Yaraana

by Hoshang Merchant

  Fascinated by an article on transsexuals that he came across in Playboy magazine, Adi followed this up by clandestine research from his father’s medical books. At the age of sixteen or seventeen, he fell in love with a Greek sailor and would have run away with him if he had not been stopped by his parents. Now, emotionally fragile, unable to study, he was allowed to work in his father’s office. Here he met a boy from Bahrain and had a torrid love affair with him, unknown to his parents, for almost six years. A chance remark by his father that since Adi was such a sensitive boy, he should try to be a spiritual medium made him try automatic writing (a psychic exercise in which the writing is telepathically dictated), which found him a lover from a former life!

  The desire to be a woman and remove all the hair from his body made Adi personally burn out each hair follicle by electrolysis—an excruciatingly painful process. His father now seemed to understand the complexities of his son’s mind. He wanted to send Adi to Germany for a transsexual operation and let him stay on there with relatives. His mother disagreed violently and battles between father and mother followed. Then suddenly his father died, the German trip was cancelled and the boy from Bahrain left him. Totally traumatized, Adi’s suicide attempt failed.

  One does not know why he did not seek psychiatric help. Also, the film does not make it clear when he started undergoing plastic surgery. Silicone breast implants, changing of hairlines, ear, nose and jaw ‘jobs’ followed. After one of the silicone implants, the stitches gave way, and the implant slipped out and resulted in massive bleeding. This was narrated by Aida herself very casually: ‘The surgeon slipped it in again and stitched me up.’ Now at least, he looked like a woman but was not one. The penultimate step had to be taken. The penis had to be replaced by the vagina.

  Adi got more confidence after his meeting with another transsexual—Farah Rustom. After a series of operations (the details of which brought home the fact that all this was an expensive, painful and long drawn out process) extending over three years or more, Aida has now got a clitoris. Not everyone can spare so many years, spend so much money and bear so much pain. But today, the boy Adi is the fabulously glamorous Aida—a woman in all respects except the ability to bear children. And she is going to get married!

  What director Wadia has so courageously portrayed on the screen is the true story of a woman trapped in a man’s body—‘a venus with a penis’, says Aida. At the end of the screening, glamorous Aida herself appeared on stage to confidently answer questions put to her by a slightly dazed audience. I left the auditorium with the hope that Aida had at last found herself.

  from Parsiana, December 1996

  from Waiting for Winter

  Belinder Dhanoa

  Hans notices little about his bride-to-be, consumed as he is by the sorrow of seeing his father sick and dying. He loves his father intensely. His pain is magnified by the knowledge that the old man’s death will mean the end of the one enduring relationship in his life. He is familiar with his mother’s face only through her photographs, and with her beauty and accomplishments through the stories of her old ayah whom he cannot entirely believe.

  ‘I remember her a little,’ Hans’s elder sister Prema says. ‘She had this very husky voice. She spoke so low you’d have to lean towards her to hear the words. It sort of invited intimacy and gentleness. Even father’s voice assumed a softness when he spoke to her. She named us, you know. Prema and Hans. Everyone said they were strange names for Sikh children, but she didn’t care. She had her way. It was very difficult to disagree with her then as her attitude would become so hurt—wounded—that you’d begin to feel guilty, like some horrible, bullying aggressor. And before you began to hate yourself completely, you’d have to give in to her.

  ‘That’s what I remember. Then she died. You were barely three. And I went off to live with maasiji until I’d finished school. I felt quite orphaned then, you know. At least you had father.’

  With his mother dead, Hans finds his father’s presence emphasized. Gurbax Singh, endowed with a wide spectrum of emotions, is generous in giving his son affection when it does not interfere with wielding the discipline he sees as essential for the growing boy.

  Hans accepts both affection and authority. Seeing through his admiring childishness—a promise of his own future in his father’s dynamic masculinity.

  He does not recall his years at the boys’ boarding school as oppressive. He remembers it as a time of light. Of the discovery of the joys of reading. He remembers it as the time of friendships—born and destroyed by a single gesture of sharing or forgetfulness. Tumultuous. High-pitched. When even the moments of being alone were the consummation of a fierce desire. A battle to tear oneself away from beloved companions and enticing pastimes. And so, more precious.

  He returns home for a holiday. He is fourteen.

  His father pinches his chin and turns his face to the light pouring in through the open window.

  ‘As pale as a young girl. We’ll send him back a man this time, eh Billu?’ Hans turns briefly to smile at Billu, the nineteen-year-old son of their estate manager. Then he grasps his father’s wrist in his narrow hand and moves it away from his face.

  ‘You will find me more of a man than you suspect, Father. If you care to try me now.’

  Gurbax is delighted. He hugs his son against his massive chest.

  ‘See, how the young cock crows! Take him now. Out into the open. See how far his voice carries.’

  Billu looks at Hans while he answers the older man.

  ‘Yes. I’ll take him now. Out in the open. There’s so much I can teach him.’

  Hans laughs. ‘Really? Like what?’

  ‘How to ride a motorcycle, for instance. I can teach you that. Can’t I?’

  Hans’s voice emerges in a thin whistle of excitement. ‘Yes. Now, teach me now. I will learn. I must. Father?’

