I first met him about 5 years back. It was during the summer of 2004. I’d just washed my hands clear of the 8th grade and a fun and promising summer lay ahead of me... I’d been selected for a summer training camp at THE software company of India: Infosys from amongst God-knows-how-many others based on an evaluative IQ test and boy, was I happy. “This is great!”, I kept telling myself.
His name was Anuj. But the strange thing is, back then, I barely noticed him. True, we sometimes sat together at lunch and talked awhile about somethings during those ten days, but that’s that. I never gave him a second thought. In fact, I was drooling over this cute guy from Mary’s, a year my senior, who wore low-waist jeans, was a hit with the chicks and not to mention, was the grandson of one of the richest business tycoons in town...pretty hard not to go gaga over him! Those ten days were over in a trice and life continued as usual.
The second time I met him was in the 9th grade. Turns out, we attended the same math classes. We met twice a week. He would sit with his friend, me with mine; but mostly on neighbouring benches. We’d chat a li’l every now and then but it would usually be something to do with math. We belonged to two different worlds: I was just the shy guy who was good at math who could be asked a few doubts, from the other part of town. He, meanwhile, was into sports and gaming and was seemingly popular amongst his friends(but don’t get ideas of the cliched American football quarterback). We were friendly with each other, but there were no common grounds for us to become friends and true, we didn’t. At the end of the year, we didn’t know anything more about each other than when we started out. It wasn’t like this bothered me... Like i said earlier, he didn’t mean anything to me back then though it would’ve been cool to have him as a friend. The following year, I didn’t see him again. He had decided to discontinue the extra math classes, I continued...
Then came the proving battle-field for the quintessential Indian school student: the 10th boards. I passed with the oh-so-cliched flying colours and, thoroughly confident of my genius, decided to take THE plunge: IITJEE. I was mentally prepared for two gruelling years of absolute hardwork and focus. I wanted to prove my mettle, to create a notch for myself, to shine amongst the cattle-like herd around me. Becoming a top-notch engineer wasn’t the first priority, though I had everyone else who asked, believe otherwise. “Blah!I’m hardly like the others who follow the herd mentality and blindly decide to appear for the granddad of all exams. I truly wanna be an engineer.”, I had myself believe. I lay all my scruples aside, thought it was for the best.
I easily cleared the entrance exam for the elitist JEE coaching institute of the city, which chose just 40 from amongst more than the 600 who optimistically appeared for it. As I would later learn, so did Anuj, albeit just so.
And so started a new phase of my life, one in which knowledge was the ultimate Holy Grail and books, the guide on the Quest. I walked into the class the first day all chirpy and enthusiastic, nothing could dampen my zeal. But dampen it did... all around me I could see bespectacled nerds with oil-slicked hair, shirts tucked into waist-high trousers and some with furry moustaches. And in this sea, I spotted Anuj, wearing a black turtleneck over a red tee and straight-cut denims. He gave a smile of recognition and we immediately floated towards each other, more out of necessity than want. Don’t get me wrong: I’m not always so judgemental and judge all books by their covers. But I was very familiar with this very particular human species called the Indiana Small-townus geekus. I didn’t have anything personal against them, but the thought of spending 4 hours a day, 365 days a year for two years, listening to their jokes about Newton and Heisenberg and pi and iota, seemed unbearable. Not belonging to this species seemed to be the common grounds for friendship between Anuj and I, which was earlier missing...
With each passing day, the bond seemed to grow stronger. While the conversations were mostly academic, I got to understand him better in subtle ways. We discussed our study habits, our problems and suggested workable solutions for the other. The focus that JEE preparation requires called for us to leave our previous lives behind. Other friends soon became distractions, gofers who whiled away their time. Excuses were made for every invitation, calls never returned. Soon, they got the hint... We became each others’ only support systems. We began to realise how similar we actually were. The facades that I’d built around myself began to crumble one by one and unknowingly, we’d revealed our true selves to the other. It was then that I began to see Anuj in another light....
Anuj was skinny to say in the least, had a wheatish complexion and was average looking. He had a beautiful mane of dark black hair, which was invariably unkempt. I soon found myself resisting the urge to move my fingers through them or to catch a whiff of his masculine odour whenever I was close to him or leant across him to pass on something. I must say something about his smell: it smells like a heady combination of musk and sweat, but it wasn’t like bad body odour, which thoroughly turned me off. It was intrinsic to him and smelt all man, especially after a tiring game of badminton...
