Delhi Diary: Day 3

Delhi Diary: Day 3 - Back in Bombay's Rains

Dear Diary,

So I'm back in Bombay, and yes it's raining here. :) Not the puny droplets that were coming down, five minutes interval between each droplet, this afternoon at CP in Delhi. :) There are some times I really love this city...!

I'm glad I came back home after the wedding/ party, cuz otherwise I'd have missed seeing Chimneypot this morning: she left for work at eleven, but not before we had a nice looong chat about careers and love lives. :) She rustled up some great omelette, which we mopped up with good ole Bambaiyya pav bread and strong tea.



Really didn't have much to do today. My flight was scheduled for 8 p.m., so I didn't want to go too far. Finally decided on a jaunt to CP, some trawling through old haunts, and maybe a boy in bed. :) That was actually pretty much how it happened. Milkshake at Keventer's, window-shopping at Fabindia, peering through the CCD where I used to hang out a lot, detour through Palika, and a metro ride to Karol Bagh to meet this guy I'd been chatting with online for quite some time. He turned out to be as great between the sheets as he'd been telling me, but then I had to dash right back home to pick up my bags and run for the airport.

Ummm.. so, ok, the stoooopid flight only took off around 9.30 p.m.

Delhi Diary: Day 2

Delhi Diary: Day 2 - Backache, Sex, Wedding, Party, Sex

Dear Diary,

Delhi is a H-O-T city. And not just in terms of the men. The temperature is hiiiiigh - even when it's supposed to be the rainy season here. SnowWhite's StepMother called up and told me that Bombay was drowning in the rain on Saturday, and I replied, I was sweating bullets all night - could hardly sleep. Chimneypot's boyfriend was going out out of town though, so she said I could sleep with her on the bed that night - frankly, I had other ideas about where/how to spend my Sunday night! *grin*



But apart from my wanton plans of sleeping around, it was kinda sweet, watching the hetero couple in action. The boyfriend had a backache, and Chimneypot fussed over him, snapped at him for being careless, mollycoddled him - all in one instant. :) Eggs Benedict for him, and leftover vindaloo too, and then we called the cab to take him to the airport. Chimneypot had to work, and I was alone now. Was supposed to meet Mizfit and Soul in the evening, so I decided to take a nap before that. As it turns out, I oversleep and miss meeting them again! *damn* Decide, it's time to make myself feel better, so I try some Delhi Diversion - half an hour later, I'm in an auto rickshaw to Connaught Place for some much-needed Punjabi nookie! :)

But of course, Sunday night is the Big Night, so that had to be cut short. It's Diamond Choker Baccha's sistah's shaadi, and Flyboy and I have come all the way from Bombay to ogle at the Punju baraat. *grin* So it's time to take out the kurta, swish out the dupatta, and hail a cab for the wedding. Not too bad really, we picked out about 4 cute guys in all, and decided that the pasta was yummy. Cute snaps, great socializing, and it was time for me to run again. I had another party to attend.

So it's past 1 a.m., and I find myself in a South Delhi neighbourhood, hunting for the apartment where the party's happening. I'm here to meet Ponytail Boy, and when I finally do see him, I grin at his dimples. He's looking uttery gorgeous in a shiny Benetton tee, and he doesn't make fun of my flouncy kurta-dupatta thing. :)



It's a fun party, with some very cool Delhi gay people, and soon Ponytail Boy and I are necking on the couch. We decide to be a bit polite for the other guests after a while - and shift to the john. Maybe not as romantic as in the sleepover last trip to Delhi, but then this one was more of "I-need-to-tear-your-clothes-off-now" lust happening here.

And while that felt sexy and exciting, I felt... cheated about that while going home. I know he was sad - and preoccupied. I know and can understand why he was. And while the sex felt fabulous, I somehow felt like I was a diversion at the end of it all. And no, that I don't like. Thought I'd speak to him, tell him how I felt - especially since I consider him way more than just the Delhi f&ck-buddy - but I didn't. I came back home - again, waking up poor Chimneypot... and slept.

Delhi Diary: Day 1

Delhi Diary: Day 1 - 'No Monsoon Here, But It Does Rain...!'

Dear Diary,

The weekend holiday didn't exactly get off to a 'flying start' as intended - and that sorry pun was unintended. My flight was delayed three hours, so by the time I reach Delhi, it's 4 a.m. in the frikkin' morning. So I hail a cabbie, and knock on Chimneypot's door in the wee hours of the morning. A quick hug, and it's off to bed. *yawn*

The next day was all about Bonding with Chimneypot. :) I might not see her in a while, so we decided to spend all day doing fun stuff. Of course, Fun Stuff was delayed, cuz ma'amselle took ages at the beauty parlour *grumble* but then we were off to the American Diner at the India Habitat Centre - one of my favourite-est places in Delhi! :) Soaked on Peanut Butter Malt, Hogged on French Toast and Eggs and Bacon, and splurged on Brownies. *burp* Ok, fine, so yes, the 'phat plan' isn't going very well, sue me!



Brunch was followed by shopping at Dilli Haat - another old favourite of mine. Bought silver earrings for mum and something nice for brother dah-ling. There had been grand plans to do the Saturday night gay party at Concorde with Mizfit and Soul, but then those plans fell through as Concorde decided not to have a party that night, since there was some rain-dance thingy happening at some seedy farmhouse on the outskirts of Delhi - and apparently, all my friends are too shareef to go there. *damn* Anyhow, Chimneypot, her boyfriend and I decide to have a fun stay-at-home night, and we shopped for groceries. Soon, we're downing glasses of chilled red wine, watching Helen Mirren in The Queen (awesome!) and smacking our lips at the great vindaloo Chimneypot rustled up!

Aaaa... but that was till the phone rang.

First Love on the phone. I'd sms-ed him earlier, and here he was, asking me out for a walk. I smiled to myself, remembering what the walk on my last Delhi trip had led to, and rushed out after finishing dinner. He was there, waiting at the appointed spot, looking as cute as ever, and we strolled over to the ole park again, talking and laughing and flirting. And yes, we went back to his apartment building and had sex in the dark, on the stairwell again. :) This time, it was kinda expected - is that why the thrill wasn't really there? Aaa, but he's cute, all the same - exactly what you would expect from a gay Delhi boy. I walked back home, a little light on my feet, and woke up Chimneypot from her slumber again. :)

Guest Post: Mirror, Mirror On The Wall...

Guest Post: Mirror, Mirror On The Wall...

I've been toying with the idea of SnowWhite's Stepmother writing a guest post for ages now, and while the thought has appealed to him as well, he's always shied from the task, making up one silly excuse after another ("O, that's too scandalous, I can't write about that!", "O, people will think I'm a horrid person if I really say that!", "B-O-R-I-N-G!" etc etc etc). I could sense the ice thawing though when sometime back the cynic in me surfaced and I wrote a post about how futile it seemed to find love in Bombay, and when SS responded with a "It sounds like I wrote that post, not you!"... And when I saw the looooooong and obviously heartfelt comment in the preceding post, I told him outright: I'm going to copy-paste this onto blogger, and this is going to be your Guest Post.

Aaaa, but of course he finally bit the bait. And the drama queen did his "O, let me spruce it up a bit" line. So here, it is, spruced up and all, with pictures scoured by him, and me retreating to the sidelines. SnowWhite's Stepmother on Bombay and her gay relationships....



