And I didn’t. A couple of weeks after returning to Bombay, the memory of the events in Calcutta began to recede. Most nights I hit the beats, where the lure of new places and new faces was as strong as ever. So, too, was my imagination, which was working overtime to come up with more creative ways to meet young Indian men. No longer was I satisfied to limit myself to casual one-on-one encounters. I started looking for more prolonged engagements in less frenetic settings. Fantasies of romping around in peaceful, rustic domains played havoc with me. Such visions had to be tempered by hard reality, which for me meant limited funds, little time away from work, and communal living. Such realities dominated, but I became more adept at finding ways around them.
This happened one day during my visit to a charitable trust that had been a regular supporter of our work. The director made it clear that while they couldn’t provide more than their standard donation, they might be able to help in other ways. In the popular resort town of Lonavala, midway between Bombay and Pune, their trust ran a holiday home for those who couldn’t otherwise afford such a luxury. Since we lived and worked on minimal stipends, our staff qualified to stay there. We only needed to contact the director and he would make the arrangements. It felt too good to be true. I thanked him for his kind offer and began to think how we might make use of it. On the way home in the bus that afternoon, a wild idea flashed through my mind—this could be an ideal opportunity for me to spend a few days with friends. Accommodation would be free and travel costs minimal. No one would know that my companions weren’t actually my coworkers. I only had to make sure my colleagues didn’t find out. It was a risk, but one I was willing to take for the sake of the rewards it promised. A year ago, even six months earlier, such an idea would never have occurred to me.
Questions swirled around in my head. When could I do it? Who should I ask to join me? What kind of mix of guys would work? As I went about my daily tasks, these questions remained in the forefront of my mind. Diwali was coming up and our Indian staff usually took time off to go home to visit their families. It would be an ideal opportunity for me to pursue my little scheme, if I could arrange it in time. From a public phone out of earshot of curious colleagues, I called the director and asked for a four-person room for three days. He pointed out that Diwali was one of their busiest times, but he would check with the manager of the home and get back to me. I offered to call him instead the following week.
The immediate challenge was deciding who to invite. If I started flipping through my rapidly expanding address book, I wouldn’t know where to stop. I was still mulling this over a couple of days later when I ran into Akbar at the Bandstand. My first gay Muslim friend in India, he was quietly spoken and refined, and lived in a small, two-room apartment. In one of those rooms we had shared a sweltering Sunday afternoon together. I remember Akbar closing the wooden windows that allowed air and light into the room, before rolling out a thin mat on the hard wooden floor. There were prices to pay for intimacy in India, and comfort was one of them. I held a hidden admiration for Akbar, not purely for his wiles as a seductive lover, but also for his wisdom and common sense. More than once, I called on him for advice, which he sometimes gave without my asking. But he possessed one quality I valued above all others. Not only did he mix with gay Muslims, but he counted Hindus, Christians, Sikhs and others among his friends. This was to prove most valuable as I broached my plan to him.
‘Sounds like fun,’ was Akbar’s first response. ‘Who else are you thinking of inviting?’
‘Well, that’s a little tricky. I was wondering if you might be able to help me figure it out. Getting the right combination of guys to share a room for two or three days isn’t easy. We’d all have to be comfortable with one another.’
‘Let me think about it,’ he said with the sagacious look of an old imam. ‘Why don’t we meet here next Saturday night and discuss it further.’
When I met Akbar the following week, he had done exactly as he promised, and more. Not only had he thought about other possible roommates, he had met one and run the idea by him. This was Amul, a Hindu friend of his I knew vaguely and looked forward to knowing more intimately. He exuded Bollywood good looks with charm to spare. He had told Akbar to ‘count me in,’ pending a possible family conflict with the date. That left one slot to fill. Akbar’s recommendation was Kelvin, a smart-looking young Christian guy who was on good terms with both Akbar and Amul. He rivaled Amul in appearance and was about the same age. Akbar offered to sound him out.
Diwali was rapidly approaching and I hadn’t heard from the director of the trust. Instead of phoning, I decided to drop in on him late one afternoon after finishing the day’s appointments. After a 20-minute wait, I was ushered into his office. He apologized that he hadn’t done anything about my request. I started to despair. I would have egg on my face if I had to back down now. Looking him straight in the eye, I told him so and he took the hint.
‘I will do one thing. I will call right now to see if there is a room available,’ he said.
Picking up the phone, he asked his secretary to place a lightning call to Lonavala and then ordered chai for both of us. Not surprisingly, the chai arrived a lot sooner than the call. Despite their name, lightning calls could take hours to come through, depending on the weather, the day of the week, the time of day, and certain planets being in alignment with others. After about half an hour, the phone rang and a swift exchange in Marathi left me wondering about my fate. After a bundle of achcha’s and ji haan’s and tilting his head back and forth, the director put down the phone and turned towards me.
‘You are lucky, Mr. John. There is just one room available during that time, but it only has three beds. Would that be OK?’
