Tutool - A Short Story

This is the story about a boy in Kolkata named Tutool. All of 10 years of age. His tale of shame has long been pushed into the closet by his ‘respectable’ neighbours. After all, who wants to have the son of a drunkard and a mad woman in “bhodro shomaaj” (respectable society)?

It was a chance meeting with Tutool that I had, oh!, more than two decades ago. I was in Kolkata attending a dear friend’s wedding. The ‘pandal’ (tent) to shelter the ceremonies was being set up on the roof of the ten storey building called ‘Doya Shaagor’ (Ocean of Mercy). That building faced a five storey one called ‘Durga’. The two buildings constituted ‘Shetola Society’. The festivities were a source of great joy to everyone. The neighbourhood children made a bee line to the cooks busy rustling up Bengali delicacies to feed 250 guests of the bride and groom. All kinds of exciting smells wafted out of their enormous frying pans and vats. I was 16 at that time and more than a little bored with the state of affairs. My friend was ensconced with all his numerous relatives getting ‘made up’ for the big night of ‘mala bodol’ (exchange of garlands). He had no time for me just then. I was wandering all over the roof top trying to spot any handsome hunks through the apartment windows, preferably in a state of undress. I remember that I was perpetually horny at that age: I would masturbate five or more times with wild fantasies canoodling in my hormone charged brain. I had gone to Kolkata in the hope of seeing some hot Bengali hunks naked! Don’t ask me how I intended to view such a glorious spectacle, those days I was mentally undressing every hunk I saw on the road. A perpetual pornographic movie used to play in my fertile imagination.

That hot Kolkata afternoon I was particularly interested in the bathroom of an apartment on the 4th floor of ‘Durga’. A man seemed to have entered and shut the door. Unfortunately, because of the harsh noon sun’s glare, the inside of the bathroom was practically invisible. Still I persevered in my fervent efforts to spy on an unclothed specimen of a male Homo Sapien through the small bathroom window. I was already half aroused in expectation.

Suddenly my glance fell through the wide living room window of another apartment in 'Durga'. A woman was repeatedly hitting a sofa with a stick. The building was close enough for me to hear that she was screaming something in Bengali. My friend had taught me a smattering of that language but I couldn’t make out the words of the woman. Intrigued, I moved to get a closer look. The woman, about 30, had her red and white Bengali ‘saree’ in disarray, her hair flew every which way and she seemed to have red vermillion smeared all over her forehead. As I watched, a man entered the living room and attempted to grab her stick. He was screaming too. In hellish fury the woman charged upon the man. Finally I could get her words, “Bastard! You are a devil”, she was screaming. The man was holding a bottle in his left hand and he kept taking swigs out of it.

Ofcourse I had heard of domestic violence before, but this was the first time I was witness to the horror being played out in front of my eyes. I didn’t know what to do. Was there someone I could call? Maybe I should go there and stop them.

“Don’t worry babu”, Kanai, one of the cooks, quipped consolingly behind my back. I turned around in surprise; I had not noticed him sneak up. Kanai continued, “They are always at it, that ‘paagli’ (mad woman) and the ‘maataal’ (drunkard) husband of hers. ‘Bhogobaan’ (God) knows why these ‘bhodro lok’ building people still allow them to live here.”

“But there must be something someone can do, Kanai!”, I was beside myself with worry, “I mean, aren’t there doctors who can take care of her?”, my shocked brain was desperately trying to search for quick fix solutions to the domestic crisis that was unfolding.

Kanai snickered, “Naa babu. Those two are always at it, hammer and tongs. We enjoy the fun.” I couldn’t, for the world, imagine how anyone could possibly call such a hideous spectacle ‘fun’. I turned away from Kanai in disgust.

I resumed staring at the violence in the apartment in a sort of horrified fascination. The man slapped the woman hard. I flinched as the sound resounded around me. The woman howled more obscenities. He tore at her ‘saree’ and took another swig from the bottle. He couldn’t seem to get any more from the bottle, he snarled his displeasure. With an oath he brought the empty bottle down hard on the woman’s head. The woman didn’t seem to feel anything, she kept hitting at the man with her bare fists. He began dragging her by her hair into the bedroom. I heard him scream “Maarbo” (I’ll kill you) repeatedly. A small figure of a boy wearing shorts and a t-shirt appeared on the scene. He was clutching at the man trying to stop him from dragging the woman. The man gave a back handed slap at the boy. The boy flew with the impact into a corner of the room. I screamed, in a terrified, impotent sort of way. The man seemed to realize the enormity of what he had done. He released the woman and barged out of the living room on to the stairs outside the apartment. The woman was on the boy consoling his anguished wails.