Relationships, eh? Many a night has been spent brooding over this word. CT knows. I sure do. One of my closest friends calls me a relationship junkie. Am I one? *sheepish grin*. So when CT did his little LV bag versus relationship post, I knew it was time. Time to do the Guest Post I had offered to write and promised CT. Months went by. It rained. Relationship status was still the same. The way I seem to be going, it looks like its going to be the same...

*SS ponders, gets pensive, sips hot chocolate, starts typing again*

While CT writes on a myriad of subjects (some very interesting posts, I must say... and some... well... *beatific smile*), I never figured what to do the guest post on. Being the self-proclaimed expert on the subject *SS looks around, ready to shoot anyone who rises to object to the fact*, it just made so much sense, na CT?

I am going to support what I have to say with rhetorical questions.

1. How many of your close friends are in a relationship currently, CT?
Ans. None!

2. How many (completely) monogamous couples do you know, even tangentially, CT?
Ans. None!

Like Samantha once said when she was asked if she was in a relationship, "It's tedious and the sex is dwindling, so as far as I know, it's a relationship." (hahaha)

And about the theorems....

1. All men are bastards

2. An LV will never cheat on you, I promise you that.

3. CT and I are the Nicest and Finest Young Men in the City. We really are.

4. Carrie: "Later that day I got to thinking about relationships. There are those that open you up to something new and exotic, those that are old and familiar, those that bring up lots of questions, those that bring you somewhere unexpected, those that bring you far from where you started, and those that bring you back. But the most exciting, challenging and significant relationship of all is the one you have with yourself. And if you find someone to love the way you you love, well, that's just fabulous."

5. It's ok to be single, but not single AND fat.

6. There are no fine boys/men in Bombay.

7. Chalo Dilli.

8. Samantha (to Carrie, when Carrie asks if she looks back on her old relationships): "Honey, you look back so much, you should have a relationship rear-view mirror."

9. A good b/j always works when you hate being single. If it fails, get a Bloody Mary. If that fails, God help you!

10. One of the sweetest guys I once (kinda) dated, didn't sleep with me saying, "SS, you are not one-night-stand material". I still don't know if it was an insult or a compliment. (And no, I am not asking you what it is.)

And while I’d like to post a plethora of images (full frontals, of course), I am sure CT with his delicate sensibilities will not permit me to do so * snigger* I think I’ll just sign off with a picture of me *chuckle*

Ummm.. for the record, that is not SnowWhite's Stepmother. Yes, yes, I just had to burst the bubble, didn't I? :)

Bag It Up

Bag It Up

So I was at my workdesk at the office, and I start chatting with Mahesh. The point of discussion is (surprise, surprise) Relationships, and How We Gay Guys Handle Them. And while that could well be a bona fide Harvard course, for the moment it was just the two of us dissecting. Mahesh happens to be one of those sweet people who used to believe that relationships are the most important things in the world, and he was slowly coming around to the view that, well, some people just aren't made for them.

"O, hell, babe, I could have told you that eons ago," I responded, thinking about all the playas and the One Night Stands I've gone through, "But it's quite alright, you know. I mean, some people are just very comfortable without a relationship, and can really do without one. It's just the nuts like me who want them!"

And then, of course, I'm reminded of SnowWhite's Stepmother's famous quote about relationships vis-a-vis bags ("All you silly boys crying about love! The only thing worth mooning over is a LV bag!"), and I discuss yet another brand of relationship junkies with Mahesh - the kind who hanker after relationships but are actually pretty dismal at them, for whatever reason. It's like a favourite bag you have to have, I chuckle online, a nice big Prada or LV that seems to control how you want your life to be. And getting one from the pavement, even if it is a great imitation, is never good enough!



Mahesh thinks, there's a weird conditioning that has to be undone - gay men have to understand that being in love is not necessarily the only good thing that can happen to them, and they must be ready to live their lives without the absolute tearing need to find love. A part of me felt like telling him, it's fine for him to talk so, since he's already in a strong 3-year old relationship, but I didn't. Perhaps, he was telling the truth; perhaps some men would be better off, concentrating on their careers and their families and their friends, if they just stopped hankering after that perfect Prada-man.

Later, during lunch, I discuss the idea with my friend the Mad Bawi, who recently broke up from her fiance. "So what's a relationship to you?" I asked her, and pat came the reply, "O, well, the closest comparison I can think of, is a JOB!"

Whoops! So, if you thought TalkingClosets was getting too mushy, here come the cynics! :)

But when you start thinking about it, it actually makes sense. You have to work hard at your relationship, to make it work. Impressions and interviews are equally important in that great job and that great relationship. And everyone wants to dump that old 'job' for that bigger and better one around the corner. If your current 'job' doesn't have those great dimples or that propensity to get you gifts, you want the one that does. And if you thought that those long hours for that all-important presentation the next day are taxing, you won't believe what a rough patch in a relationship can do to you - just ask me and the Mad Bawi. :)



CT: "So what are the fringe benefits? What about the annual bonuses? What's that in a relationship?"

Mad Bawi laughs: "O, great sex is a HUGE bonus. And then there's the companionship of course. I mean, it feels good to be in a great relationship, doesn't it? That's something being single just doesn't measure up to, sadly...."

CT: "And could we see the gradual stages in a relationship as our 'annual increments'? Like when you pass from the 'dating' phase to the 'seeing' phase, and then to the 'exclusive' phase, and so on and so forth?"

Mad Bawi: "Yep, and there's plenty of scope for a demotion as well. Like when you slip from the 'fiance' stage to the 'break-up' stage."

Ummm... cue for a sympathetic pat in the middle of the street.... followed by both our heads turning after this utterly cute and hunky guy on the street who's walking away from us. You know the type - mix of 'rugged' and 'chocolate boy', fair and big, with wavy hair you'd like to muss...



CT and Mad Bawi, mouths open: "Shall we follow him?"

Blind Eye

Blind Eye

In the pilot episode of Sex and the City, the ever-wise seer Carrie Bradshaw has this to say:

"Welcome to the age of Uninnocence. No one has breakfast at Tiffany's and no one has affairs to remember. Instead, we have breakfast at 7 a.m., and affairs we try to forget as quickly as possible. Self protection and closing the deal are paramount. Cupid has flown the co-op."



It could just as easily be Mumbai as it is Manhattan, hell the two are practically sistahs anyway!

So the other night, I'm on my way for a coffee date with this guy I've been chatting with online for sometime now. He seems fun, witty, educated, has a sexy pic (ok, so the face is a bit smudged with Photoshop, but the pecs are still hunky enough to grab my shallow attention), and we decide to meet for some after-dinner mocha. I sit down at the table, plug in my iPOD and await his arrival. And there he is. All fifty-whatever years of him, with a waist that's 36 at least, white hair at his temple, a wrinkled face that grins when he sees me, chunky arms, and I'm wondering whatever happened to the cute pecs in the pic and the cute hunk I imagined owning them.

