Marginal Man

by Charu Nivedita

  Back when I was a child, I used to eat fifteen idlis and now, at the age of sixty, I eat only ten. I am a maniac for only two things – food and sex. How did I expect to survive on a mere ten idlis?

  One night, I had sex for two hours continuously. The following morning, I went for a walk on Rue St. Denis in La Chapelle.Whenever I go to Paris I stayed in one of the lodges at La Chapelle so that I could be near to Anjali whose house too was perched there. My body was aching above the waist, but there was something enjoyable about that pain. My gastric muscles were hurting and I wanted them to hurt even more. Surprisingly, Anjali too was experiencing the same pains.

  I was walking on the Rue St. Denis, when I was contemplating how that street that was built by Romans in first century pacified the libido of men these days, my friend Vikram accosted me and asked, “Were you binge-drinking yesterday, Udhaya?”

  “No, why?”

  “Your eyes look peculiar, that’s why.”

  “Oh, I had sex for two hours on the run.”

  Vikram couldn’t give me a coherent reply. He blabbered and smiled sheepishly. Finally, he closed his mouth with one hand and hurried off.

  I could have lied to Vikram, but I don’t know how to tell lies. If I had to tell a lie, I’d have needed an hour to make one up. Speaking the truth was the most convenient thing for me to do. The truth is like fast food – it can be delivered at once. But just like fast food is bad for health, telling the truth is also bad for one’s life and reputation. Now, Vikram will find someone else to tell my story to and that someone else would find someone else again and eventually, the whole place will be ringing with the story of my sex-marathon and all the common men will conclude that I am a sex-psycho or a Tamil Don Quixote. But hey, your sex-life shouldn’t deteriorate with age. Back home, I know of seventy five year old men who could father children. Dear Reader, don’t rap out that it might not be the old man’s kid. I know a sixty-five-year-old writer who has four wives and three dozen lovers. I’ve met some of his women who have told me he’s still a livewire in bed. I came to know from a source that he’d slept with more than three thousand women. But you know what? I don’t think this is anything unusual.

  If these stories are inspiring, remember that I’ve given you a lot of virility-enhancing tips in this novel.

  During that marvelous time in bed with Anjali, I laughed and said, “And that Maravarman Sundarapandian wrote me off as an old man.”

  “Who’s Maravaram Sundarapandian?”

  “Who do you think? A Tamil writer. As a Tamil writer, even if I make it to heaven, I’ll still be thinking about hell. That’s why I remembered that fellow now.”

  “Oh, forget him Udhaya! He’s the old man, not you,” Anjali said, hugging me to her bosom.

  Do you know that Michael Phelps consumes 12,000 calories daily? A young man, to be fit and healthy, needs only two thousand calories. Like Phelps, my food habits and my sex habits are extraordinary.

  When I think of calories, I am reminded of an amusing incident. Balu and I had gone to Coimbatore where we stayed with Rajesh. Rajesh is someone who is obsessed with health to a fault and he tries to extend his interest to other people as well.

  In the morning, the three of us had omelets with bread. In the afternoon, Balu and I had two pegs of whiskey and ate biryani. For dinner, we thought of ordering chicken kebabs, but Rajesh was not for it.

  “You’ve already consumed enough calories for the day,” he said. “Five hundred calories for breakfast and more than two thousand calories for lunch.”

  When we returned to Chennai, Venkatesh, Rajesh’s brother asked us, “How was your trip to Coimbatore?”

  “Fantastic,” I replied.

  Balu looked less than enthusiastic.

  “What’s the matter?” Venkatesh asked.

  “It was okay, but your brother goes slightly nuts when it comes to food.”

  “Ah, yes! He counts calories.”

  “Yes, he does. In the morning we had bread with omelets and for lunch we had whiskey and biryani and the bugger kept saying we ate calories. Neither of us ate calories!”

  Venkatesh and I had to drink two extra pegs that day to explain to Balu what calories were.

  There was a teacher in Chennai’s Alliance Française called Indu who told us about a French candy manufactured by Carambar. It was a chewy candy that was made of caramel.