  Gurbax Singh is laughing. ‘Yes, you must. But only on the farm roads. You will not go onto any public road. Do you understand?’

  ‘Yes.’ The two answer simultaneously.

  They laugh. All three of them. For no apparent reason.

  Billu explains the mechanics of the motorcycle to Hans before he allows him to touch it. When he is satisfied with Hans’s understanding, they go out for a ride.

  The dust rises behind them in a cylindrical haze. The air is a sparkling gold that shines on their bare, exulting skin.

  Billu drives fast. And then faster. With Hans goading him on, he goes through the fields, racing over the bumpy surface.

  When he stops, Hans can barely support his own weight on his trembling legs.

  They are near a well. Billu draws out a bucketful of water and throws it over Hans—who screams with the abandon of a wild animal.

  ‘It’s cold. It’s hot. I mean the water’s cold. The sun is hot. I don’t know what I mean and I don’t care.’

  He screams again. A shrill wordless sound that makes Billu wince.

  ‘There. Now you can tell Father how far my voice carries.’

  ‘Take off your clothes and hang them out. The sun will dry them in minutes.’ Billu takes off his own wet shirt and hooks it onto the branch of a tree. Water drips from his hair into his eyes. He kneels beside Hans, who is sitting, legs stretched out, his back resting against the tree. ‘Feel this.’ He takes Hans’s hand and places it on his flat stomach. ‘All muscle. Every inch of my body as hard as iron. Here. Feel. My back. Shoulders. Touch here. Did you know you could have muscles like this on your thighs? A man’s body can be wonderful. So full of power. Do you think I’m very vain? Your hands are soft. And so cool.’

  He stops Hans’s moving hand with his own.

  ‘You are so—so clean. Like shining silver. Delicate. A glittering fish slipping through the clear waters of a shallow pond. See how rough my hand is against your skin.’

  And he slips his hand under the elastic waistband of Hans’s underpants. The two boys crouch. Their faces on level, looking into each other’s eyes. ‘You kn
ew. Somehow you knew what I wanted,’ Billu says. Still holding Hans.

  ‘Yes. Yes,’ Hans says impatiently. Then he laughs and rolls over.

  Billu falls with him. And they wrestle in the dust. Laughing until they are weak and gasping, covered with mud and dirt.

  Billu is the first to recover. He carries the bucket of water to Hans under the tree and begins to wash him. Hans, unresisting, smiles. When he has finished, Billu throws a bucket of water over himself and drags on his clothes over his wet body.

  ‘Time to go back.’ He stands by the motorcycle.

  Hans walks towards him buttoning his shirt. His eyes looking firectly into Billu’s eyes. He stands still. Facing him for a split second. And then puts his right hand on the back of Billu’s neck and pulls his head down.

  Billu is puzzled, a little nervous.

  ‘Just one moment,’ Hans says.

  With the tip of his smooth, pink tongue, he traces the outline of Billu’s lips. And with a swift, fluid movement, he sucks the moisture from his mouth.

  ‘Son-of-a-bitch!’ Billu’s shout is sheer surprise. ‘Where did you learn that?’

  Hans shrugs. With a hint of arrogance.

  ‘Let’s go. Come on, let’s go. Let’s go.’

  They become lovers under the tree, lighted by the strong yellow glow of the afternoon sun.

  ‘I love you,’ Hans declares one day. ‘Do you know that?’

  Billu laughs in genuine amusement.

  ‘You don’t love me,’ he says. ‘You love the pleasure that I give you.’

  His hands continue to move. Kneading gently, insistently, on the inside of Hans’s thigh.

  ‘And you don’t love me? You love only the pleasure that I give you?’

  Hans teases, disbelieving.

  He throws himself against Billu and begins to kiss his face. Billu tries to push him away, both giggling. Until he is silenced by Hans’s tongue pressing against his own. And he is aroused to passion.

  ‘Your mouth is like the flesh of a ripe guava. Sweet and soft. With a taste of wildness.’

  ‘And you say you don’t love me?’

  ‘I love you, I love you as a brother.’

  Hans is satisfied.

  The time for Hans to go back to school comes close.

  ‘You’ll always be here when I come back,’ Hans commands.

  ‘No. The next time you come home, I’ll be in college. In Delhi. You won’t remember all this. Forget it.’

  ‘Why do you always talk like that? It’s stupid.’ Fury stretches the skin taut around his eyes and mouth. ‘Will you forget?’

  ‘Yes, I will.’ Billu smiles honestly. ‘I’ll find myself a girlfriend in Delhi. I’ll choose one with nice big boobs and a juicy red mouth.’

  Hans grows cold with disgust.

  ‘In that case, I don’t think we should bother with each other any more. Don’t touch me,’ he snaps as Billu reaches out.

  ‘Don’t sulk, Hans. Come on now. We have just a few days left. Together. Don’t be a baby.’

  ‘I’m not the baby. You are. At least I know what I want.’

  ‘Don’t spoil everything. Come here.’

  ‘I don’t want you to touch me.’

  ‘Of course you do,’ Billu laughs.

  He pulls Hans into his arms and kisses his ear.