I turned around, pushed Kanai aside and ran down the stairs two at a time. I had to go to that apartment. I had to do something. This was outrageous.

The apartment door was thrown wide open. The woman was lying on the floor apparently unconscious. The boy was sprinkling water on her face trying to revive her. I knelt beside the boy, his forehead was cut and bleeding. He turned and saw me kneeling beside him. His teary eyes widened in surprise.

“Dada” (elder brother), he mumbled in a small voice, “my father has beaten my mom again because she protested when he hit me. She is mad, you know”.

I looked at the wiry frame of that little boy and I didn’t know what to say. There must be some words of consolation, I thought to myself, which I can utter at this point. But there were none. What can you say to a little boy who is trying to revive his mentally disturbed mother from a swoon after his father has smashed her with a bottle on the head? It was uncivilized, inhuman, and barbaric. No one should have to see this. This boy was living it. This little boy who had just called me his elder brother. This chit of a boy who I had not seen before that day. I shivered at the enormity of the responsibility that the boy had placed on me with that one word.

“What is your name?”, I whispered.

“Tutool”, he answered, his brown eyes peering into mine. He gave me a half smile and continued tremulously, “I have seen you in the other building with the marriage family. You are from Bombay, right?” I nodded.

“Your forehead is bleeding, Tutool”, I examined his wound, “Do you have Band-Aid in the house?”, I asked.

‘Wait dada’. Tutool got up slowly and walked to a wall cabinet. He took out a packet and gave it to me. I tore out a strip of Band-Aid and put it over his wound. Tutool stared at me.

“Dada no one comes to this house because my mother is ‘paagli’ and my father is ‘maataal’”, Tutool’s hurt face bore full into mine. “I am paaglee’s son and may spread the disease to other children, so no one here plays with me.”

I hugged Tutool. I had tears in my eyes. “I am your Deep dada, Tutool. And I am here now.”

Tutool’s mother was showing some signs of coming out of her swoon on the floor. In a few minutes she was sitting up mumbling to herself. She seemed to realize that a stranger, me, was in the room. She stared at me.

“Ke?” (Who is that?), she asked.

Tutool hastened to reply, ‘Deep dada ma!’.

The mother said something I couldn’t understand, Tutool got up to close the main door of house. The mother got up and walked to the kitchen. She seemed not to notice the state of her hair and dress. Presently she brought out two ‘thaalaas’ (steel dishes) and laid them on the living room floor in front of where Tutool and I were squatting. She went back and got a pot of rice and daal. These she served us.

“Khe nao beta” (eat my sons), she cajoled us.

Out of politeness and feeling very uncomfortable I began shovelling the food in my mouth. Tutool ate chattering with his mother in Bengali. She seemed to like her son talking to her and her face softened in affection.

I looked at the mother lovingly watching her son eat lunch, like thousands of mothers watching their sons eat at that very moment in Kolkata. Yet, this mother was different. This son was scarred. This scene was blighted. Their future was dark. And I was a mute spectator by virtue of the fact that I was made the ‘dada’ by little Tutool.

“I have manic depressive psychosis Deep beta but my son here is healthy”.

I looked up startled from my rice plate at the woman who had just spoken to me in flawless English, as sane as any woman I had ever met. I had my mouth full of rice and couldn’t think of a reply.

“I worry about my son. His father is an alcoholic and a violent man. In one of his violent episodes he may harm my child and I may be in an unconscious fit at that time.”

The very hopelessness of her words made a chill wind blow in my heart. I looked at the small head of Tutool bent over his rice place and I looked at the bedraggled woman who had just uttered words of the sanest mother I had ever heard. I felt helpless and afraid. I wanted to do something for these two people. Carry them away to Bombay; keep them in my house, anything. Anything I could do to snatch them out of the grasp of this accursed house. Could I tell my parents I wanted to keep them with me and take care of them for ever and ever? That I wanted to hold Tutool against my heart and rock him to sleep every night and tell him that he will never have to be sad again? Could I? What would my parents say? I would get this mother to a Psychiatrist in Mumbai and she would get cured. I would ensure that Tutool got a good education. I would set all these wrongs right. The brute of a husband would never get to see his wife and boy again. I resolved all of these in my head right there. I had no idea how I was going to carry all this on my shoulders. But I resolved.

After we finished eating, the mother carried the plates back in the kitchen. I followed her.

“Aren’t you going to eat, maashimaa (aunty)?”, I asked her. “Not now, beta. I have to wait half an hour after I take my medicines.“

“Then I’ll help you wash the dishes, maashimaa”, I offered. She laughed and hugged me. “Naa re beta! You go and play with my Tutool”.