  “There is a similar Indian sweet,” she said, “but I can’t remember what it’s called. The word ends with ‘kattu.’”

  Immediately, a North Indian girl shouted, “Jallikattu!”

  Thereafter, everybody called her Jallikattu. (She meant to say ‘kamarkattu.’)

  Indu told us that the Carambar candies had word jokes printed on the inside of their wrappers like: If a vampire goes to America, where would it stay? In the Vampire State Building.

  Our first day at AF actually began with a Carambar joke. In AF, French is taught in French (which was the reason for my repeated failures). When Indu entered the class, she greeted everyone in French.

  “Bonjour!”

  Everyone knew what that meant, so we happily returned the greeting.

  She approached a girl sitting in the front row and said, “Je m’appelle Indu. Comment vous vous appelez?”

  Nobody understood anything. Indu tried actions.

  Pointing her index finger to her chest, she repeated, “Je m’appelle Indu.” Then, she pointed at the girl and said, “Comment vous vous appelez?”

  “Muslim,” the girl replied.

  Indu burst into peals of laughter and nobody understood why.

  Let’s return to my problem of completing this novel. How the fuck was I supposed to do it if I’m spending most of my time foraging for food and listening to lengthy spiritual discourses? Thinking I’d need another year, I left for Ooty.

  It was so cold in Ooty that I ended up spending most of my time trying to keep warm instead of writing. As it was raining, I couldn’t go out. I wasted one week in the company of friends, drinking and chatting. When I returned home, I had to deal with the double-burden of hunger and work...

  During this time, I was plagued by the people who came calling and tapping at the gate – the men who deliver cooking gas, the water boys, the vegetable vendor, the people from the Board of Electricity, the maid, the maid’s daughter, people seeking directions to people’s houses, North Indian carpet sellers, beggars, the milkman, the fellow who came around collecting the monthly cable TV fee, the ironer, the flower seller, the newspaper man, sales representatives, the postman, couriers… Okay, I could even deal with all those folks, but not the garbage collectors. Every morning, I’d wake up at four and start working on my novel without even having a cup of coffee. The garbage collectors would knock at the gate at six and demand money. Perundevi had spoiled them. The neighbors wouldn’t even part with a paisa. They felt that the garbage collectors were being paid salaries and hence didn’t need to ask for money like beggars. And these neighbours were wealthy as fuck, mind you.

  Garbage is collected twice a day on this street. After visiting at six for money, the garbage collectors would return again at eleven asking for water. One day I asked them why they never bothered the neighbors. They told me that the neighbors would only give them tap water which was infested with worms.

  With all these botherations, I was only able to write a few pages over a period of one month. Wanting to get the novel done with, I decided to go write in Bangalore. The weather there was clement – ideal for writing. As always, I stayed in Brindavan Hotel. There were at least fifty pubs within a one kilometer radius and Brigade Road – the most happening place in Bangalore – was just a stone’s throw away. Again, with so many tempting distractions, how was I supposed to write? On the first day of my stay there, I went to a discotheque called Hind on the terrace of Central Mall with Kokkarakko. It was a space for two hundred
people, but there were close to five hundred people packed into that room – 450 women and 50 men. Drinks were flowing everywhere and rock music was blaring. That music was infectious, but in spite of that, nobody was dancing. Everyone was just standing around, tapping their feet and bobbing their heads. When I enquired about this state of affairs, I was told, “The police commissioner has strictly forbidden dancing.”

  All the women in Hind were skimpily dressed. How beautiful their thighs looked in their little mini-skirts and shorts!

  Wait, hang on! What the fuck am I talking? How could a one-woman-man like me feel so tempted? A little while ago, I was sure I could have sex and friendship with no other woman but Anjali. How did a few pairs of sexy thighs change my mind?

  “Right now, I feel like a male chauvinist pig,” I told Kokkarakko, “and I’m ashamed of it.”

  Anjali and I have had countless petty fights over petty affairs because of my possessiveness.

  She had a guitarist cum globetrotter friend called Arvind who shared all his love affairs with her. He was committed to a female named Shilpa. One day, when he was leaving her apartment, a group of loitering youths asked him, “How much for one night?”