‘No problem,’ I replied nonchalantly.
He had me sign the usual plethora of forms and I was relieved I didn’t need to divulge the names and addresses of my companions; I could sign everything on behalf of my party. The pieces were falling into place nicely.
As Diwali grew closer, my sense of anticipation heightened. Three days and nights of relaxing with a group of young gay men was more than I could have hoped for. I kept checking with Akbar to see if our other two friends were still a go. Kelvin was a definite and Amul a probable. Akbar and I decided to travel together to Lonavala by bus and the other two would come by train. Right to the last minute, I had a nagging feeling that something would go wrong. I prayed a silent prayer to Lord Ganesh to remove any obstacles that might frustrate my plans.
When I met Akbar at the Bombay bus terminal, he looked as though he had just taken his morning bath. His mustache was sharply trimmed, his kurta was blinding white, and his recently shaven face gave off the beguiling fragrance of sandalwood.
‘Assalamu alaikum!’ I greeted him.
‘Wa alaikum assalam,’ he returned, with a smile spreading across his face. Something told me that he was looking forward to this adventure as much as I was.
Being a Friday, he had come straight from the mosque. We had little trouble finding a bus, since Lonavala was on the main road to Pune and buses were frequent. Akbar took charge and bought our tickets. The journey passed quickly, the air cooling as the bus rumbled its way up the Western Ghats. We chatted off and on, but I was consumed with one worry.
‘Do you think Amul and Kelvin will come?’ I asked.
‘I’m sure they will,’ he said. Then, as if to cover his tracks, he added ‘Insha Allah!’
The holiday home was a large, two-story building with a quadrangle in the middle that gave it the air of a boarding school. On every pillar and bulletin board, in Marathi and English, were lists of rules governing the institution—times for meals and room cleaning, prohibitions against loud noise and bad language, exhortations against wasting electricity and water, night curfews, and more. It felt as though we had stepped into a reformatory or convent. How on earth would my companions take to this? When I had heard ‘holiday home’ I hadn’t imagined anything like this and I’m sure they hadn’t either.<
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We checked in at the office and picked up our room key. I told the manager we were expecting two others and that we would not be taking meals, except breakfast. I was sure we would want to spend as much time as possible outside the place, except at night. But just then, we had several hours before the others arrived, so Akbar and I wasted no time in getting re-acquainted in the luxury of our own private room, before drifting off into a mindless slumber. When we awoke, it was half an hour before the scheduled arrival of the train, so we promptly dressed and took an auto-rickshaw to the station. I was still wondering if our companions would show. Five minutes before the train was due, I began pacing up and down the platform. I looked at Akbar and grimaced.
‘I sure as hell hope God does will it!’
As the train slowed to a halt, bodies poured out of its crowded doorways like water from a spigot. Akbar and I glanced along the platform as we tried to spot our two friends. Seconds stretched into minutes as we scanned the crowd. Then, in a burst of glee, Akbar exclaimed ‘Over there!’ I turned and saw Amul and Kelvin walking hand in hand down the platform towards us. My heart soared.
For the next two and half days, the four of us indulged in one another’s company with unrestrained delight. The pressures of our tedious daily lives evaporated as we luxuriated in delectable meals, went for long walks in the nearby hills, and shared beds at night. It was not uncommon in India for a group of young men to spend time together, but if the manager had even had a hunch about the nature of our relationship, he would have kicked us out without the slightest hesitation. Worse, word of this would undoubtedly have got back to the director and the trust’s ties with the Institute may have been permanently severed. In spite of this weighing on me, I chose to risk it and allow my fantasy to play itself out.
On our final night, we decided a movie was in order. There were two shows playing in town and choosing one proved less difficult than I imagined. In celebration of our religious diversity, we chose the Bollywood classic, Amar Akbar Anthony. This story of three young brothers abandoned by their father and raised in different families—one as a Hindu, another as a Muslim, and the third as Christian—took India by storm. It projected the Indian actor, Amitabh Bachchan, into superstardom. By a miraculous turn of events that only a Bollywood movie can produce, the three brothers are reunited as young men when they donate blood in aid of their ailing mother. The plot overflows with the usual astonishing twists and turns, as forces for good and evil vie for supremacy and flamboyant song-and-dance routines take the audience back and forth from the so-called real world to the utterly surreal. It was like a metaphor of our time together.
* * *
After our romp in Lonavala, I began to see a lot more of Kelvin. This tallish young man with puckered lips, olive skin and a gently muscular body conveyed a hint of his mixed Indian-Portuguese ancestry. He was my Adonis. The very thought of his name aroused pleasure in me. He was quite aware of his fine physique, but unlike so many young Indian men he didn’t seem to flaunt it. But there was more to Kelvin than his abundant good looks. Being a Christian in this society meant being part of a minority that was often sidelined. Being gay made him a minority within a minority.