So he sits down and asks me how I am. I smile in a terribly self conscious way and answer him. My coffee arrives, for which I'd placed the order before Mr False Snap showed up, so there's no scope for an early exit. I wonder whether I should risk a scalded tongue and just beat it, but then he starts telling me about his old relationship which lasted seven years before his boyfriend decided he wanted to play the field again. Ummm... ok. So I got hooked by the sob story. And I stayed. I didn't scald my tongue and I clucked sympathetically to his story, and I answered his questions about my life and career, and even managed a couple of polite queries about his career. But I also waved at the waiter to fetch me my cheque pronto, and as soon as I paid, I suggested we leave. At the door, I turn around with a false smile, say "Nice to see you, take care!" and flail down a cab. Goodbye and get a more recent pic taken, please.

But the thing is, the False Pic Syndrome is not really as uncommon as we'd like it to be. Every gay boy has been through his fair share of encountering the pest. You're bouncing on Cloud 9, expecting to meet this uberhunk, and instead you meet Mr Perv who's there in his ill-fitting tee and scratching his balls. And slowly, the disbelief morphs into shock, then disgust, then resignation, then a bit of anger. I'd probably feel sorry for the poor sod who has to try these sorry tricks, if it weren't for the fact that he plays it on me! I mean, do they actually think they can pass of as the hunks they portray onscreen???? Are Indian gay mean really that deluded?

OK, wrong question to ask. I'm actually looking for love (of all things!) here! *hysterical laughter*

But the FP Syndrome actually struck me after quite some time. I'm usually more demanding about pics online these days than I used to be, and that's been a life-saver. That used to happen a lot more to me back in Calcutta and Chennai, when hardly anyone used to have snaps online, and so meeting a dud was the expected thing to happen. Most gay boys used to spy out the intended meeting area from afar and run when they saw Mr Ugly standing there, checking his watch anxiously - and of course, the cell phone would be switched off for a good three hours, so that he couldn't call/sms you. And while I always thought this was a very churlish way to act, I couldn't be very contemptuous either, since I knew how it felt to be on the receiving end of the FP Syndrome. To my credit, I've done this routine only once, though - when it was a 45 year old FAT man in white pyjama-kurta waiting at the curb, instead of the cute 20-year old I'd been promised. So... I turned and I left. Switched off the phone, of course.

Most of the times, though, I employed the grin-and-bare approach, and I just tell them straight off: "I'm sorry, you're not what I expected, and you're not my type. Bye bye."

And if they start the "But...", you do like Miranda, and go: "No, no. That wasn't a question!"



:)

Salaam-e-Ishq.. ishq... ishq Indeed. Bhenchod.

Salaam-e-Ishq.., ishq... ishq Indeed. Bhenchod.

I've been feeling kinda low for some time now - this past week. You could call it the mean reds. Strange, because I never thought I'd get them and stranger, because I wasn't very sure what they meant, till now that is. Thing is, I don't really have a Tiffany's to go to now that I have them (possibly), like Holly did. And Benetton doesn't have the same effect on me, as it does for SnowWhite's Stepmother.

Online right now, a friend messaged me with the usual 'What's up?" salutation, and my reply was: "I'm bored. B O R E D. 5 letters in all. C how bored I am?"And yet, boredom is just a part of the dilemma, a part that I can at least decipher. I'm terribly bored of my life right now, despite the hustle an bustle in my professional capacity. I'm terribly bored of men. And now you know I'm serious, don't you. Bored of men. *sigh*



Suddenly, they're all the same. The assholes who come online and speak bad English and call you 'dear' and want to bed you. The other assholes who ask you on dates and bore you to tears. The other assholes who never really reply when you buzz them and you're left wondering where you stand. The still other assholes who've gone past by without a care in the world for you, while you've stood there on the sidelines, feeling empty and... lost.

I don't think I'm feeling particularly lost right now. A tad uninspired, dejected, frustrated, stricken, limited perhaps. Sunday night was spent on a solitary soup-n-salad dinner listening to sad love songs on my ipod. Saturday evening saw me at Barista with my diet sistah exhorting me: "It's all right, all men are bastards and we're only going to end up alone with no one to love us, so eat, eat. Go ahead and eat all you want." And Friday evening saw me meet two men for dates, have sex with one of them, coffee with the other, and really wish I'd spent my time instead watching a movie.

So yes, I'm bored.

I come online out of sheer force of habit, and and I open my inbox. Damn, the messages have the usual shit, hell, even the damn pictures look the same as the next profile, and I'm much too irritated to bother replying, so I delete, delete, delete, and groan that men are the most bumbling, inept, blind, disloyal, brainless, tactless, beauty-less creatures on the face of the planet. Here I am, on my expansive double bed, resting on squishy pillows, listening to Sway on the music system, with my laptop open to guys4men. Fume, simmer.

Yesterday, I was a great big fan of Salaam-e-Ishq. Today, I want to say: Cheeni Kum, please.

***

Time for some SATC viewing.

Top Draw/ Bottom's Up

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Phat Plan

Phat Plan

Friday night, and I'm meeting Gupshup and SnowWhite's Stepmother for dinner, so I slip on this baby pink t-shirt I'd bought some two months back, and turn towards the mirror. Egads. Horror. Shock. Awe. Could it really be true? Had SS' caustic tongue about not not realizing when you gain weight actually found its mark? Apparently, it had. So, off went the slim-fitting tee, and after rummaging through my closet, I was muttering a silent prayer to Fabindia's loose bush shirts.



:)

So, that night, I announced my new diet plans to SS and Gupshup. No beer that night, only vodka. No dinner after the vodka, only the chicken starters with the drinks. I told Gupshup, I had a new motto: Lose weight now, ask SS how! Gupshup grinned at me conspiratorially and said, it wouldn't work, because we couldn't do what SS does.

"He doesn't eat at all," I agreed, in dismay, but then resolve shone through and I decided, "And neither will I!"

Because SS is one of those people who are never short of interesting mottoes about looking slim 'n' trim. Like "Buffets are Bad". And some others which aren't very nice to listen to, but then we take it all with a fistful of salt since it's SS who's spouting them. When I read a BombayTimes snippet about Posh Spice of the Size Zero frame hating her supposedly flabby arms ahead of her move to the US, I sms-ed SS about it, who was quite sympathetic about Posh's predicament. When we'd gone to a friend's party some time ago, despite the yummy food on offer, SS filled his tummy with cucumber and carrot sticks - and returned home starving.



So, as can be imagined, he greeted my resolve with approval. *grin*

And on Saturday, I inducted Vivian into my new programme. We were officially, Diet Sistahs. That afternoon saw us at the Tea Centre with chicken salad and a guava frozen tea. After lunch, we walked down Marine Drive to work off the extra calories, to the Gelato shop and opted for 99.9% fat-free Coffee flavour. And that night, we decided, dinner was going to be light as well.

It's another matter altogether that we broke the cardinal rule that 'Buffets are Bad' and headed for the midnight buffet at the Holiday Inn, instead.

Passover

Passover

Viraf of F-Cubed passed away last night. The news of his death came only hours after news of his hospitalization first reached me. A mutual friend was sending sms' out, asking people for blood donations for Viraf, and I'd asked what his blood-type was. This was at around 7 p.m., and around 10.30 p.m., I got news that it was far too late.

Rest in peace, Viraf.

In part, I feel a bit strange writing this. Because I'd never met the man. Never even talked to him on the phone. He sauntered over to this blog many moons ago, and I called on his blog in response. We kept commenting on each other's bogs and it was fun. It seems like ages ago, when the gay boys of Bombay first started writing their bitchy blogs - and we groaned, moaned, ranted, vented et al, about boys, life, boys, weight issues, boys, beautiful things, boys... :) O gosh, it does seem ages ago!