  He, noble heroic defender that he was, started barking at them, but they calmed him down and gave him some valuable information.

  “After you drop her off, a fellow on a bike comes here. She leaves with him and returns only the next day.”

  On hearing this, Arvind parked his car out of sight and hung around near her apartment to verify if this was true. Half an hour later, a fellow on a bike arrived and Shilpa came out, hopped on and rode off. Arvind followed them, keeping a safe trailing distance. When the dude dropped Shilpa home, it was midnight. He figured Shilpa was up when the light came on in her bedroom (but the mystery man didn’t come down) and shortly after, the light went out. He waited there till seven in the morning. Shilpa was still in bed. He went upstairs and knocked on her door. A middle-aged man answered.

  “Who do you want?” he asked Arvind.

  Arvind pushed him aside and barged in. He banged on the bedroom door. It was opened by a groggy, surprised young man who clearly hadn’t been expecting an angry male visitor so early in the morning.

  “Who are you?” he asked sleepily. “What do you want?”

  “That bitch in the bed you’ve been fucking? I’m her boyfriend. I mean I was.”

  Though Arvind said he broke up with her after that fiasco, the lovers have patched up now. I don’t give a shit about all these but what bothers me is he calls Anjali as ”princess.”

  When I told Anjali I didn’t like the idea, she told me, “You have female friends too, Udhaya. What’s your problem with me having a male friend?”

  “He calls you ‘princess.’ That’s my problem. Shouldn’t it only be me calling you that?”

  Udhaya, you call yourself broadminded and now you’re telling me a “princess-matter” has ruffled your feathers? Do you think a “princess-matter” would have made Suresh toss and turn in his sleep?

  If Suresh had been the kind to be affected by such things, I wouldn’t have pursued things with you, Udhaya. I don’t matter to him, so do you think a “princess-matter” matters to him? Your friend Kokkarakko doesn’t know anything about women. Anjali.

  “Look Udhaya, Arvind is a longtime friend. He grew up in France which is why he talks that way and thinks nothing of it. If you could meet him just once, it will put your mind at ease.”

  “Why the hell should I meet him? Does he know about me?”

  “No.”

  “If he knew, he wouldn’t dare call you ‘princess.’ Besides, what does he know about your life?”

  “Even after the two of you meet, he’ll continue to call me ‘princess.’”

  “No, he will not! Don’t ever talk about him to me again.”

  Anjali never did talk about him again. But still, I kept thinking of him.

  Now let me tell you about another incident.

  Anjali was going gaga over a Hindi film and I went to see it on her recommendation. She told me that the lead actor’s eyes were “divine.” When she said that, I wasn’t able to watch the movie any further. True, he had green eyes – a rarity in India. But why the fuck did she have to call them ‘divine?’ And, truth be told, I don’t think she was swooning over his eyes. I think it was his bare torso and his low trousers that had her drooling. And in one scene, the camera gave us a generous shot of his navel. That camera was like a woman, its lascivious glass eye roaming over the actor’s body.

  Alright, Anjali. If you want to ogle at that actor’s eyes, don’t mind if I drool over Priyanka Chopra’s lips. Nobody in this world has her luscious lips. I’m going to write her a sexy love letter, okay?

  I left the theater after sending Anjali a message telling her that I hated the film and why. She replied to me the same day.

  I don’t need a hero when I have you. If you don’t like something, fine. I don’t like it either. Don’t ever doubt my feelings for a split second. I love you, I can’t wait to see you and have you hold me in your arms. It’s been long, so long...

  When I met her in my next visit, she told me, “Nobody’s ever been so possessive about me, Udhaya.”

  Uh-oh.

  “You know; your possessiveness doesn’t annoy me. I rather like it.”

  Phew!

  There was this other time I was traveling by train when Anjali sent me a text.

  -> Are there any young women near you?

  I’ve never been blessed with such good fortune. <-

  -> Oh, you poor thing!

  How would you feel if there was a young woman sitting next to me? <-

  -> What kind of question is that? I’d be irritated!

