Anish and I had been living in a live-in relationship for six months. We had rented this apartment in Mumbai as we wanted to be close to each other, but last month, he got a job in Pune.
As he was not in town for the weekend, I
decided to run some errands and planned to watch a movie in Colaba at the Regal
Cinema. I like watching a movie alone. Looking at people, just being an
observer. I walked into the metro at Andheri station and stood at the center of
the bogie as there was no space on the sides. Generally, I stand towards the
sides as the center feels weird. It feels as if all of them are watching me,
and I am about to break into a dance routine.
"Excuse me!"
A man looked at me from behind, signaling
me to move aside as he wanted to shift towards the door. He was well-built with
a small belly curve. I smiled humbly and gave him some space. He too smiled and
moved ahead to stand right in front of me. It was quite intimate. He had a
charming beard. Quite my type, so to speak. Not that I was attracted to him, but
at one point, we were breathing the same air. In the warmth of our breaths, the
AC felt like a myth. At one moment, he looked through my eyes, and I looked
through his.
My thoughts started wandering around in an
attempt to avoid acknowledging the tension between us. Where were all these
people going? Was there an end to this? What was I thinking? How would it feel
to be in the same bed with this man?
;
The film was good. It had promised to take
me somewhere and had succeeded at it. I had been looking forward to just
escaping somewhere anyway. Just then, I saw someone outside the cinema hall who
looked exactly like Neel. His arms, to be precise. It had happened many times.
On many days in this strange city, I had seen glimpses of Neel. A look
somewhere, a smile elsewhere, a hand gesture. It wasn’t like I missed him or
anything. It was rather the opposite.
But this guy WAS Neel. The moment was
magical. Not because it was actually him. It was magical because it, in a way,
proposed a strong case that maybe it had been Neel all along. The glimpses that
I had seen for the last six months in this absurd city were maybe actually,
really, his. The timing was insane, I thought to myself.
Neel had traveled to Mumbai as he got time
from his screenplay writing course that he was doing in Pune. As we recognized
each other outside the Cinema Hall, he immediately told me that he needed to
get fresh somewhere as he had just reached Mumbai. The AC in the Shivneri bus
mustn’t have helped his bladder. "How much?" I asked. "Can
freshness be measured?" he must’ve felt weird giving that reply.
"No, but do you want to go to my room
or is a Starbucks ok?”
;
Being in a room with each other where one
of us was shirtless had been a normal thing for us. He knew Anish very well.
Actually, they had been friends before he met me. They were schoolmates. I had
met him through him. He removed his shirt as he was quite sweaty. Mumbai’s
weather was not helping. As usual, I opened my phone and started scrolling
through Instagram. Something that most would do when a half-naked body is
standing in their room.
Now that I think of it, these obvious
failing attempts at ignoring the hormonal presence in the room are mostly seen
by the naked eye. The half-naked person in the room senses the tension. The
not-naked person in the room senses it too. But still, we do these things. We
open a book. We look outside a window. We play with the Rubik’s Cube as if we
care about those things.
After a while, I put my phone aside and
started playing with the fidget spinner. I didn’t know why I took it, but it
felt like a better choice than just being awkward. “So, how are things with
Anish?” he asked curiously. “Great. We are actually thinking of shifting back
to Pune. He has a job there, so. And that way, I’ll come closer to you!” Saying
this, I gave out a fake laugh.
Why had I said that? What was I thinking?
Obviously, I was sure of myself that I had said ‘closer’ as a ‘friend’. But I
doubted what he must’ve thought about it.
“Are you guys still in an Open
relationship?” he asked while wiping his face with my towel. The mole on his
neck had never been more prominent.
“Almost,” I replied.
If you asked me, I wouldn’t deny that he
was attractive. If one were to see objectively, he was of a certain 'type'. The
first time we met, I had looked more at him than he looked at me. It was only
later, when we became ‘friends’, that things cooled down.
“What do you mean by almost? Is it open or
not?”
