Close Too Close (21 page)

In the middle of the performance I wanted to stand up and scream – who gave the right to these young twats to talk about such things? I looked around indignantly to see signs of anyone else reacting in the same way. There were two guys in the middle, gay and foreigners both, wrapped in muscle tees and keffiyeh, humming and lip-syncing to the tunes that the silly girl on the stage was playing on a tape-recorder. We’re getting all the cultural references, aren’t we? But looking a bit longer, I saw there was something more to their nonchalance than plain snobbery and I realized that they were really trying to overcome the embarrassment of sitting amongst a group of people all of whom had suddenly gone quiet. Come to think of it, it was a bit eerie. I could hear some sniffling in some corner and maybe, or did I just imagine it, a stifled sob. An elderly couple got up and left in the middle of the performance. The silly girl on the stage, she must just be out of college, stayed in her role throughout. With a concern that she had never felt for anything in her own life yet, she went on talking about a dead friend, about his sudden death from some very rare disease, then moving on to philosophize about the death of the young, about death which is quick and painless, about the apathy of the world, and so on. It was all profound in an adolescent sort of way, inexperience masquerading in an excess of feeling. The young, I chuckled. Death is just an abstraction for attention when you’re young. Do you really believe we’ll mistake it for sensitivity? You deserve to be slapped for talking about things you do not understand. The brochure told us the girl had written the piece herself. Just shut up and get laid lady, I wanted to shout.

The real drama, though, was unfolding on the side of the audience. A loose cannon had gone off in our midst and I saw that some in the audience were holding on to the legs of their chairs to keep their composure. All the while the two gay men kept on humming, continuing to appreciate the choice of songs. The girl went on singing, humming, choking and hamming about death, bereavement, mortality, memory. Shit, shit, shit! I found myself dropping my face in my hands and shaking my head, unable to believe in the misplaced confidence of those who know they will be heard.

Having reached the conclusion of the ostensibly intense meditation, the solo act wound up just as it had begun, abruptly. There was some hasty applause after which the hostess got up to address us all. Binoo Nanda was a sharp woman. She’d realized that the debut of her Downstairs arena had turned into a downright disaster. She thanked the performer somewhat hurriedly and then launched into a long, moving apology. She confessed she hadn’t known the play would have such a theme, so disturbing to some present. Then she went on personally to acknowledge and apologize to as many as seven families sitting there. It seems that all of them had lost a young son. Someone’s son had been reported missing on a trekking trip; another washed away in an undertow; someone else in a car accident; another to a congenital disorder. She mentioned the couple who had left in the middle had lost a son too. My shock was unspeakable. I couldn’t understand how, in an audience not exceeding fifty people, so many of them shared similar tragedies. I couldn’t understand why Binoo Nanda kept on narrating instances of the death of young men. Did the rich grieve more about their young men like some warrior tribes are known to do or had they not mourned enough? Maybe it was one of those mythical curses that we hear of in epics that continue over several generations. Meanwhile Binoo leaned over and lovingly hugged a woman in the second row. She had managed to say just the right things and everyone seemed palpably relieved after her speech.

She moved on to talk about the fund-raising aspect of the evening. Things became considerably more cheerful after that. It was as if Binoo’s speech was the unwritten final act of a drama without which the audience would have been left shattered and disconsolate. Everyone was feeling much better and the awkwardness over tragedies, real and staged, had been washed away by Binoo’s bravura performance. We all moved towards beer and food. I felt pretty messed up by all this. It was almost as if I had just witnessed a nerve-wracking road accident which miraculously turned out to be pleasant for all involved. I dashed more eagerly than anybody else towards the bar.

The small gathering began to break into groups. No phone signal in the basement, so people had begun to walk up and out into the driveway and the patio. There was a group of youngsters sharing a smoke in the driveway. I could see their smoke huddle from the ventilator of the basement room. I tried to look around for a familiar face to gravitate towards but there was none. I wasn’t old and rich, I didn’t smoke and I had nobody but myself to blame for my asocial grumpiness. The few who were left around me were all middle-aged and in a moment of utter boredom I let out a voluble sigh, leaned my back against the wall, folded my right leg against it and tugged at my beer in what looked like a parody of the bored gay man striking a desperate gigolo pose after a night of futile dancing when all the moves have yielded no return.

A middle-aged man in a paisley shirt was sitting with a group of women on a cushion on the floor. He was massaging the feet of one who looked exactly like Binoo. My reckless staring and insolent pose must have made the group self-conscious and he turned and spoke, ‘Well, young man, don’t just stand there, go ahead and enjoy yourself. Have they put the dinner out?’ I shrugged in response.

Binoo, who must have been around, joined the group and took the sting out of the awkwardness by introducing me. The man was a Professor of History at a university close by, one of the women was Binoo’s own twin sister (that explained the similarity) and the other was another Mrs Singh who was on the advising committee of some foundation for promotion of the arts. She too had more than a fleeting resemblance to Binoo. I made the ultimate blunder of asking if even she was related to Binoo.

‘Of course not, whatever would make you think we were?’ they all guffawed.

Well, I wanted to answer, that’s because you all look and behave exactly as if you were one big blood-clan, you wear similar clothes, you talk of the same things, know everything about each other, and agree on most things. And although your main concern, like everybody else’s, is property and money, you have enough style to actually begin your conversations with it. Even your teeth are the same tint of white, all of you smile and hug a lot. It’s almost as if you
wanted
to have the same set of features, and through generations of pedigreed inbreeding you have actually succeeded in creating just that: a different race of the rich.