Soon I found myself wanting to spend more and more time with him. I had always been a self-study person, but now I always ended up gladly agreeing to any group-study suggestions with him though they barely helped me at all. I’ll digress here and point out rather immodestly that I was the more ‘intelligent’ amongst the two of us and indeed, amongst the more brainy ones in class. He frequently asked me many of his doubts and always expected me to be ready with answers. However, Anuj also had a very competitive streak about him and soon, through grit and determination, started rising up the ranks. Though there was a large enough margin between us, I felt the need to maintain it if I had to continue having my sway over him. It led to a very healthy competition amongst us, each genuinely trying to help the other and pull him down at the same time. We chided each other and I thoroughly enjoyed this camaraderie. I had always been much of a loner and in Anuj, I found the friend that I’d always longed for. But with it came the increasing insecurity of losing him. I remember this one time when he asked me for my opinion about attending one of his friend’s birthday party and I did everything within my power to not let him attend, afraid that he might find their company more enjoyable... After all, all we talked about was mainly academic. Who wouldn’t like banter about girls, booze, movies and fun?
What was happening to me?? I knew I was sexually attracted to him, but this... This was different... any stray thought of him lit up my face and I longed for his late-night calls to discuss some math or physics problem. I increasingly sought to make our late-night post-badminton chats more intimate and personal, suggested roof-top restaurants for dinner and always insisted on paying the tab. A basic postulate of relativity states that nothing can exceed the velocity of light, but I realized with horror that I was falling for Anuj much faster...
Soon, with each other for company, the two years flew by, with periods of trials and tribulations too, but handled well. It was somewhat like Frodo Baggins and Sam’s journey to destroy the ring and finally, when _________ appeared, when D-day seemed to be on the horizon, we somewhat drifted apart, each trying to tackle his own monsters. Meetings became more and more infrequent and I became more and more restless. JEE happened. It didn’t go as well as we would’ve liked it to, but it was finally behind us and we tried our best to forget it and look at the happy times that lay ahead.
Meanwhile, I got selected for various National Olympiads and had to prepare for them, while Anuj was free to spend his days as he wanted to. I had to attend a month-long training camp in Bombay and at the end of it, was selected in the Indian contingent for the International Olympiad. It was the best thing that had ever happened to me. I could barely believe it and was ecstatic, but a part of me was sorry that the plans I’d made to spend time with Anuj would have to be scrapped. I’d had this grand idea of us hitchhiking alone, getting to know each other better and having fun. But the selection meant even more hardwork, weeks spent training in Bombay, away from the one person I wanted to be with. I’d hoped that I would’ve made him so dependent on me that he simply would never leave me. Yeah, think of me as crazy, but love muddles up your mind. If you hadn’t already guessed, LOVE was what I was afflicted with. Love..!!! the idea had captivated me... I had had many crushes, but the fantasies always included only hot, passionate sex. This time, it was something else: I daydreamed of us owning a beautiful house, building our own start-up firm, having dogs to come home to at night together... and of course, the sex was there too...in every place and style imaginable...oh! how these dreams tormented me, they gave me hardons no amount of jerking could truly satisfy...
By then, the JEE results were out: I’d gotten a rank within the top 100 and his was within 2000. I’d wanted better for both of us, though my rank was supposed to be very much desirable. I got a premonition that we weren’t going to stay together much longer and it materialised in the form of me getting admitted to IIT Bombay and him to IIT Kanpur. I had somehow known this all along and was able to handle it fairly well. I started thinking of ways to tell Anuj my true feelings for him, to tell him how much I would miss him. I started listening to a lot of Avril Lavigne songs that spoke of loneliness and love. But I felt defeated, for in the back of my mind I knew that I would never have the balls to do it. For, upto now I had conveniently skipped the biggest problem of all: the fact that Anuj didn’t even have an inkling of me being gay.
I hadn’t come out of the closet to anyone yet. I didn’t want anyone to know. I didn’t see any reason for me to tell them. Life seemed to be going pretty smoothly. Letting the cat out of the bag could only bring trouble and complications, something I would’ve definitely liked to give a miss. To this effect, I shied away from anything that could hint at me being more into cock than pussy. I’d always join my friends in bird-watching and pass comments about Scarlett Johannson’s shapely booty and Angelina Jolie’s pouty lips and how I’d like to fuck them both, though the very thought repulsed me. My mom’s old Cosmopolitan and Elle magazines were read only in the privacy of my room and pink tees were a strict no-no. In any conversation regarding gays, I’d always take an anti-gay stand and call them queers, fags and cock-suckers. But I am as gay as they come.
You couldn’t blame Anuj for not suspecting my orientation.
I thought I was losing him... Surely in the four years of college that he’d spend living the hostel-life, he’d find some worthwhile friends with whom he’d share God-knows-how-many experiences: celebrating birthdays, getting piss drunk, getting ragged. I’ll be relegated to some old corner of his memory, just another person whom he’d met. I was pretty sceptical I’d meet anyone quite like him...
When he left for college, I was on the other side of the globe, trying in earnest to earn a medal for the country. I returned home a victor, but had never felt half as defeated. The few times I tried calling him, I was subjected to tales of his merry-making and revelry, while all I could do was make small talk,pretending that life was all hunky-dory on my end too. I started avoiding calling him. In reality, I liked my new hostel-life too, but there was a void left in me. Whenever i saw friends walking together content and glad, I felt the emptiness within and just wished for things to have been different than they were...