I decided to ignore this question and went
straight away into the bathroom. While walking past him, I unknowingly inhaled
the smell of his body. I walked inside the washroom and exhaled, where it got
mixed into the smell of Anish’s body. It was weird, but still, I found myself
aroused.
;
Throughout the day, we roamed around the
city as if we were a couple. At least, the city was looking at us in that
manner. Or at least, I thought that the city looked at us in that manner. I
took him to the Nehru Centre Art Gallery, where we looked at some nudes. A
French artist had captured the essence of the male body in his new nude series
called les hommes ressemblent à des Hommes. We savoured the whole
exhibition. It could not have been more dramatic.
At one point, it felt as if the day had
been written.
;
In the evening, we had to take the local
while we were going back to Colaba. The crowd was insane. Laughing and smiling,
our bodies touched each other like objects as we got into the train. Holding
the bar above us, we stood very close to each other.
“You remember the moment you came out to
me?” he asked, knowing that it would take me somewhere. “Obviously,” I replied.
I always find it interesting that things
work differently between us than in the straight world. Maybe it's the similar
life experiences that we go through, but we bond with our kind more intimately.
For each queer person I have met, the boundaries are blurred. Friends are not
friends but more. Maybe these knowing glances that we share with each other
solidify the possible intimacy that we carry in our minds.
The train crossed station after station,
and yet again, I smelled Neel’s sweat as he stood across me, touching my body.
He too smelled me. I could feel the rousing effect we were having on each
other. Inhaling and exhaling in a certain rhythm, we both unknowingly decided
to give in to the movement of the train. In no time, he let go of his lips,
which were near my neck. I was unable to say if it was him or the train
movement, but his lips landed on my neck. They were warm. Similarly, in no
time, my lips too landed on the other side of his neck. His neck was warm near
the mole. I felt an intense sensorial rush inside me.
“Oh! Neel!”
Suddenly, I heard a familiar voice in my
ears. For a moment, I could not guess the direction from which it came. We both
straightened up.
“What a coincidence!” Neel said, looking
at Anish, who just happened to be in the same Local as us. It was his voice. He
had come back from Pune. He had his bags with him. He recognized Neel and was
happily surprised to see us. I moved back a bit, giving him some space between
us, and cleared my throat.
He looked at me as if he knew. He just
read me like an open book. And I let him. Somehow, at that moment, I was unable
to close myself off. Rather, even with all the shame and guilt, I realized that
that was the beauty of us. That was the reason I was with him. Suddenly, I felt
immense love for him.
“How are you here?” he asked Neel after he
was done reading me.
“I just came to visit someone from work. I
met him by coincidence in the morning, and then, we just chilled together,”
Neel replied.
Anish smiled and looked at me. “Great! At
least someone was here to give him some company!” he said to Neel, referring to
me. His intervention was amusing. He had this smile where he just twitched an
eye and looked right through me.
My arousal was quite evident on my face,
and Neel noticed it. Suddenly, his face turned pale. The whole thing was
baffling. Neel getting affected by sensing the hormonal tension between me and
Anish was a new thought for me. It got translated into a newer, inexplicable
feeling. It felt like I was cheating on him. As if the center had shifted for a
while. As if now Anish was the affair.
But Anish was the present. He was standing
there, right in front of me. Being my ‘partner’ who had just intruded into the
situation. Giving me the sense of stability. Would it be like this all my life?
Without a fixed person to go back to, would my romantic life always keep
shifting its center?
We talked more, and Neel decided to part
ways with us at the next station. I don’t know how, but things changed. It felt
as if Anish and I had been together throughout the day, and we had just met
Neel in the local. As just a random coincidence.
The next station came, and Neel got down.
As the train started moving, I felt a heavy feeling in my stomach.
;
I hugged Anish tightly and kissed him on the neck as I
always did. He, too, took me in his embrace with his beautiful arms. Then, hand
in hand, we walked toward Regal and decided to go for the 9:30 show of Hum Dil
De Chuke Sanam, which had been re-released last week.