I went back to the living room and saw Tutool sitting over a book. “What book is that Tutool?”, I asked.

“Enid Blyton, The Secret Island, dada”.

His face had lit up with the childhood joy of exploring the mysteries of a make believe world. I understood completely, that book was my favourite not so many years before. Tutool suddenly gave me a hug.

“Thank you dada!”.

I kissed his forehead and hugged him back. I wanted this moment to last forever. I wanted no dark clouds to cast shadows over the lives of Tutool and his mom. Today, chance had decided that Tutool and I would be brothers fighting a cruel fate. And this day had perchance shoved me into their lives. Maybe, today, the gods had decided that they needed help at last. Maybe, today was the day when I was to pay my debts from a past life. But the gods had not cared that I was only 16 and dependant on others for my own survival. A feeling of helplessness oozed through my bones and brought with it a sick feeling of unease. Was I upto the onerous task?

The hours flew. The husband did not return. The mother said that there were no chances of him coming before the following morning. She seemed very lucid and did not have any attacks of her illness. She even groomed herself well and appeared like any of the thousands of ‘normal’ mothers of Kolkata. At 4 she made tea for all of us and we sat, cross legged, in companionable silence on the drawing room floor drinking the sweet concoction with plain Parle biscuits.

The marriage ceremony of my friend was to be conducted that evening from 7. I wanted both mother and son to attend it with me. Even my most fervent entreaties wouldn’t bring her to come with me, but she was all encouragement for her son to go with me. Tutool changed into a fresh pair of shorts and a bright t-shirt and we walked hand in hand merrily to the function.
It was my first glimpse of a Bengali wedding, and evidently, so was Tutool’s. The two of us held hands throughout and ate a sumptuous dinner together. It was close to midnight, when I went back to drop a sleepy Tutool to his house. His mother met us at the door smiling. There was no sign of her husband and I was relieved.

I touched her feet at the door, “Maashimaa, good night. I’ll come again tomorrow”.

Arrangements had been made for the guests to stay at a hotel nearby. I went to my room and fell on the bed already asleep.

It was nearing ten the next morning when I woke up from my dreamless slumber. I languorously stretched on my too soft hotel bed. I rang for the tea and it arrived with an assortment of exotic biscuits. Remembering the plane Parle biscuits that we had had the previous day, I stuffed the entire tray full of biscuits in a bag meaning to take it for Tutool. I hurried through my toilet and got out of the hotel room.

Knowing that my friend wouldn’t be expecting me (Ha! He would be ‘busy’ with his new wife!) I made haste towards Tutool’s building. There was a crowd of people at the entrance. I pushed past them and attempted to walk up to Tutool’s apartment. I was blocked by a posse of policemen.

“What happened?”, I asked, alarmed, to the nearest man in uniform.

“The mad woman killed her drunkard husband last night. She has been taken to the lockup this morning”.

The cold wind which had blown in my heart the previous afternoon turned into an icy blizzard.

“And the child?”, I asked frightened.

“We are all virtuous people, we don’t let such filthy kids stay in our building complex”, answered Mr. D.K. Das, honourable chairperson of the building committee of Shetola Society.

“That boy was despatched (sic) by train to his maternal grandmother in Chinsoora village of the 24 Parganas. Durga Durga! Such filth should not corrupt our angelic little children in this society”.

Thus did the honourable Mr. D.K. Das cleanse the merciful ocean of 'Doya Shaagor' and restore the sanctity of the Goddess most powerful, 'Durga'.

Another noon was about to break outside, I walked under the sun away from the buildings towards the rudiments of a garden. The blizzard in my heart blew the hard heat of the sun away. As I sat near a bed of roses, all I could feel was little Tutool blankly watching rows and rows of rice fields from the train, rushing towards his darkness.

If you are reading this Tutool, after all these years, dada says sorry he could not snatch you away from the darkness. Your dada was too puny to be able to do that.

Dusk - A Short Story

I was in the 2 by 2 (yep, you read that right!) compartment of a local train coming home from CST. A guy jumped in just as the train was leaving CST station and stood very close to me. Youthful in his looks, with a pleasant demeanour, he caught my attention immediately. As per the timeless ritual his hand brushed my privates. As luck would have it, my boss called me on my cell at that very moment and I had to answer.

After I had finished my cell-phone conversation with my boss he continued his advances. By and by he asked me, "where are you getting down?", in English. "VidyaVihar", I answered. "Then I, too, am getting down there today", he said smiling. He had a soft, honest face and I did not get perturbed by this development. "I am Amit. And you?".