Over the next few months, we met as frequently as we could. We would squeeze in lunch when I was doing calls alone or meet at the Bandstand when our schedules permitted. Once, when I had a few days off, I managed to get us a room in the nearby Catholic hostel at short notice. As soon as we had checked in, we went straight to our room. Although I was salivating in anticipation of what was to come, I sensed Kelvin wasn’t, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. As I took hold of his hand and lowered him to join me on the bed, my instincts proved correct.
‘Do you mind if we don’t have real sex today?’ he asked.
‘Real sex. What do you mean?’
‘You know, like we usually do, with a condom and all.’
‘Sure, if you’d prefer,’ I said, trying to figure out what was on his mind.
As I looked directly into his dark, soft eyes, he turned his face away.
We lay down on the bed and I began undressing him. Kelvin obliged but somewhat reservedly. We were down to our underwear when he broke the silence between us.
‘You ever had any sexual diseases?’ he asked.
I stopped in the middle of peeling off his white vest.
‘Yes, I’ve had some. Have you?’
‘No, not yet, luckily.’
He paused, looked away, then turned back towards me.
‘If you have them, do you still have sex with guys?’
‘No, I always wait until the sores have healed. That way, it protects my partner and doesn’t aggravate my own problem.’
‘So you don’t have anything now?’
‘No. Why do you ask?’
My question was met with a brief silence. Kelvin rolled over on his side, as I waited for his reply.
‘I…I met someone who said he knows you. He told me that you have sex with a lot of guys and that I should be careful.’
I searched my mind for this mysterious informant, but the futility of the exercise became apparent. There were so many guys I’d had some form of sexual experience with in the last couple of years that it could have been any of dozens in Bombay alone. I decided to ask Kelvin directly, even though I knew it was embarrassing for him.
‘Who told you that?’
He hesitated again.
‘Oh, some fellow I met at the Bandstand. I don’t remember his name.’
It was obvious Kelvin was stalling, either to protect himself or to avoid incriminating his source. I decided not to push further and he seemed relieved. We resumed our lovemaking, but he lacked enthusiasm. This wasn’t at all how I’d envisaged things would go. For the next few days, my mind was preoccupied with searching for the identity of the person who had soiled my relationship with Kelvin, with no success.
Then, one morning as I was riding the bus down to the Fort area, it came to me. There was only one person who had information about my sexual diseases—the doctor who had been treating me for a couple of years now. I was sure I was right. The last time Kelvin and I had met, he had asked me where he, as a gay man, could go in Bombay for a health check-up without any risk of recrimination. Knowing few physicians, I had volunteered the name of my doctor. Now I was annoyed with myself and even angrier with the doctor for revealing such information about one client to another. Before the bus reached Flora Fountain, I decided to go straight to the doctor’s office and confront him. His clinic was on the first floor of a run-down building in a part of the city better known for bicycle repair shops and stationery stores than medical services.
The first time I contracted a sexually transmitted disease in India, I didn’t know where to go for help. I certainly didn’t wish to consult my local doctor around the corner from our residence, for fear of revealing too much about my personal life. The only other doctor I knew was a friend of the Institute who volunteered his services in villages where we worked outside Bombay. He was one of those saints who would go to any length to assist those less fortunate than himself. He also ran a clinic in the heart of the red-light district a few kilometers from our residence. Given this location, he probably knew more about treating sexually transmitted diseases than most doctors, but I couldn’t imagine going to him for help—not that I ever thought he would berate me or deliver moralizing sermons. I just didn’t want to place him in the invidious position of having to harbor such a secret.
The answer to my dilemma came in the form of a large sign in English and Urdu that caught my eye as I rode the double-decker buses to the Fort area. In the heart of a Muslim neighborhood, it stood out from the hundreds of other signs because of its mammoth size and the two large red crosses at either end of it. At the center were the words: ‘Expert in Vanereal Diseases and Sexual Disfunction’. When my complaint became bad enough, I decided this was the place to go. So paranoid was I that someone would see me entering this establishment, I alighte
d from the bus several blocks before and made a sudden dart into the building. The middle-aged doctor took one glance at me, gave me an injection—the universal cure-all in India—and sent me on my way. The cost was minimal, the experience humiliating.
By contrast, my current doctor seemed like a godsend. He was a little closer to my age, was widely traveled, and himself gay. I had been referred to him by another friend who told me that he treated a number of gay men in Bombay. When I first met him, I was pleased I could discuss many subjects with him, not only my health—something many Indian doctors didn’t deign to do with their patients—but other matters close to my heart as well. I even imagined at times that we might go out to dinner or have a friendly drink. He belonged to a more discreet and loftier stratum of Bombay’s gay scene than I did. He went to private parties among the professional set and flew abroad on holidays, reporting back to me on the state of gay life in exotic parts of the world. I kept asking him to introduce me to some of his friends, in the hope I might graduate from the street scene. He vowed he would, but never did.
The Boatman Page 18