And though we chatted through our comment boxes and bantered via our posts, and knew that we had some mutual friends, we never really tried to meet up offline. I'd heard about his legendary cook-ins/outs for GB and really wanted to attend one of those, but something always came up at the last moment.

It's strange, that when you go over his last few posts, there's so much... enthusiasm for what he's hoping will open up for him ahead. And, while I wondered to myself why he hadn't posted for quite some time before that, I never considered that there might be a very serious reason, really - just the sort of blogger fatigue one encounters so much.

I shall stop talking now. Goodbye, Mad Bawa.

Danger: Crash Zone Ahead

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Post-Sunday Song: We Have All The Time In The World...

Post-Sunday Song: We Have All The Time In The World...

How strange that I should be listening to this song, a day after I think about falling in love with someone special. :)

Vintage Louis Armstrong, performed as a James Bond theme, surprise surprise.

We have all the time in the world,
Time enough for life
To unfold
All the precious things
Love has in store.

We have all the love in the world...
If that's all we have,
You will find
We need nothing more.

Every step of the way
Will find us
With the cares of the world
Far behind us...



We have all the time in the world
Just for love,
Nothing more,
Nothing less,
Only love...
Only love...

- Louis Armstrong (1969)

The Sessions Court

The Sessions Court

In Season Five, when Stanford first tells Carrie about his new boyfriend, the eminently delectable Marcus, he asks her not to judge. A grinning Carrie responds with a "I don't judge!" line, which Stanford promptly shushes with a candid "O, honey, yes we do. Some people do Arts & Crafts; we judge."

Fair enough. We do.



And while I always tell myself I hate being judged, I've sort of realized that I'm as guilty as the very next person. Maybe not meaning it in any sort of vicious way, aaa, but then, the judgment does happen, all the same.

• Like when I meet the cute guy online, but when he speaks on the phone, he can barely construct a sentence in English together.

• Like when, after a long witty conversation, I realize the guy is 18 years old, and I feel like a cradle robber.

• Like when the guy seems cute and smart and sweet, and I liked walking on the beach with him in the darkness, linking hands, but then he suggests a quick blowjob on the terrace of a friend's home.
  

*sigh*. Then, I judge. (Even though it was a good blowjob.)

In another episode of SATC, I think it was Season Two, Carrie walks in on Samantha giving the Fed-Ex guy a blowjob in her office. Carrie balks, then stumbles out of the office in shock, and despite herself, she does judge her closest friend. As she tells Samantha, she wouldn't ever find herself in a situation like that - and that's what Sam takes offence at. I completely identified with Sam - the idea that my friends or lovers would deign to judge me was quite reprehensible. And I'm lucky, that despite all the bullshit spouted by them often enough, they actually don't.

Some months ago, a friend of mine had a rough-and-tumble session with this guy he's known for some time, and apart from the all-night ball-busting sex, one of the highlights was crack. And when he told me, I was actually quite shocked. I raved and ranted, and told him it was a horrid thing to do, and he agreed, saying he'd just gotten carried away with it, and would never do it again. Cocaine, I thundered, was evil and unnecessary in good sex.

And then, a couple of weeks back, I met this same guy in bed, and like a dolt, high on wine and attention, I snorted some myself. Actually, snorted quite a lot. Five lines. And I'd never done coke before. It felt fun. It didn't really feel like I was doing anything narcotic. There was no ear-splitting high, no happy pleasant cocoon. Just... staying up late, talking and listening to music, and fooling around. And then, I realized how badly the coke had hit me, when I couldn't get a hard-on. Yikes.



O, and I couldn't sleep, either. We stayed up all night, that day, and I left for work directly from his place in the morning after a shower, and by 1 p.m. the backache, headache, limbache had surfaced. *groan* A confessory (is that a word?) phone call to said friend who'd been in my shoes with the charming cocaine guy earlier, and he advised to get home as fast as possible and just sleep. But at the end of that call, I was struck by how remarkably his advice was without the harsh judgment that I had bestowed upon him, all those months ago. Instead, the judgment part came from me, when I realized that the only reason I hadn't snorted more than 5 lines was because I realized it was affecting my erection capability. I stopped crack cuz of my cock.

*ouch*



Judgment does fall hard.

Masters of the Universe

Masters of the Universe

All you need to do is get in a car or cab, go down to Andheri Link Road, turn left after the Infiniti mall, go straight ahead, turn right, and there you are.

In He-Man Land.



Also known as Lokhandwalla Complex, but then it's so much more correct to call it He-Man Land. Every street corner has a gym, almost every street intersection has got a huge hoarding with bronzed ab muscles advertising one or the other of those gyms, and every third guy you look at is He-Man minus his loin cloth and mighty sword, and clad in tight tees and jeans instead. Aa, well, he might still have his 'mighty sword' tucked away, but then SnowWhite's Stepmother, Vivian and I were too polite to ask. We weren't too polite not to stare, though. :)

It was after a yummy dinner at a Bengali restaurant tucked away in the outer corners of He-Man Land that SS said he'd take us to a 'magical land where we would love to be', and so, curiosity at peak and all, we pile into his car. A few quick turns, and we find ourselves at a street intersection with a Barista on one end and a Cafe Coffee Day on the other. And Men. He-Men. Everywhere.

Vivian declares that he must walk to the nearest ATM to withdraw cash, and I decided to accompany him, while SS finds us a table with the best vantage point. Soon enough, V and I are ogling at men in rippled tshirts, and shirts unbuttoned to their navels, and utterly tight jeans, and gorgeous dimpled smiles that probably hide a nonexistent brain behind them - but then I'm being utterly parochial here, so I'll stop that - until we get inside the Citibank ATM. And let loose our girly cackles and giggles at the delight of having stepped into Candycane Land.

Vivian: "OMG, did you see the guy with the tilak there sitting at Barista?"

CT, nods: "O, yes, yummy-mummy, but he did have a tilak after all, na? Tacky. *sigh* What about the guy in the tight pink T sitting with him, though? And those guys at that corner table of the Lebanese joint outside are utterly de-lish as well, na?!"



For those not in the know, Lokhandwalla Complex is the Mecca of not-so-welldressed but very buff hot young men. They come in droves here, from all over India and some from the Middle East, all to try their hand at the great ole jackpot of Bollywood. Gyms have sprung up here, reasonably affordable housing is a thing of the past here, and steroids as common as your next caffeine fix. This is what you call the 'model crowd' of Bombay. The yuppie crowd of gay Bombay. Mostly brainless, but very beautiful. Drool-worthy, like you wouldn't imagine. And the best part is, if they're gay, they're very interchangeable. So, the hunky buff guy who seems like a pucca 'top' in his snaps is very keen to bend over if you tell him forcefully enough - or, more likely, with the promise of an introduction to Karan Johar.

When I first moved to Bombay, I stayed in Lokhandwalla at a friend's place for about two months, so this place does hold some nostalgia for me. I used to walk down in the evenings for my walk around the circle, and sometimes duck into the Naturals ice cream store for a treat, before heading back home. I remember all the not-so cheap shoe shops and the designer knock-off shops and the restaurants selling Tandoori chicken, catering to the largely Punjabi residents here. As SS once remarked, Lokhandwalla is like Mini Delhi in Bombay - Karol Bagh, dahling, not Greater Kailash. :)

But for us that night, Lokhandwalla was He-Man Land. A Saturday gay-boys night out, and here we were, ogling pretty young things, and slurping on ice cream. Not too bad really, even though we didn't make it to the GB party.