Binoo picked up the mantle of politeness from where I had dropped it and gave a glowing introduction. While our hostess was being her pleasant best, I felt a stare from the crowd around the staircase (was it towards me?) but I was a bit lightheaded and frankly didn’t care enough.

The Professor was the first to pick up on repairing the conversation, ‘Ah! So you are the Shashank who regales us with stories of the forgotten ruins and quarters of Delhi? I must admit I have a special interest in your stories.’

‘You know, though Prodeep is a mediaeval Delhi specialist, I don’t know anybody who knows our Delhi of today more than him. I use his academic specialisation to get directions when I’m lost and my driver can’t find the address and he’s never failed me. Not once. Prodeep, you remember the time when I had to go to the pushta for flood-relief, it was as far out as I had ever been and . . .’

‘Well, that’s because I know more about the bowels and the armpits of the city than its monuments, Binoo. My research, you’ll excuse me, is on the sewers and gutters of Delhi and not on its ruins.’

‘You should have been born in Paris dear, or at least some of those Middle-Eastern cities with great civic consciousness. What sewers? We have shit flying all around us!’ Everyone laughed.

A young guy walked up and spoke to Mrs Singh. ‘So how long you think you’re gonna be here? ’Coz I think I’m gonna split soon. You want me to call for your car?’

‘Sure dear, carry on . . . I’m having such a relaxed time for once. A nice play by talented young people and an evening with friends. Binoo, what a fantastic idea. Great work!’ squealed Mrs Singh.

‘Talking of talented people, have you met Shashank? He’s one of our bright sparks in journalism. I’m hoping he will write good things about our Downstairs,’ added Binoo. She was the only one I knew who could let drop the mask of conviviality, reveal her true intentions and still continue to be polite. But my concern had already shifted to the new subject who’d walked in on us, and in accordance with years of training as a gay man I sized him up in less time than it takes to say hello. Broad shoulders, somewhat stockily set, can’t be more than late twenties despite the receding hairline, more than a grizzle on the chin and preppy clothes, very Ivy League! He gave an interested handshake, looked me straight in the eyes and said, ‘Hi! Jayant.’

‘So, I’ll be going. See you in the morning, mom. See you, Binoo.’ He was leaning over and kissing Binoo when in a flash, I realized that this was my opportunity. If nothing else, I’d get out of this fiendish basement where they trap unsuspecting souls and torture them with culture.

‘Binoo, I’d better be leaving too, long distance to go.’

‘Oh!’

‘Yeah, yeah . . . look I’ve picked up the brochures. I’ll get back to you when I’ve done the piece. What with the editorial page layout and things . . . expect it in three days? I’ll let you know.’

Ivy League had gone back to a group of people, saying his byes to them. There! there was that turned glance again. I moved into the corner of the room and towards the drinks table under the staircase. The steps of the staircase had formed a nice alcove. It was a perfect corner for lingering and deliberating some delay tactics without being seen by Binoo and the other denizens of her dreary Downstairs. I grabbed another pint and stood in the gigolo pose. Nothing leads to sex more directly than an affected pose of boredom. This time I had some hope for the right message to be relayed. Ivy League came right over.

‘One for the road? Not a bad idea.’

‘Yeah, I want the buzz to last till I crash on my bed. Can’t really look forward to anything else from tonight, can I? And who knows, maybe I’ll die of some rare disease in the back of an autorickshaw. They may make a play about it then.’

‘Yeah . . . It was an interesting play.’ Barely a chuckle.

I realised I was getting ahead of myself. Maybe he had friends in the repertory. He was playing it safe with his opinions (if he had any) but in the partial secrecy of the alcove he was being daring enough to let his glance skim over my arms for just a bit. A little workout bump gleamed from under the arm-hugging tee I was wearing. In the distance, History Professor was using his lecturing voice with a pretty young thing. God! She must be younger than his students.

‘I always tell my students that the idea of decadent young Mughal princes is a myth based out of social envy. Do you think its possible to have a continuous dynastic rule over, well, something over three hundred years, if everyone was busy having orgies and reading poetry? We have to understand the complex social psychology of inheritance to really understand what a life of privilege entailed for an
umrao
or a Mughal prince . . .’ And so on.

‘So where do you get back to?’ a voice much closer enquired, bringing me back to attention. The beer was making me distracted.

‘Oh! The back of the beyond. I have to cross a river and reach a corner of Delhi where the South Delhi imagination cannot go.’ I wanted to check my bitchiness but I knew I was taking out my disgust about the evening and also about something else. ‘Social envy’ was it? But this guy was the most interesting thing happening out of this morbid evening and he was willing to drop me off at a distance. This was no time for introspection.

The rest happened unexpectedly smoothly. We got out together after finishing the beers, got into his blue-grey Endeavour and drove off to the sound of classic rock. We talked idly, he pulled the car over to roll a joint, we drove on. Something was not quite right. The telltale signs of sexual interest apart, just about everything about this guy was so straight. The talk banal, not a sliver of excitement about it. He must have played some sport in college but the thickening midriff spoke of neglect. He was beginning to get typically squat and stocky. The grizzle on the face was an attempt to cover a doubling chin and to compensate for a receding hairline. In terms of a gay man closing in on thirty, this was, of course, a condition worse than death. A moment when you embraced your mortality and adopted a dog. But this guy oozed an unruffled, solid masculinity and it was impossible to visualize him in a gay club or among any of the other pheromonal performances of gay life. And yet I had undoubtedly been picked up with the effortless assurance of somebody who knew the drill like a routine. This must be how the rich, public-school type pick up boys, I speculated as Bruce Springsteen sang
I’m on fire
on the stereo. From their own surroundings, rather than in gay clubs. The world must be just a normal extension of their boarding schools where they know that men will always get it on with other men.