’s decision and became very careful with him henceforth.
After Subbaraya understood his son’s sexual orientation, he hesitated to scold or beat him. An incident that had taken place in his childhood was etched in his memory. Subbaraya had a friend named Thippeswamy, a jovial and clever boy, very popular in class. But he died when they were in tenth standard. The image of his body floating in a well and his father sitting and sobbing still hovered before Subbaraya’s eyes. Only two days before that, Subbaraya and his friends had gone to the temple fair in town. The main attraction at the fair was the sight of beautiful girls roaming around coyly. Thippeswamy had joined his friends, but unlike them, he wasn’t staring at girls or raving about them. Subbaraya had noticed it. He also noticed that Thippeswamy look for excuses to touch him unnecessarily. But he ignored it.
Suddenly there was commotion at the fair. Rudre Gowda, son of a leader of the town, was found slapping Thippeswamy across the face, left and right, holding him by the collar.
‘I am sorry, I am sorry, leave me!’ Thippeswamy was pleading.
A furious Rudre Gowda continued bashing him and pushed him to the floor.
‘What happened, what happened?’ the boys asked Thippeswamy, anxiously flocking around him. But the boy did not utter a word and went home crying.
Rudre Gowda wouldn’t leave it at that, given the age-old acrimony between his and Thippeswamy’s families. The next morning he went and stood in front of their house, yelling at the top of his voice. A big crowd gathered as Rudre Gowda hurled a stream of expletives at Thippeswamy’s father. ‘What is this? What kind of a son have you fathered? Yesterday, during the fair he pawed my cock and pulled it. Is he a man, or something else? Do one thing, just wrap him in a sari and make him a jogati, a eunuch!’ he shouted, spitting on the ground. Then, with a wicked smile on his face, he narrated the whole incident to the curious onlookers.
Thippeswamy’s father was suffused with crippling shame. He dragged his petrified son to the front of the crowd and asked furiously, ‘Did you do that? Did you really do that? Tell me!’
‘Sorry, Appa, I am sorry. I won’t do it again!’ Thippeswamy cried miserably. His father whipped him black and blue with a twig of a tamarind tree. Thippeswamy’s teary eyes searched for his friend Subbaraya in the crowd and they held a desperate plea to save him. That piteous scene remained etched on Subbaraya’s mind. Finally, an elderly person saved Thippeswamy from his father.
The next morning, Thippeswamy’s body, covered with bruises, was found floating in the well. ‘It’s only natural for a father to punish his son who commits a mistake. Why did the boy take such an extreme step?’ people discussed, blaming the victim.
Rudre Gowda also came to see the body. ‘If young boys tread the wrong path, it is the duty of us elders to correct them. How could I simply keep quiet?’ he went on telling people, defending himself.
As a young boy, Subbaraya couldn’t fully comprehend his friend Thippeswamy’s behaviour. But things became clearer after he observed similar traits in his son Mohanaswamy. In fact, when he looked into his son’s eyes, he saw Thippeswamy there. He resisted scolding or beating him. At the same time, he lost all his affection for him. One day, he broached the matter with his wife.
‘Somehow, I feel Mohana’s growth is not happening the way it should be,’ he said in a low tone. He knew that his wife would not be familiar with words like ‘gay’ and ‘homosexual’, so he tried to put it as sensitively as possible.
‘Why do you say that? What is wrong with our Mohanaswamy? He has grown so big and hefty.’
‘No, no … not that,’ Subbaraya stuttered. ‘I think he is not growing into a man in the proper sense. Maybe he will not be in a position to get married,’ he added hesitatingly.
Subhadramma hit back savagely, ‘Are you in your senses? Do you know what you are saying? How can you say such things about your own son?’ She began sobbing.
Subbaraya grew weary. ‘Why do you cry over each and every damn thing? I just told you what I feel. If you don’t want to believe it, don’t!’ He walked angrily towards the backyard.
Subhadramma went to the backyard, stood in front of her husband and said firmly, ‘I have always worshipped god with utter devotion and sincerity. God cannot deceive me like this.’
Though Subhadramma spoke firmly to her husband, she was also aware that everything wasn’t normal. She recalled how her son, till recently, used to bring water from the tap, holding the pot against his waist like girls. She told him several times to carry it on his shoulders like boys, but he would not listen. He had no interest in spinning tops and playing marbles with the boys of his age. Instead, he loved weaving wire baskets, often snatching one from his mother. Once, when he was in the second year of his engineering course, his mother had seen him
standing in front of the mirror and painting his lips red with a paste of vermilion and oil. She was taken aback. Of late, she had been hearing snide remarks about her son from women in the town who were curious to know why he was not getting married.
About two or three years after taking up a job in Bengaluru, Mohanaswamy had come home. That night, after savouring home food to his heart’s content, he went to bed and was soon snoring softly. This time, his mother, determined to test his virility, went and sat at the corner of his bed. She was ashamed of the act she intended to do, but was firm in her resolve to find out the truth. A profound sense of guilt overwhelmed her, but she tried to console herself. So what? After all he is my son. I have carried him in my womb for nine months. No doubt he has grown up, but in my eyes he is still a kid. I washed his butt when he was a child, I gave him baths. When he was down with fever, I changed his underwear. So, why should I feel ashamed? God forgive me, my intentions are not immoral, she tried to salve her conscience. Then, gathering up courage, she slowly removed his blanket and brushed his lungi aside. She placed her quivering hand on his penis beneath the underwear.
It was erect.
The moment she felt its stiffness, she was relieved. All her doubts were cleared.
Mohanaswamy felt the touch and opened his eyes. He was bewildered to see his mother sitting next to him. What’s going on? Did my mother just touch my cock? Mohanaswamy was appalled.
‘What is this, Amma?’ he asked, straightening up his lungi.
Subhadramma broke down. ‘What do you know of a mother’s plight? The whole town is inquisitive about your manhood. And you are not telling me the truth. What else could I have done?’
Mohanaswamy understood the situation but did not know how to react.
After sobbing for a while, Subhadramma muttered, ‘God is great. The fruit of my womb is a boy. Now I don’t have to fear anybody or anything.’ She caressed his head, planted a kiss on his forehead and said, ‘Now you sleep peacefully.’ She then headed to the puja room, lit the lamp with wicks dipped in ghee, joined her palms in front of the idol and murmured, ‘I know you will not leave me. I believe in you.’ She then went to her husband, woke him up and broke the news, ‘My son is a man. Let there be no doubts about it.’