Pre-Sunday Song: Surprisingly Good For You

Pre-Sunday Song: Surprisingly Good For You

Was watching Evita the other night, and the music refuses to leave me since then. Madonna is... ethereal.



And, somehow, this song speaks to me. So much of what I'd like to say to the right person, when he comes along. :)

It seems crazy, but you must believe
There's nothing calculated, nothing planned...
Please forgive me if I seem naive,
I would never want to force your hand...
But please understand, I'd be good for you...

I don't always rush in like this,
Twenty seconds after saying hello...
Telling strangers I'm too good to miss...
If I'm wrong I hope you'll tell me so.
But you really should know, I'd be good for you,
I'd be surprisingly good for you

I won't go on if I'm boring you,
But do you understand my point of view?
Do you like what you hear, what you see,
And would you be, good for me too?

I'm not talking of a hurried night,
A frantic tumble then a shy goodbye,
Creeping home before it gets too light...
That's not the reason that I caught your eye,
Which has to imply, I'd be good for you...
I'd be surprisingly good for you...

Old, New, Borrowed, Blue and Money to Boot...!

Something Old...

So here I was, reading a book at home, quite happy to be left all alone on a weeknight, when I get this sms from GanglyGuy. I first met him during the course of a threesome some months ago. He and his boyfriend were both very nice, and we lolled on the silk tasseled cushions in their South Bombay love nest, while smoking weed and playing Strip Rummy. Of course, all the clothes went off, and everyone soon won, and I left that night a very high young man. :)

Three weeks later, I hear that the couple split, and two weeks after that, one of them was already seeing someone else. Good enough, because I quite liked GanglyGuy, the part of the couple who hadn't coupled up yet. And when I bumped into him again at a GB party the other night, he was looking utterly gorgeous in his grungy jeans, t-shirt and dopey eyes, so I flirted with him and told him to buzz me sometime if he wanted to catch up.

So there, in the middle of my Michael Crichton genetic thriller, came his sms: So do u have a place tonight then?



...Something New...

Partying with friends at a trendy bar the other night, and they're crooning Y-M-C-A, much to our delight. And there was the GrandMaratha, a friend of SnowWhite's Stepmother, from distant shores, and I was flirting outrageously with him. He eats his burger hunrily, and of course I flirted with him on that. He dances like a Spanish diva, and of course I flirted with him on that. I moved and I grooved, and I was glad to note that GrandMaratha moved and grooved right back, flirting right back, hands roving over lower back and legs and ass, and Gloria Gaynor was suddenly even more electrifying than usual.

SS and Guppie came over to me, and asked in hushed tones, "Should we leave now, and why don't the two of you, well, do your thing?"

I tittered, and went back to dancing and flirting. And then, when I thought I had the right opportunity, I went over to the GrandMaratha and whispered in appropriately slutty-breathless-hushed tone, "My friends think it's a given, you and I are having sex tonight. So, shall we leave for your hotel now or later, then?"

Then, the unthinkable happened. He blushed.



Damn. :(

...Something Borrowed...

Haven't really been talking with NiceSexThing in a while. I know he's down with the flu, so we chatted briefly online, but that was it. I was supposed to go over to his place, but didn't, because I was feeling a bit too lazy after getting back from work. I would probably have gone anyway, earlier, but I sort of decided to just maintain platonic ties with him, despite the Nice Sex.

It's because he thrives on romance. Even when it's always a one-night stand for him, he thrives on romance. He's one of those guys, for whom sex is no fun without the fleeting thrill of romance and all those mushy gestures like holding hands, walks on the beach, slow dancing and the works. As for me, romance confuses me. Romance confuses me if I don't see it leading anywhere, and then I think, what's the use of all this? If it's just sex we're after, why on earth don't we cut to the chase and screw like rabbits? All the haze and the romance promises me things... which it doesn't deliver, and I don't see the point in getting confused.

Anyhow, his boyfriend is due to hit the city in about a week or so, so I guess his recuperation is guaranteed! *grin*

...Something Blue...

He was driving the car, while I was seated in the back with the client. I don't know what his name was, but I loved the way he smiled back at us in the rear view mirror, and assured us he knew the way to where we had to go. His crinkled blue shirt fitted the contours of hsi body perfectly, and I was imagining how those shoulders would feel to touch and probe. God knows, I was having wicked thoughts, and not really listening to the client rattle on beside me, because what I wanted more than anything was to clamber into the front seat, onto my driver in blue, run my hands through his delicious salt-and-pepper hair, and tear the buttons off...



He drove us around for about five hours that day, and I don't think I'll ever see him again. *sigh*

...And A Silver Sixpence In Her Shoe...

Ok, so I have a Suit Fetish. I've begged corporate guys to come to bed with their ties on. I've loved undoing their blazers and trousers and shiny black shoes, and unknotting their ties to push them against the wall... :) So here I was in the conference room, with this utterly cute investment banker and I was staring at him quite openly. I loved the way he bantered and grinned and winked and stuck his tongue out, when he made a bitchy comment about a competitor. And I loved the Arrow pink shirt, with mother-of-pearl cufflinks, teamed with his dark navy tie, shot with streaks of pink and white, and I was o-so terribly in lust.

He was Gujarati, he said, and I grinned. He had been working at the current job for about two years, he said, and I smiled again. He said he required some reports from me, and I assured him I'd deliver. :)



That's my ideal guy, I told myself, once the meeting ended. I want a tall, hunky, cute Investment Banker from Cuffe Parade or Nariman Point, who understands his numbers and reads his pink papers (no pun intended) and has a holiday home in Matheran or Alibaug. I'm hopeless at Maths and I usually begin my daily newspaper-reading with the tabloids, but I still think we'd make a match. We'd complement each other perfectly. I would help him spend his money, and he would help me decide what to buy.

Perfect.

Closetalk, aka The Profiler

Closetalk, aka The Profiler

So there I am, logged in, and I come across this profile with the obligatory torso pic, sexual preferences ("want hungry btm") and, the best part of all, his write-up. Now I've posted earlier about how engaging the entire art of making gay chat profiles is, but never really on how entertaining it is to read some of these. I mean, OnceAgain has done this fantastically, and I would link to the post in question on his blog if I remembered which one it was, but nevertheless, I ran up against this very interesting one the other day...

He says, he's an actor. Oops, make that aspiring actor. Oops, make that Balaji soaps. Ok, so we all know that the male characters in these soaps don't really do much acting, but they use plenty of glycerine, and they usually look pretty hunky, so I read on. After the second line, though, I'm giggling hysterically.

I be good actor, trying for tele-serial. I know all about casting couch for gays in this life and I want to prepare for that. Do not get me wrong, I am good actor and deserve roles, but I know that some bad guys take good role by doing homo sex. So I want be ready and that is why I be here. I am 100% straight guy but I want homo sex. Fuck only. I not do girly stuff. So all hot, horny masculed men come to get fuked.