  Why? You don’t trust me? <-

  -> I do trust you. And you want to know something? Just as you are possessive of me, I am possessive of you. I’ve never been this way with anyone, never felt this way about anyone, never cared this way about anyone. Get that straight, Udhaya. I love you.

  Chapter Twenty

  Ladies and Gentlemen, The Harami!

  If there is one word to describe Kokkarakko, it’s harami. Hearing the kinds of things he did would turn anyone’s hair grey. Once, while driving down to Chennai from Bangalore, he stopped his car and took a picture of his three-year-old daughter standing in the middle of the highway! I nearly had a fit when I saw the picture. The child was standing bang in the middle of the highway with vehicles zipping past at more than 100 kmph. “It’s just a matter of timing, Udhaya. How far away are the vehicles? When will they approach the child? How much time will clicking the picture take? You just calculate all this and voila, you have a snap!” he said nonchalantly.

  The harami wept once when he recounted a harrowing experience he had with a harami family. That was the only time he seemed less like a harami and more like a saint. When he was driving from Bangalore to Chennai, he spotted a family of four – a husband, a wife and two children – traveling on a bike. Since it was raining, he offered them a lift. He didn’t expect that they would also be traveling all the way to Tamil Nadu. The husband immediately abandoned his vehicle at the shop of an acquaintance. The wife wanted to ride shotgun but the husband didn’t approve. He made her get in the back with the kids while he got in the front. The children stood on the seats while the mother removed their soaking wet clothes and wrung them out right there inside the car! Like this wasn’t enough, the father too removed his shirt, squeezed it out and put his legs up on the car seat. Imagine Kokkarakko’s horror when he realized the family was going to Krishnagiri. When they got off, his seats were wet, filthy and torn. But what rendered Kokkarakko speechless was the question the man asked him, “Were you returning after dropping off a passenger?” He thought Kokkarakko was a driver! It cost him eighteen grand to replace the damaged seat covers.

 
Kokkarakko was eight years old when he was in the third grade. At that age, most kids played house, but Kokkarakko played doctor, and his patients were always little girls. After the girls were made to lie down, he would lift their skirts and give them an “injection” in the vagina with a bristle from a broomstick. But this is easier said than done. First, and most importantly, the patient had to be taken to a secluded place. The girls always dithered when he told them to lift their skirts and even when they agreed, they would only lift them inch by inch. But there was one girl who gave him the shivers. She once went missing when he was playing hide and seek with a group of girls and when he finally found her, she was in a scrub forest. When she saw him, she immediately lay on the ground, lifted her skirt and opened her legs. Spreading her vagina open with her fingers, she said enthusiastically, “Come, come.” She was in the third grade and heaven only knows where and how she learned to do such things. Once she grew up, she would lower her head and walk away whenever she saw him.

  “Nice looking chick. Wish she would play with me now. They never want to when the time is right,” he sighed.

  Until he was about eight, he used to bathe naked in the pond. One day a girl called out, “Dey Kokkarakko! Why are you bathing in the nude? The fish will bite it off.”

  He shot back, “My dick looks like a fish so it won’t get bitten. But your pussy might get bitten because it looks like a vadai.”

  One of the things that caused great distress to students was the report card that was sent to their homes by post. The postbox was near the school entrance. When Kokkarakko made the breakthrough discovery that a stick of ice dropped into the postbox could deliver one from the nightmare of the report card, he was less than ten years old.

  There was a girl of twenty-one with a stunning figure who lived just across Kokkarakko’s house. He was ten at the time and looked handsome with his caste-mark. The girl would often call him over to her house and make him sit on her lap. One day, the little harami squeezed her tits but she did not complain. Since that incident, she would call him and talk to him whenever she was alone at home. Sometimes, she took him to the shop, saying there was no one to accompany her. Another day, Kokkarakko the Harami lifted her skirt. The girl began laughing uncontrollably. Yet another day, the harami kissed her full on the lips. “Dirty fellow!” she scolded, pushing him away. She spat into the sink and rinsed her mouth thoroughly. (In those parts, kissing on the lips is a dirty thing.)