Aatish Taseer - The Temple-Goers

‘Ash-man,’ I breathed.

‘Yes, man,’ he replied, relishing my surprise, then puckering up his blackish-pink lips as if about to blow bubbles, mouthed, ‘Lul. Lul. Lul.’

I lowered my head, laughing silently, but Sanyogita saw me.

‘Baby!’ she hissed.

I pointed to Aakash. She looked up, smiled and gestured to him to come over. He hesitated, then made his way swiftly through the crowded room. A few silver-haired women watched him keenly; the men looked gloomy and irritated. The creative writer stopped his story, perhaps from wonderment at Aakash’s appearance so far from Junglee. As soon as he had sat down at our feet, the writer began again.

‘Jai didn’t mind. “I want you to know,” he said, “that any time, I mean any time, night or day, you can call me and I’ll come. If you have friends, whatever. See, the thing is, living in Delhi, I’ve developed a taste for money and I’m willing to do anything for it.”

‘ “Do you want money now?”

‘ “Man, what are you saying? You’re my friend.”

‘On our right, a village of washing lines appeared. The white clothes that hung limply from bamboo poles in the cold night had a morbid, ghostly aspect. Further on, a park with a thin grass cover and a sandy surface was coated in dew. Suddenly a pack of dogs leapt at the gate of the park, growling, barking, showing teeth and gums. I jumped back. But Jai, as assured as he had been with the rickshaw, raced forward, picking up a stone on the way. When the dogs didn’t run from him, he flung the stone with a fast side throw and hit one of the dogs on the cheek. I heard the impact of the stone against skin and bone and the easy cruelty of it chilled me. The dog howled at so shrill a note that the others melted into the darkness of the park.

‘Just ahead, there was a servants’ colony. In the open doors and windows televisions flashed. A girl in a red sweater combed lice out of the hair of another girl and the smell of winter clothes in need of airing arose. The walls of the servants’ colony were mildewed and blackish-green in places; some windows were bricked up; and in one the powerful, pythonic roots of a peepal tree slid into, and cracked, the front drain and wall.

‘I pulled Jai back into the darkness.

‘ “How much?” I asked.

‘ “For what?” Jai said.

‘I squirmed. I longed to be able to speak to him in English. I had no language in Hindi for what I wanted to say. At last, I said for a kiss, but it sounded absurd.

‘ “What a guy you are, you want to pay me for a kiss!”

‘I leaned forward and kissed him. His lips didn’t move; I tasted chewing tobacco on them.

‘ “Come on now,” Jai said, “what do you really want to do?”

‘ “I want to suck your dick.” ’

At that moment Aakash looked up at me, his eyebrows dancing with amusement. I had hoped he wasn’t following the story.

The creative writer’s tone became urgent: ‘Jai pulled me further into the darkness. We were near the washing village. He took me behind a grey electricity box; it had a rusting base, and a thick black wire, partly buried in the earth, spiralled out of it.

‘ “Then suck,” he said.

‘I was struck by his freedom; and opening Jai’s flared jeans and pulling down his baggy villager’s underwear, I felt I was dealing with a man who could always satisfy his appetites. And this was what had made me feel the limitations of being a Western-educated homosexual: in the love I had learned, there was a grammar, a language, living rules of conduct, all useless now.

‘Jai’s arousal grew; he undid my trousers and reached for my penis.

‘ “How come your dick is so much bigger than mine?” he said, holding it up from the base with his palm. “You must give your girlfriend a really good time. Does she suck you?”

‘ “Yes,” I lied.

‘ “Where is she?”

‘ “At home.”

‘ “Why? Doesn’t she take care of you?”

‘ “Her parents don’t allow her out late at night.”

‘ “Where does she live?”

‘ “Greater Kailash.”

‘Though I lied, I felt it was somehow necessary, part of a social pretence. Jai, now obviously aroused, suddenly grabbed me and pressed himself against me, rubbing and shaking in a comic way. His movements became instinctive. With the same ease, the assuredness that had intimidated me, he turned me around and wanted to enter me.

‘ “No!” I said. “Are you crazy? Don’t you think about protection or anything?”

‘He misunderstood. “Fine, you come inside me, but then you’ll have to give me something.”

‘ “What?”

‘ “Just a little money, whatever you have.”

‘ “This is not about money.”

‘ “OK then, let me just seat my dick on you,” he said, choosing a formal word used in relation to kings and thrones.

‘I had never considered how important the vocabulary surrounding a sexual act was. I submitted to the new word, as if working under a new law. It was only when Jai’s arousal grew further and he tried again to enter me that I fought him off.

‘ “Bas,” Jai said, “I’m about to drop.” I was also close to climax when Jai with some panic in his voice, said, “Don’t drop any on me.”

‘It was then that I caught a glimpse of his Brahmin’s thread, dangling from his shirt and vest. It tickled me to see this small notion of sexual cleanliness come out of him so late into everything. Somehow this unexplained barrier – a caste horror perhaps – had survived. Now, for the first time, I felt as though I had some power over this man who had flaunted his freedoms, whose strong sweat and polyester odour filled my nostrils and made me feel wretched. Close to climax, I slipped my right hand behind Jai’s smooth Nepalese neck, pressing it lightly, and with my left, in a single wrenching motion, sprinkled watery drops of semen over the shaft and uncircumcised head of Jai’s penis.

‘He recoiled with disgust and began furiously wiping his penis. I squeezed out the last few drops on to his small closed fist and the dusty edge of the road.

‘Then putting a hundred rupees in his shirt pocket, I began walking away. I wasn’t envious of him now, but worried he might follow me to my house. I felt him grab my wrist and turn it over.

‘ “You don’t wear a watch?”

‘ “No.”

‘He smiled bitterly. “A hundred rupees is very little.”

‘ “Enough for a rickshaw,” I replied, and turned away.

‘After a pause, and once the protections of haze and street light had settled between us again, I heard yelled down Tughlak Lane the words: “OK, Krishna. Remember, call any time you like. Jai is there.” ’

The creative writer folded away the story’s pages and rested his large veiny hands, with their fleshy, nail-bitten tips, on his kneecaps. There was no applause, but the room soon filled with praising remarks. ‘Bold theme’, ‘exploitative values’, ‘neo-colonial alienation’, ‘Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code’ were bandied about. Aakash listened with fascination; I read the gold letters on the back of his red T-shirt. They were the destination points of a Grand Prix: Sakhir, Hockenheim, Silverstone, Interlagos. A few minutes later, the creative writers disbanded for the summer. The Brazilian music picked up, dinner was laid out on the dining table – hummus, kibbeh, pomegranate salad – and vodka tonics in clear glasses sweated in dark hands.

Aakash drank purposefully, filling his glass two or three times. Whenever he’d catch my eye, he’d open his mouth wide and pour the remains of his drink down his throat. Sanyogita, drinking cold lethal vodkas straight, had slipped her arm into his and was taking him round the room, introducing him to Emigrés at Home. She could always include people, especially if she sensed they were important to me. The creative writers, especially the greying women, delighted in the attention Aakash paid them.