I can only imagine that the poor man has been inundated by calls from 'hot, horny masculed men' who want to get 'fuked'....! :)

But then, I remember trawling through my old Flatmate's shaadi.com profile (yes, straight people do the whole chat thing too - in fact, they did it before us gay guys did!), and finding this utterly hilarious 'proposal' from a 'suitor'. And even though my old flattie said I shouldn't be mean, I decided to be quite the bitch, and mailed myself the mail he sent over, for future use... like now.

My profile represents me on this virtual world. "fun" is very subjective to interprete therfore i won't use that word but in short I am simple kind of guy who loves to find happiness from small happiness aroud your world and being blessed to stay with my parents. At present,I am working with MNC at Gurgaon and enjoying my life quite well but now I strongly felt a need of life parter who can show me, share with me the seven color of life with her beauty, intelligent and elegance.



Despite his predisposition towards the 'seven colours', he's straight and wants a good wife to live with his family and have (ahem ahem) "fun" with.

The good part is, at least these guys are short and pithy. There are actually morons on the chatrooms who write reams and reams of what they think is 'literature' on their mingy little profiles. Some idiots draw giant hearts using the */^$# signs. Some idiots write the history of their last three relationships - in toto. With all these budding novelists around, is it any surprise that the ones that appear most appealing are often those which state, quite simply:

24, Bandra, looking for hot fun with hot guy. Have a place, let's meet!

Aaa, I need to hail myself a rickshaw now. :)

Sunday Song: Stupid Girls

Sunday Song: Stupid Girls

This is going to be a regular feature in the blog from now on. Since I have a tag called 'song' here, I may as well use it properly! :) But weekly or fortnightly, is going to have to wait for a decision.

In the meantime, there's this fun number by Pink of the (big surprise) pink hair: Completely love the way she lambastes the Britney brigade, even though (sigh) I used to looove Oops I did it again... :)

Stupid girls, stupid girls, stupid girls
Maybe if I act like that, that guy will call me back
Porno Paparazzi girl, I don't wanna be a stupid girl



Go to Fred Segal, you'll find them there
Laughing loud so all the little people stare
Looking for a daddy to pay for the champagne
(Drop a name)
What happened to the dreams of a girl president
She's dancing in the video next to 50 Cent
They travel in packs of two or three
With their itsy bitsy doggies and their teeny-weeny tees
Where, oh where, have the smart people gone?
Oh where, oh where could they be?

Maybe if I act like that, that guy will call me back
Porno Paparazzi girl, I don't wanna be a stupid girl
Baby if I act like that, flipping my blond hair back
Push up my bra like that, I don't wanna be a stupid girl

(Break it down now)
Disease's growing, it's epidemic
I'm scared that there ain't a cure
The world believes it and I'm going crazy
I cannot take any more
I'm so glad that I'll never fit in
That will never be me
Outcasts and girls with ambition
That's what I wanna see
Disasters all around
World despaired
Their only concern
Will they fuck up my hair



Maybe if I act like that, that guy will call me back
Porno Paparazzi girl, I don't wanna be a stupid girl
Baby if I act like that, flipping my blond hair back
Push up my bra like that, I don't wanna be a stupid girl

[Interlude]
Oh my god you guys, I totally had more than 300 calories
That was so not sexy, no
Good one, can I borrow that?
[Vomits]
I WILL BE SKINNY

(Do ya thing, do ya thing, do ya thing)
(I like this, like this, like this)
Pretty will you fuck me girl, silly as a lucky girl
Pull my head and suck it girl, stupid girl!
Pretty would you fuck me girl, silly as a lucky girl
Pull my head and suck it girl, stupid girl!

Baby if I act like that, flipping my blond hair back
Push up my bra like that, stupid girl!

Maybe if I act like that, that guy will call me back
Porno Paparazzi girl, I don't wanna be a stupid girl
Baby if I act like that, flipping my blond hair back
Push up my bra like that, I don't wanna be a stupid girl

O gosh, am I a (gulp) stupid girl? :)

In The House...

In The House...

OK, so the melodrama of the last post didn't really last long, but I've just been lazy, and would also be lying if I didn't admit it was some fun seeing Shrek (that's my name for him now) at the receiving end of some judging for a change - even if it was in the comments section! :)

Shrek calls me and apologizes for his 'over-reaction', and me being the sweetheart that I am (shut up, infidels), I acquiesced. So yes, we're back on track, and I suppose now's a good time as any to talk about him. I'm not sure whether he still reads this space, but honestly speaking, I don't really give a fig anymore. I'm probably going to sound mushy-gooey here, but hey, he's a Big Boy and can handle some pansy reactions, right? Ummm...



So, yes, I met Shrek online and discovered he knows two friends of mine. My first impression of him: Arrogant Prick. But we somehow kept on chatting, taunting and baiting each other with semi-insults and the like, and I'm not sure how, but that kinda felt nice. Gosh, I feel like I'm reading out the script of a 80's Hindi film here, a la Dil or some rot, and here I am the masochist maniac who feels good flirting when there's a healthy dose of bitchiness involved - niiiice!

Getting back to the point, I'm seeing this guy currently, and it feels kinda good. *blush*

***

In unrelated news, I finally found myself a place. So the saga that began with me bemoaning my fate as a rent boy (*grin*) and hating brokers and landlords has finally culminated with me playing the role of the goody-goody Paying Guest for some Sindhi people in a nice little suburb.

So many places to gasp back there. Paying Guest. Sindhi. Suburb. *sigh*

Aa, but it's really not all that bad. Once again, the entire gay thing works at an advantage here, as the landlords are totally fine with me having guys over, though they frown at the thought of gals. I have my own room, it's practically cut off from the rest of the household, so even though I'm a PG, I don't foresee any predicament in my love life.

Next on the list - Sindhi. O yes, the old man started griping about my luggage pieces and electricity consumption as soon as I moved in, but the broker shut him up, and he's now behaving in a quite civilized fashion. Though it's a bit freaky that, the other day, I came back into my room after taking a shower and realized that someone must have come in and switched the fan off. O well...!

And finally... suburb. Yep, no longer a Townie am I. But despite all the erosion of Snooty Address Values, it's really a nice place. A clean, green suburb, a nice leafy lane, a swanky apartment building, a fifth floor nest with a balcony to myself, and it's really not too bad being a suburbanite.



O gosh, the bed has sun mica panels, though!

Struck Out

Struck Out

So I've been debating with myself for some time whether or not to mention here that I was (kinda) seeing this guy, and matters have somehow come to a head with him dumping me. Because of the blog. Apparently, my "lifestyle", as eschewed in the blog, does not appeal to him.

I'm showing a thousand middle fingers to him in my head right now.



What gets me is the summarary judgement. I mean, hell, get to know me, go out with me some more, and then if you think I'm not the right guy for you, that's fine, I'll fade away as gracefully as I can. Instead, the guy goes through my blog, and decides that it's the Ultimate Story of My Life, and I'm just way too something for him...! So he'd love to have me as a "friend" but hey, it's gonna take a miracle (his word, not mine) for things to work out otherwise between us. This, a day after he's merrily holding hands with me in a dark movie hall.

This, after a conversation I have with him, explaining to him why I hadn't wanted him to read my blog earlier. Because I was afraid that he might think the blog was 100% me, and vice versa, and that might affect how he saw me. But he argued he wouldn't judge me on that basis, and I somehow thought he might actually be the 'mature one', who would not make that fatal mistake, so I said 'yes'. My mistake, really. He's not the only ass as far as judgement is concerned - I'm obviously not much better, for thinking he'd be mature enough.