"Deep", I said.

At Vidya Vihar we walked towards the RajaWadi garden. It was past 7 pm and a murky dusk had already settled in on this November Saturday evening. Amit was born and schooled in Kashipur. His father was a headmaster in the school he studied. His first realization of the fact that he was gay came at the tender age of twelve. His cousin brother, who had spent a dozen years on earth as well, liked to spend a lot of time with Amit. They would sleep in the same bed and one thing led to another. Amit fondly recollected the days, months and years that he spent loving his cousin. They had never heard the word "gay", yet their thoughts and acts together were the same as any homosexual teen in Denmark.

"It was always Vipin", sighed Amit, sitting down on the park bench, "morning, noon and night". I sat beside Amit. He seemed to have lost himself in his thoughts; I don't know if he remembered that there was I, a stranger, sitting by him listening to his reverie. "Vipin on my bed. Vipin hugging me. Vipin giving me paroxysms of pleasure with his mouth. I love you Vipin!" A single tear rolled down his eye. "That dreadful evening! The evening it all ended. Vipin fell over the rooftop trying to retrieve his kite. I can see it Deep! I can see it happening in front of me. Oh God! He is falling now!" Amit's anguish was so powerful that it seemed I was transported to that place and time. Suddenly I was no longer sitting on a stone bench at RajaVadi garden in Mumbai on a November evening in 2004. Suddenly we were back in Kashipur. I could see Amit's love,his very heart, falling to his death. Vipin smashed his head on the culvert and died instantly. In his breast pocket he had a picture of Amit and him together.

Amit had to stop narrating at this point because he was so choked with emotions. I patted his arm in consolation. "I was 20 at that time. Over the next few months I nearly lost my mind with grief", continued Amit morosely. "I was brought to a local hakim. He prescribed marriage". I could barely manage to whisper my protests to that. My parents would hear none of it." Amit's voice dropped to a dry rasp. "I pleaded with my illiterate mother to let me off. I wanted to kill myself. Seeing my suicidal tendencies my father got even more alarmed. They snared a demure lass of 16 from the next village and sat me down with her in the marriage `mandap'. I didn't know what was happening to me! In my pocket I still had the picture of Vipin and me as the lass put the garland of marriage around my neck. Later that night, when I saw her undress I puked and started sobbing hysterically. She got scared and ran out of our bridal chamber to my parents." Amit was silent for a while as the memories got too much for him. He seemed to realize then that there was me sitting next to him on that bench. He clutched my wrist. "I couldn't help it Deep! I just couldn't get myself to touch Geeta. Please forgive me God. I couldn't touch her!"

One day, as Amit came home from work he found Geeta hanging by her neck in their bedroom. The whole village came to watch their sorrow and condemn Amit and his hapless parents. The police got involved since they suspected that it was a case of dowry death. They interrogated Amit and his old parents for 7 long days and nights. When they were let go, the villagers wouldn't let the family stay in their village. Amit's father committed suicide by drinking Phenyl. His mother just gave up living over the next few months. Amit was left all alone with a set of hostile neighbours. When things got too much for him he ran away to Mumbai. That was a year ago.

Amit got a small photograph out of his breast pocket and proffered it to me. It had a beautiful lad holding Amit in his arms looking at Amit's eyes. The photograph was smudged with tears. "I have kept Vipin close to my heart Deep! All this time".

It was getting darker and we got up. "Time to go, Deep!", said Amit suddenly, "time for me to go". He suddenly seemed in a hurry to leave the garden. He seemed to realize that he had been talking to an absolute stranger and probably felt embarrassed. "So where do you live Amit?", I asked. "Some way down", Amit said gruffly, "some way down".

We got in the train at VidyaVihar together. I was going to Mulund – my home. Amit, I still wasn't sure. "Do you know what day it is today?", Amit asked me in the train. "It's the day Vipin was snatched away from me". I was shocked and felt very uneasy. There was something amiss in the way Amit was sidling away from me towards the door. The on boarding crowd at Ghatkopar pushed us apart. The train gathered momentum. Suddenly I heard cries of "gir gaya!", he's fallen down! I pushed my way thru till the door way. Amit was lying by the tracks, his head a bloody mess, the speeding train already sending the dreadful site receding into darkness.

I can never forget that murky evening till the end of my days. The day a homosexual man lost his life on the alter of a murky custom called heterosexual marriage.