  ‘You’re a greedy little bastard.’

  He caresses Hans’s throat as they lie against each other.

  ‘You’ll understand one day. All this. What is happening with you and me. It passes. The real thing is when it happens with a woman.’

  ‘Has it happened to you? With a woman?’

  ‘No. But it will. I’ll make sure it does. Soon.’ He smiles to himself.

  ‘And do you think she’ll be able to kiss you quite like this? Or touch you like this? Or make your fucking prick reach out for the sky—like this?’

  Billu gasps and then yelps as Hans’s vicious fingers pinch suddenly at his naked flesh.

  ‘You arrogant little shit. You . . .’

  But Hans knows how to silence him.

  ‘We’re finished now,’ Hans declares when they are dressed. ‘You can go and find yourself a woman for all I care. I don’t need you. And I won’t need a woman. Ever.’

  ‘Whatever you say. You’re the boss.’

  ‘Don’t sneer at me. I know. Why would I waste myself on a woman? I think you’re a fool. You’re losing. Somewhere.’

  ‘You don’t know what you’re saying. You’re just a kid. I suppose I never should have done this to you.’

  Hans’s voice is frozen with a stubborn pride.

  ‘Don’t flatter yourself into believing you’ve “done” anything to me. You leave me as you found me—untouched.’

  Billu shrugs.

  ‘Well, whatever you do—just keep this whole thing to yourself. Okay? Half the country may spend its time fucking the other half. But nobody likes it shouted from the rooftops.’

  He shakes his head slowly in a gesture of regret.

  ‘And remember. It’s normal to give it to a woman. What we’re doing—you and I—to each other is just buggering.’

  ‘I won’t forget.’

  The passion stays with him. Directing his life in ways he would never have thought possible. Driving him to find his pleasures where his fastidious sensibilities revolt. Building in him a self-disgust which he holds as a dark secret.

  When his father expresses a desire to see him married, he sees it as an opportunity to attempt a rejection of his present life. He wonders—was Billu right after all? But there is no conviction in the thought. He agrees to a marriage to please his father. To promise the dying man a continuation of the bloodline.

  Underground

  R. Raj Rao

  You belong with the . . .

  It can’t be said.

  As in the old days

  the touch of some men polluted,

  today it’s yours, viruses and all.

  But goo has its uses.

  Consider the ripe harvest

  along the railway lines opposite Dharavi

  fertilized by defecating humans,

  and goo, strong on smell,

  has the power of ammunition

  to trigger off memories

  of a long forgotten lover

  met in an underground urinal.

  The Underground has its own shades.

  In London it’s the metro railroad

  with poems on the walls,

  and back in Bombay

  it’s the mafia world

  of nightly blackmailers.

  But tube or dark tunnel,

  its fault-lines are anal,

  harking back to painful passages

  of seismic prose,

  Lakshman Gaikwad read on a train journey.

  The Underground is where you belong,

  while the city buzzes overhead,

  ghost-shit on your tongue.

  You undress underground

  and find your Garden of Eden,

  Eden Gardens abounding in Adams and serpents:

  Raju, 19, office boy at Bora Bazaar,

  Gulab, 22, waiter at Satkar,

  Pandu, 50, coolie at VT.

  You stand in your stall

  and look over the wall.

  One comes up,

  seizes you by the shirt,

  demands money and bottles of beer

  for friends outside.

  As the saying goes,

  in the company of friends, death is a nuptial feast.

  You want to throw loo goo on his face.

  But you give in meekly,

  handing over cash and valuables.

  The meek shan’t inherit.

  You stand bereft,

  the city your headload.

  Opinions

  R. Raj Rao

  Onions and opinions come cheap in Bombay.

  The Gujaratis in the neighbourhood

  want to know why you’re still single,

  thou
gh eligible.

  They don’t understand it when you tell them

  you’re married three times over,

  divorced once.

  How come there are no children in the flat,

  they enquire,

  no evidence of vegetable curries cooking.

  Shantabai

  who comes once a day

  to wash your undies

  goes one step further.

  She thinks

  a man without wife and kids

  is cremated by the Bombay Municipal

  Corporation

  upon death.

  You wonder whether she’s making a pass.

  Bomgay

  R. Raj Rao

  Family members

  from England, America and Canada

  visit you at Bombay

  which they call Bomgay.

  Some of them are sex tourists,

  you their post-colonial pimp

  hungry for pounds and dollars.

  Religiously, you take them

  on a conducted tour

  that includes Gokul, Voodoo and ARK

  headquarters.

  But what pleases them most,

  more than even the gents’ toilet

  on platform number two of Dadar Station WR,

  is Apsara theatre’s steeple.

  God’s own penis mightier than the sword,

  pointing menacingly towards the sky.

  (These three poems are among the six poems on which the film Bomgay, produced by Riyad Wadia, was based.)

  Beta

  Rakesh Ratti

  Mummy keeps her jewels

  in a box full of dreams,

  dreams that will be realized

  in the echoes of my screams.

  Father waits for the day

  I bring a crimson bride

  yet if I sit on a white horse

  it’ll be an empty ride.

  Every chapter of my life