His reaction kinda got me thinking: are all guys like this, prone to judgemenalism, and incapable of being open-minded and neutral, when they read a blog that they think reflects 'me'? I mean, though I started out with this grand pseudonym and all, I was idiotic somewhere along the way, and became close friends with some readers, with the side effect that some of their friends, etc, know who it is pushing the mouse here, without knowing absolutely anything else about me. Is that a recipe for disaster, with people like this guy I'm talking about, who knew me through not one, but two, readers of this blog? In short, is this blog a serious hazard to me meeting sensible guys, and should I perhaps scrap it and restart it somewhere else?

While I did consider the pros and cons of that, I decided otherwise. I'm being optimistic here (perhaps unduly so, but nevertheless...) and recalling that I want to end up with a 'sensible' person, as I said up there. And, I'm still hoping that a sensible person will realize where Closetalk the pseudonym ends and where I begin. I'm not ashamed of who I am and what I am. I love my life and the way I live it. I'm trying everything I can to be better, to do better, and I'm hoping that I find the love of my life somewhere along the way, and I'm having fun. If you can't handle it, it's not my fault. And no, I don't want to be fiends with someone who can't see beyond a blog.

Jo Dikhta Hai, Wo Bikta Hai

Jo Dikhta Hai, Wo Bikta Hai

Ok, so this was originally supposed to be a post by SnowWhites's Stepmother, but he got stage fright at the last moment. Saturday night, and we're all mighty high, and that's when SS announces a select soiree at his place the next night, to watch Koffee with Karan and Rakhi Sawant.

Two petite birds (Ok, so Karan is more petite than Rakhi) with one limpwristed stone. Fabulous, dah-lings!

But K.Jo is, as usual, brilliant. The man is quite simply Bombay's favourite queen, ever since he (almost) came out in the first episiode of his second season: when interviewing SRK, Kajol and Rani Mukerji, and heading into a break, he grins saucily at the camera and says, "We'll be right back for more chitchat with the king and his queens... and I don't mean myself...!"



Ooo, and with all that weight lost in the last few weeks, I for one think he's looking quiite de-lish! :)

But this time around, I was taken more with Karan's guest than the man himself. Enter the Queen of Item Kitsch, in a coffee coloured silk Manish Malhotra sari, skillfully arranged so that her left boob practically hung out, her shoulders and neck gleaming in some artificial bronzing goop, and the Playboy-perfect pout. I am avowedly a Rakhi Sawant fan. I love her candour, the way she shoots from the hips, and her deliciously ghaati accent when she speaks in English. On the show, she happily chirps that she's going to speak in Hindi because no one can understand what she says in the Queen's Language - though of course, K.Jo did quite a great job of that! :) But even he was at a loss for words when Rakhi gushed in her Marathi accent how honoured she was, over and over again, to be at Karan's show. Until, of course, K.Jo had to go over and hug her... and pray she left him after that. :)



Because, quite frankly, Rakhi has what it takes. When she goes and says lines like "Jo dikhta hai, wo bikta hai" (Whoever exposes the most, sells the most) that get the moral brigade all into a tizzy, she's doing nothing but telling it like it is. That's why she's unarguably the most-talked about Item Girl. Call her publicity-hungry or whatever, she knows what she's got to do to make it to the top, and she's completely unapologetic about doing it - both her, and her self-confessed idol, Mallika Sherawat, another gal whom I can completely gush over. They're the women in the Big Bad Man's world, and the best part is: they don't complain about it... or if they do, like Rakhi and her 'kiss' controversy, they scream from the rooftops and all hell breaks loose! :)

When Karan grins mischievously and asks her whether she thinks she can ever become a mainstream Hindi film herone, Rakhi looks flummoxed and asks why not, since she's already got the "main lead" in a movie titled (hold your breath) "Buddha Mar Gaya" (The Old Geezer Died). She hastens to add, it's a comedy. :)



SS and I, rolling in laughter on the couch, already know it is. *grin*

Preen And Tease

Preen And Tease

For a number of reasons, I haven't been doing the GB party scene for some time. For one, many of The Family members pooh-poohed the idea of GB, so we didn't go. Then, my Calcutta trip happened. Then, after I came back, SnowWhite's Stepmother and I ventured to a GB party, only to discover a strange and horribly disconcerting situation: in the middle of the absolutely packed room, the crowd would miraculously dissipate to form a one-arms-length space all around us, so that we were quite, quite alone. After that distasteful scene, we went to Voodoo's a couple of times, and actually had fun. So that encouraged me again. But since Bombay only has fortnightly parties and not weekly ones, like Delhi, I waited and waited till finally, on Saturday, I hit the Razz in Juhu, with Guppie and DiamondChokerBaccha in tow.

Razz gets a mixed response from me. On the one hand, it has a hideously tiny dancing floor, which means that one wll automatically sweat great rivers after 20 minutes of arriving there. But then there's the sea right outside, and it's really romantic if you have a suitable 'love interest' to stroll the grounds with. But then, seeing that I've never actually been there with such a suitable love interest, I shouldn't set too much store by this factor, and there's also the awful Juhu traffic jam to give you a rethink. O, and the music is... ummm... 'music'? :) So, all in all, the Razz is not really my favourite GB venue. Nevertheless, I went. It's just been way too long, I told myself, you'll get atrophy in your limbs: and you have to break the vacuum jinx that visited you at the last party with SS.



So, I went.

Thought I'd wear my new JAILBIRD tshirt, but to my shock and awe, I realized that a tight white tshirt would be a better idea minus a couple of kilos, so I settled for the 'straight college-boy look' instead, or as close to that as I could manage. Enter big sneakers and tattered, baggy jeans. (I draw the line at bubble-gum.) Didn't have a date to go with, but then, I haven't had a date for a GB party in ages, so that wasn't really a problem - the Family was good enough, and I reminded myself of my old rule: never hook up at GB, only Preen and Tease.

Time for several beers. :)

Closetalk enters the Razz, smiles sweetly at D at the ticket counter and breezes in. Before the several beers are ingested (just two will get me high, by the way!), air-kiss DiamondChokerBaccha and his (ahem ahem) date (?), and then proceed to hobnob with Guppie. We marvel at the relatively low turnout, which means we won't be sweating rivers quite as immediately as we would have otherwise done, but all that talk is soooo loose and quite unnecessary when I see TallBottomBoy. Delicious.

Now, TBB is someone I've chatted with online and planned to get together for some late-night activities, and when I see him with some not-so pretty people here, I flit over to rescue him and say hi. So I rib him and pat his gorgeous ass and whisper wicked nothings in his ears before disappearing for my beer no. X. That's when NiceSexThing is there, and he looks like this mix of Old Man And The Sea and The Devil Incarnate, but he's actually quite nice, apart from being good in bed, so I decide to be sweet and not tell him he's dressed like a Halloween character. Make some small talk, allow him to rub my ass a bit, and then go on upstairs with drink in hand.



Aa, upstairs is whereyou have the Viewing Gallery. That's where DCB and his date (?) are spying on Guppie hitting on the boys on the dance floor, and I join them in some good natured gay giggles, and oohing and aahing as Guppie makes his way around the floor, necking the boys he fancies. Enough fun, CT declares, and we go down again. They start playing Kua maa dub jaoogee, and DCB goes all chhammak-chhallo with a vengeance, and I decide to do the rounds of the floor.

