The distance from my place to Church Street at the dead of night is about 25 minutes, but then where do you find the dead of night in Bangalore? Crawling cabs, cops engaged in friendly banter with drunk motorcyclists they intend to extort from, metro workers settling in for a whole night of hard work, security guards cycling back to their chummeries, frenetic ambulances zigzaging their way through one-way streets, this city is in a constant state of bedlam be it night or day.
I park my Harley opposite Sobha Mall and walk up to Empire, where Monami has ordered us a couple of shawarmas. I’m not particularly fond of the pita bread, but then, I had already had a difficult conversation today, and was willing to let go, despite the chewy bread and the undercooked chicken. Is it bird flu time, I can’t remember. Shouldn’t we be pressure cooking all kinds of meat this time of year, I wonder aloud.
“Come on, you wimp, how long are you gonna live anyway? To think you ride a big-ass bike,” she snorted.
“What’s the bike gotta do with wanting to not have salmonella crawling into my gut?”
“Gah, that’s a bacteria, and bird flu is caused by a virus. Huge difference. Anyway, don’t worry, the oven generates enough heat to get all the fear out of the chicken. Can you enjoy your food, please? What happened to you?”
“Well it seems I kissed a guy.”
“What, when!”
“I mean long back, but he called today and the conversation got awkward.”
“Haha, I kiss my roommate every now and then, don’t you worry. I hope you aren’t turned off by me kissing Reshmi? But I guess you boys are a bit more homophobic than us, so it’s natural that you find it awkward,” she offered as way of explanation, womansplaining everything very easily, like she always does.
I can lay out all my troubles in front of her, and she will find a way out of everything.
A simple, straightforward way.
I guess she could have been a great counselor, but I have no clue what she does, really. Either she’s from a rich background, suddenly run into money, or has a very well-paying job, I have no way to tell. Our encounters are kept easy and sanitized, without any probing into our backgrounds. Unlike the popular belief that women need something emotional whereas men just want their women to show up naked, Monami seems to have overcome that stereotype, and somehow managed to flip it a bit. In the sense that I have started needing her more than I would like to admit. For her to show up. Clothed even.
“Do you think our sexual orientation could be traced back to our DNA, or is it conditioning?” she asked.
“You seem to know a lot about everything, maybe you know it better than me? Plus I’ve not specialized in the Watson and Crick model of DNA,” I chuckle, feeling smug about having remembered something from my high-school biology book.
“I do know better than you, come on, like that’s anything to argue about! And I just wanted to know what you thought about it. Btw, I don’t think there’s any gay gene particularly. I must study about it. And also, F Y I, Watson and Crick stole the structure of DNA from Rosalind Franklin. I’m sure you didn’t know that. But then she was a woman, and that’s gonna be a long night.”
She tells me about the Matilda Effect in science, where men have taken credit for what their female colleagues have invented or discovered, and rattles off a lot of names of women wronged. By now we have walked up to the other end of Church Street and it is time to walk back to the motorcycle.
“Come home?” she offers, and I nod my head in silent approval. The last few patrons of Kling are out on the sidewalk, engaged in what appears to be cheerful badinage, the homeless are finally curling up in their blankets, the dogs are waiting for the garbage from the restaurants to be taken out, and the last metro silently leaves MG Road station above our heads. Or so I imagine. It is already past 2.00 in the morning and there are no metros plying this route now.
At her place tonight it isn’t the usual. Clothes don’t come off, and we just light a couple of cigarettes and doze off on her rather sturdy sofa. Where is it from? Damro, she says, patting me reassuringly. Reshmi comes out of her room, waves a groggy hello in our general direction, and starts urinating with the door open. I can hear the faint trickle of her pee, and wonder if the unexpected arousal is for her or Monami. Something about it reassures me.
Monami wraps her arm around me. Am I falling in love? Losing my sangfroid in the face of an impending relationship?
But then darkness sneaks up on you when you least remember.
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