Lonely

I read a report on a gay old-age home project being initiated by Prince Manavendra of Rajpipla, India. In the report, the prince was very hopeful about his project. It set me thinking. Loneliness, coupled with, old age is a very real possibility for many of us. Would I like to be banished to an old age home years from now?
If I find my soul mate and get married to him, will both of us stay in that old-age home?

One sees so many types of loneliness.

Lonely is the widowed mother whose children are abroad and who lives in a one room tenement in the heart of Mumbai.

Lonely is the derelict beggar on the footpath of a busy highway waiting to cross over to the other side where the garbage bin overflows with last night's delectables.

Lonely is the recovering drug addict who has been thrown out of his house by his family for stealing.

Lonely is the ten year old kid, recently orphaned, who sits by the kitchen of the orphanage watching the boisterous play of the inmates.

Lonely is the gay man, on the brink of adulthood, listening to his parents talk about his marriage with a buxom belle from his village.

Lonely is the old gay man watching, with rheumy eyes, the party animals smooching passionately on the dance floor.

Today I sit by my window watching the Mumbai rain, wondering if anyone's ever going to call and whisper sweet nothings in my ear. I read "Sons and Lovers" for the hundredth time. I look at two grey pigeons in amorous pursuit of each other on the roof top of the next building. I spy, with bated breath, thru the window as my handsome next door neighbor walks out of the bathroom wearing only a small towel around his middle. Will he or won't he, take off his towel? He draws the curtains, oblivious to my stare and arousal. The skies are overcast. The roads are starting to flood. I think of the gay couple who have decided to spend the next 5 days together in a neighboring hill station. They had called me in the morning in great glee. Their lives' ambitions are getting fulfilled. I bless them, as only a true friend can. They are the same age as me and have been very lonely before they met each other.

There is love in this world, I decide. It's rationed though. Some of us get left sitting on the sidewalk.

The Gay Pride Parade in Mumbai on Sunday, August 16, 2009. One small march for queens, one giant parade for gay-kind (apologies to Neil Armstrong)

1500 homos marched in Mumbai. So what's been achieved? What's the use of such tiny parades? Some of my straight "friends" have asked me the "purpose of making such a public display of our sexual preference". "Keep buggering each other in your bedrooms", they argue belligerently, "Who the hell cares?"

So what if those pansies braved the heat outside their closets?

Many who donned masks at the start of the parades, decided to take them off, both literally and figuratively. So what? The general populace saw that the sum total of the sample called the "queer population" consists of "ordinary people" and not just those who dress up in garish costumes and make sexual statements publicly. So what? Some scared young-man sitting quietly in front of his TV on Sunday evening in the closeted comfort of his home had a flicker of hope in his heart. So what? So what if 1500 species in the animal kingdom have been proved to show homosexual behaviour? So what if a 5000 year old Indian treatise on sex clearly mentions homosexuality?
Demonstrations and public display of emotions may be distasteful to many. After all, it is easier to maintain status quo in this country and for all the macho guys to giggle derisively at homo jokes. Easier for all the people with "family values" to turn their noses up in disgust when they see a miserable queer being bashed up by the police in some stinking public loo. Easier for the heterosexual married people to think of some murderous homos preying on little kids. After all, it is best if homos are thought of as paedophiles and locked up. Lock them up! Punish them! Who the hell cares? Most of us are straight anyways.

Right?

OK, so it's all right that ugly, dark-skinned brides with poor fathers should be doused with kerosene and set alight just after they are married and can't afford the "required" dowry. It's all right that little girl children should be butchered as soon as they turn 2 days old. It's all right when women are not allowed to go to school or vote. It's all right that "lower cast" kids should be banished to some filthy municipal school. Who the fuck cares? After all, it's "them". It's not me. I am safe. I can sit in the comfort of my house, watch the news channels and say to myself, "It happens to THOSE people. I don't care!"

Wrong!

That bride could be your sister. That girl- child could be yours. That woman could be your mother. That kid could be you. You will care then! Your passions will overflow into "embarrassing public display of emotions" when your twin brother is being bashed up in that loo.

Many years ago one thin gentleman had decided to make salt at a beach himself when it was more fashionable to get it from the British. That thin gentleman, with a walking stick, marched a long way to show those Indians ensconced safely in their British houses that it is better to be unfettered.

These 1500 people who marched in Mumbai on Sunday have also shown us, the gay and the straight, that it is better to be free. That it is better to care. They have lit a tiny spark, just like that thin gentleman, with a walking stick, had done so many years ago, by picking up a handful of salt in the beach. The spark became a blazing inferno of independence. Aren't we all glad it happened?

What is the use of the ugly duckling? ONE DAY IT WILL BECOME A SWAN!