WHOOSH! Passing through the crowd, and I feel a sexy burst of cool air on the back of my neck. CT turns around, and there's this cute creature with long black curls, in a tight-fitting black jumper (unzipped to his waist of course) and tight-fitting black trousers, grinning at me, while performing some pretty fancy dance steps. I grin back, decide to have some fun, and walk back past him, and sure enough, feel the WHOOSH! again. :) This is fun, thinks CT, and turns away now, not looking back at him, but makes his way through the crowd (o yes, it's quite sweaty and sticky by now), traverses the whole arc of the dance floor, till he spies CuteCurlyCreature in his black tights right in front, dancing with some los-ah. WHOOSH! goes CT, and now it's his turn to get a delectable start, and when he sees who it is, the los-ah gets dumped (but of course!), CT and he do the dirty dance for some minutes, and then CT leaves him with a grin when the song gets over... Mmmm... maybe he was worth exchanging numbers with....?

Also spied: OldBaldEx looking quite alone and sad, and o, Ghatiboy from Andheri East, with whom CT had had a one-nighter ages ago. It was quite strange seeing Ghatiboy actually, since Natureboy and I had chatted about him just the week ago, over chocolate tarts. He's actually quite a favourite of Natureboy's, though I've slept with him only once. Left my tshirt at his place too, by mistake, but wasn't very bothered to go back all the way to retrieve it - the boy lives in Andheri East, for cryin' out loud! )

So, apparently Ghatiboy had been chatting with Natureboy earlier, and somehow I got mentioned, and Ghatiboy had commented that he never saw me again even though the sex was great. Aa, well, yea, the sex was actually loads of fun, but the guy was just too... (sigh, it must be said) vernacular for my taste, and all that wrong English thrown at my face continually would have completely ruined my libido, had it not been for his very substantial ummm... apparatus. But here he was, Ghatiboy, dancing on the Razz floor, in this tight white T and equally tight jeans, and in the happy happy state, CT was fast considering breaking the no-hook-ups-at-GB rule, for another one-nighter at (sigh) Andheri East, since Ghatiboy was certainly making all the right moves on the dance floor. Too bad for him, the lights came on right when the song ended, and sanity shone through for CT, who turned around, pecked him on the lips, squeezed his crotch, and said, "We must meet up again sometime, darling", without meaning it in the least...!



Time to catch a cab for home!

Fruit and Nut

Fruit and Nut

Last weekend, SnowWhite's Stepmother and I found ourselves in Bandra picking out t shirts with clever gay-centric slogans. This was the launch of JAILBIRD, supposedly India's first branded gay tshirt, and we were surrounded by cute fags everywhere. :) So yes, while the two of us hemmed and hawed about t shirt sizes, we also sneaked a peek at some of the cute men around. And of course, the lesbians. Aa, the lesbians.

We'd known that the tshirt thing was the brainwave of a couple of lesbians (maybe more) even as we headed out to Bandra, so it really wasn't a surprise to see a whole pack of them there. (Or maybe I'm just being silly and some of them weren't lesbian after all, but straight women.) But they were there, and they were actually utterly sweet. So sweet, that later in the car, SS and I looked at each other and exclaimed about it. Now, why on earth should that be a surprise? Lesbians aren't really monsters now, are they? Are they?

Hmmmm... :)



O gosh, this makes me sound terribly prejudiced, doesn't it? The truth is, I probably don't know enough lesbians in the world. I'm still stuck with the silly stereotypes in my head. And when you come to think about it, lesbians have hardly anything in common with gay men. They're not as drama-queeny as us (are they?), they're not as flamboyant as us (are they?), they're not as sexually active as us (are they?), they're more relationship-oriented than us (are they?) and they're definitely not as pretty as us (full stop!). It's pretty much the Mars vs Venus thing all over again. Limp-wristed Mars and highly athletic Venus. :)

My first brush with a lesbian was through this blog. Well, Mizfit keeps on oscillating between calling herself Bisexual and Lesbian, but for all practical purposes, I always saw her as lesbian. And it's not as if she's one of those stereotypical big women with gruff voices and killer handshakes. She's actually quite shrill, quite pretty, and quite obsessed about her weight - thanks to a certain lovable fag called FreeSpirit. And... she sleeps around, she tells me. Of course, this conversation I had with her was many months ago and now that she's in lurrrv, the sex-phase is probably toned down, but it was quite a thrill for me at that time - seated opposite this smart, witty woman who professed that she hated emotional lesbians and loved hanging out with the boys at gay parties, and I loved her dramatic eye-shadow. She was so... feminine, and while I was tempted to ask her what the gruff-tomboy vs fairy-girly ratio among lesbians was like, I didn't do so. Certainly, Mademoiselle Mizfit was quite apart from any lesbian stereotype.

Then, there was this guy I was seeing for a coupla weeks, with a bunch of art-house lesbian friends. In fact, the first time I saw him, he was dancing at the GB party, surrounded by loads of lesbians. The first thing I noticed was breasts (yech!) and then the cute smile on his face. And as I had just started watching episodes of The L-Word on DVD then, the boy and I bonded... sort of. Again, I had all these questions to ask about lesbians - but again, I didn't, and we just ended up discussing the characters of The L-Word, and comparing them with the QAF boys.



And that was another thing: The L-Word. I didn't quite like the first few episodes: I mean, I probably couldn't identify with them. I hated the hairstyles. I thought women should have bigger breasts than the actors in the serial did - yes, even though I find them yechy, I have silly classical notions about what they should look like! And I was unclear whether lesbians really do sleep around that much - or was it just something they wanted to copy from QAF, the rampant drama about slutting around. But as I watched some more, I found other stuff that I liked: the level of Family Bonding in L-Word is so much more than in QAF, and I could identify with that; the issue of staying in the closet or coming out; even the infamous sex-map on the white board was so hilarious and familiar; and of course the characters, despite some of the awful hairstyles and minuscule breasts, were endearing after a while. On the whole, I thought that the girlie gang of The L-Word was much more fun and coherent than the QAF boys - with the exception of Emmett Honeycutt of course.

But despite this, the inherent vagueness about lesbians remains. Most gay men treat them as behenji comrades, something which seems to me so completely formal and put-on. Somehow, it's easier to behave with straight women - or is it again because of my silly classical notions about what women should be like...? Aaa, but the straight women I'm closest to are hardly stereotypes themselves: Chimneypot and the Wicked Witch of the West would blanch in horror if either of them were described as 'classical'. But then, there was this lesbian friend of Natureboy whom I met briefly the other day, did a quick (and silent) yikes when she shook my hand very tightly, and promptly hightailed it out of there. Something about the leather wristbands and the chains and the nose rings and the tattoo on her unnerved me - though I would probably find them all highly erotic on a six-foot tall man.

And that's something I can't really understand about myself: why I have this strange wariness about lesbians. I mean, SS and I crack jokes about butch gals and pansy us, and the fact is, there's something reassuring in laughing about lesbians and gay men. A way, perhaps of assuring ourselves, that there are other freaks in the world, albeit at the other end of the sexual diameter? Or maybe it's just your classic case of (gasp, shudder, shake) Shyness?