It had been quite some time since we had talked to each other. When he received the phone, he sounded low. I immediately sensed it and asked him the cause. “I’ve just come out of some really bad days. I’ve never been away from home before. All the bonding, the friendly swear-words seem just too fake. I feel like I’ve been lying to myself about what I really want. I’ve been like a football of others’ opinions here. I’m sick of trying to get others’ approval...I was almost ready to quit and return home. But now I’m outta it”, I felt hurt and shamefully enough, at the same time, a bit glad that I wasn’t the only one who was suffering. We chatted for a long time over the phone during which I again switched to over-protective mode and bombarded him with the advice that I’ve always been used to giving him. He assured me that things were back to normal now.
Only that they weren’t...
A few days later, I was initially surprised and then panicked to see Anuj’s residential number blinking on my phone’s screen. I picked it up, dreading to hear Anuj’s voice tell me that he couldn’t bear it any longer and had returned home. It was his mom. She’d found my number in his old records. She told me that Anuj was in moderate depression and was seriously contemplating coming back home. Apparently Anuj had told her that things would’ve been much better if I was there with him and that I would’ve had set things right and that he missed me. My heart leapt out of its cage when I heard her say this. “he does miss me too..!” But her voice brought me back to the reality of my love’s sufferings and the tears started flowing freely. She was insistent that I shouldn’t let him know that his mom had called me. I promised her that and that I would talk to him and make him see sense. No one knew him better than I did, after all. That night, I lay curled up in my bed, with tear-stained cheeks, spooning my pillow and prayed to God to give my love all the strength that he needed.
The next day, I called him up and heard him through. I tried to sympathise with him, to show him that it’s natural the way he felt. We must’ve talked for a few hours and by the end, I was feeling pretty optimistic. He was already taking counselling with a shrink in the college, who specialised in students’ affairs. A few days later, he decided that he’d had enough and needed a break. He was to fly down to Bombay and from there, drive on to Pune. I convinced his mom to bring him to my place for some time...
As I said earlier, Anuj had always been skinny, but now he seemed gaunt and drawn. He hadn’t shaved in days and looked like a complete mess, wearing loose trackpants and a baggy T-shirt. I pulled him into a bear hug, but he didn’t exactly reciprocate. He just stood there still. I pulled him away and into a garden cafeteria. Over some juice and sandwiches, which he was nibbling at, we talked and talked and talked. All his pent-up feelings seemed to be flowing out. I knew how his mind worked and accordingly, said all the right things to make him see light. I hated him for what he’d done to himself. I wanted to protect him, coccoon him from all his monsters. I wanted to whisper sweet nothings, call him endearments, hold his hands and tell him that everything was gonna be alright. It’s a mark of my self-control that I did none of these. As the hours passed the mood lightened considerably and we soon found ourselves laughing like the old times...
Having stayed for a few days in Pune, he returned to Kanpur for his end semester exams and I got down to prepare for mine, to realise that I’d barely studied the whole of the semester. :P The next time we met each other was a fortnight later, just a fortnight ago.
He seems in much better shape now, although he still has some issues, but no problem that a month at home couldn’t solve. This week, we went bowling, watched movies, played badminton, had the 2 am dinners, 4 am coffees...I was content. I just wished it could last forever. We both love movies and try to catch every movie that comes into the cinemas. It’s a tough feat, but we try hard. He watches the movie. I watch him. Watch how his lips raise a little at the sides, almost forming a smile when the hero kisses his bride for the first time, watch his eyes twitch when the Ork’s leg is chopped off with an axe(Ouch!), watch him follow the adrenaline-pumping car race in the Fast n The Furious with his mouth agape... I try to brush his arms when leaning over to get some popcorn, hoping that he would respond in some way to my much-too-subtle hints.
A friend from the hostel had introduced me to the world of online erotic stories- Literotica. He reccomended me some of his personal favourite. He was thrilled when I thanked him a few days later and told him that I was hooked. What I didn’t tell him was that it was not his favourite hetero, incestous stories that did anything to me, but rather the man-on-man romances. I’d come across more than a couple of stories in which the protagonist’s best friend, whom he’s madly and irrevocably in love with, finally turns out to be not as straight as he thought. The stories, which I must mention were superbly written, always ended on the cliched ‘and they lived happily ever after...’ note but yet never failed to bring a tear to my eyes and a fluttering hope in my chest, that my love story too would end that way. It was then that I began day-dreaming of that momentous day when I would finally come out to Anuj. I would imagine him having some trouble at first, but then being ever-the-best-friend, understanding and accepting me with a bear hug. On some blue sunny day when I was feeling especially optimistic, I’d go as far as hoping that he’d, with a choked voice, tell me that he’d been waiting forever to hear those words and pull me upto him and our lips would meet and..... you get the drift. It was in this state of mind that I decided that I was going to come out to my best friend and the love of my life before the end of winter, before we both returned to the daily grind of our lives.
