Manil Suri - The City of Devi

I called it my “February of Frustration.” I came no closer to his butt despite cataloguing all the enchanting ways it turned and twisted (the half-swivel when he used only one crutch, the bump and grind when he tried climbing steps, the free swing when he used his body weight to go fast). The park glimmered in the background through all our conversations, endowing them with possibilities I did not articulate. I wondered if my efforts were worth it, if I stuck around only as expiation for his handicapped state. After all, the future did not guarantee gratification, March promised no plunge picnic.

Except a part of me enjoyed these vegetarian trysts. I rushed home for relief in the bathroom afterwards—the Right-Hand Express departed regularly by eight. (Sometimes I needed to catch multiple trains.) I wondered if Karun shared this torment—if to enhance it, he even exaggerated his helplessness. Dating, I realized, might have its merits—it wasn’t just for suckers and sissies as the Jazter had always dismissed it.

Warning bells not only rang, they pealed, they pounded. Had guilt and sympathy combined unhealthily to form affection? What if this metastasized into something even more dangerous? The Jazter had always prided himself on steering rigorously clean of such marshlands. His dharma revolved around noodling and little else. No emotional ties, no lingering attachments—these were his bible’s most basic tenets.

Yet here I sat starry-eyed, listening to Karun describe his afternoon chemistry experiments. Not a scintillating topic exactly, but I could imagine the mischief we could get into as partners in the lab. Especially after hearing of his past transgressions. “I used to take empty medicine bottles to high school to bring back samples from chemistry lab. Nitrates, chlorides, sulfates—I’m embarrassed to say I pilfered them all. I wanted my own mini-lab at home—I couldn’t get enough of the colorful coppers and cobalts.”

“So not so innocent as you look, eh? And are you still stealing?—perhaps setting up a lab in your hostel?”

Karun laughed. I realized I’d never actually got a good look before at his teeth—they sparkled, all sunlight and Colgate, like in a TV ad. “Is that why your pockets look so full today?” I continued, hoping to catch another glimpse.

But he turned solemn, as if he’d allowed out too much mirth and needed to compensate. “My mother worked two jobs after my father died, so in the evenings, I’d perform experiments to entertain myself. I read a lot too, buried myself in books. I suppose I must have been lonely—though I didn’t realize it back then.”

I remembered returning from school to an empty flat myself on evenings when my parents lectured late. The long, stark weekends I spent left to my own devices, padding around at home, craving the company of a sibling or friend. “It’s hard not to feel alone as an only child,” I said.

That evening, I sat closer to Karun in the taxi than usual, our thighs touching even though the back seat had ample space. I wanted to hold hands the way working-class men, unspoiled by Western mores, did all over the city in innocent friendship. Instead I playfully kneaded Karun’s neck, then eased my arm over his shoulder and let it rest there—he didn’t draw away. At one point, I leaned across to lower his window, and our mouths came so close I could barely restrain myself from a kiss (he felt the pull too, I think). An outside observer might comment how the mighty Jazter had fallen if he’d been reduced to this for his quota of thrills. But I only wanted to be close, to express my fondness for Karun, to quietly bask in the camaraderie emanating from him.

PERHAPS IT’S A FIN DU MONDE THING, BUT I HAVE THIS SUDDEN overwhelming urge to begin drafting my memoirs. The heartwarming saga of little Jaz who came of age around the globe. Our story begins way back in 1581, when the Mughal emperor Akbar simmered together equal parts of Islam and Hinduism (with a pinch of Christianity thrown in) to rustle up his own curry religion, “Din-i-Ilahi,” or “Divine Faith.” The concoction didn’t quite take—at least not until centuries later, when my parents had the brainwave of updating the recipe for modern tastes. They used Akbar’s principles to formulate a version of Islam that could peacefully co-exist with other religions (or so they claimed). An Emperor’s Bequest to Islam , their joint 1,300-page doorstopper, spent twenty weeks on the New York Times bestseller list in hardcover alone. The fact that they remained practicing Muslims (albeit the liberal, wine-guzzling kind) put their message in high international demand. Here was Yale luring them back to America with the promise of dual professorships on my sixth birthday. Two years later, the king of Bahrain offering pots of money to come shore up his liberal credentials. An instant appointment in the latest European country (Germany, Holland, Switzerland) wanting to prove its open-mindedness after passing some blatantly discriminatory law against Muslims. And after the Arab Spring, even Qatar and Saudi Arabia stood in line to have their blemishes airbrushed, their repressive images tamed.

Inflamed with the desire to change the world, my parents moved so much that I felt I lived in a washing machine. Each time I tried to fit in with a new culture or skin tone at school, the spin cycle came on. Human connections seemed pointless, lasting only as long as we remained in town. My sense of estrangement was the only constant, following me like a dependable pet across the years and continents. I felt so hopeless, so in thrall of a mushrooming interior darkness, that my company turned even the most misfit of my fellow students off.

At the time, I didn’t realize that a deeper reason for my malaise lay hidden, something more incendiary than just our frequent relocation. My mother and father remained oblivious—beyond food, shelter, and clothing, they possessed only a hazy awareness of what other nurturing parenthood might involve. The fact that I found it impossible to get bad grades meant my school performance never cued them in on how little I worked or how despondent I became.

In Geneva, on my fourteenth birthday, I straightened out a paper clip and stuck it through my tongue. Then I tried to pierce the end back through again to form a ring, but couldn’t, because of all the blood. I wiped my lips clean and returned to the dining table, where my parents waited, editing book proofs and sipping gamay. Mouth closed until the last instant so nothing dribbled out prematurely, I blew out the candles on my birthday cake.

That finally got their attention. The white of the whipped cream icing provided just the right foil to give the red I contributed a breezily decorative effect. Once we returned from the emergency room, my parents began to notice other things as well—the anti-Arab posters nailed to my wall, the swastika imprinted on my neck, the razor blade by my bed. I listened to them talk late into the night, their shock permeating through the wall. What an amazing notion that all that jetting around may have fucked me up!

Their solution was to move once more. To Mother India this time, which would unscramble my identity, fill my heart with pride in who I was, where I came from. That’s how the young and still impressionable Jaz found himself sitting in the green-walled annex to the Byculla mosque in Bombay, fitted with a skullcap and equipped with a Koran. Each evening, as the adults prayed upstairs, I stared at the paint peeling off the benches, trying to tune out the hadiths being explained by the imam. Could I escape again by piercing some other body part?

Fortunately, my cousin Rahim, who attended the same class, had alternative plans for my edification. My parents, ever pressed for time, arranged for me to spend the evenings at his home afterwards. At sixteen, Rahim not only exceeded me in age but also in girth—I experienced his weight firsthand, each time he sat on me at the end of our wrestling bouts. He insisted we strip down to our underwear like Sumo wrestlers—his sweat marked my body, smelling of whatever spice lingered most dominantly from lunch.