Draft

I was making a sort of loosely autobiographical sketch. something i could work on later when i have the time. when gc runs out. so this is a sort of collection of points that will be a part of the end product. a few months after having written this (it is supremely incomplete and disorganized) i read an autbiography. stephen fry's. after that i thought...well...fuck it...it's already been done...and better. however...i'm still going to post it. here it is.



First day of school was always hell. It was something I thought about every year on the last day of school with complete revulsion before I dismissed it as a prospect too distant to be bothered about yet. It would stir up within me the same feelings that the possibility of getting an injection did when I was younger –actually that hasn’t changed even now. But fortunately that damn thing, that fear of the inevitable would remain out of my thoughts till the very last week of holidays -that’s when it would begin to haunt my waking life and hang over my head like the bloody sword of D and I would hate it. Trouble was I never finished my holidays homework, ever. To be honest I never started. Not in all my life, though I always planned to be done with it on the very first day of winter holidays but no, it was impossible, and in the end it would be just another reason in the long list of reasons for dreading the first day of school. Sometimes it’s just the strangest feeling, as if I’d evolved a new face over the holidays and wasn’t entirely sure if I felt confident enough to be seen with it but couldn’t really leave home without it.
Butterflies, moths, snakes and all sorts of deep-sea creatures would romp around in my stomach making me feel queasy, as the dreaded day came nearer and nearer. And then I would start eyeing the broken-down washing machine that stood in that architectural disaster of a corridor which led outside my house. It seemed like the perfect hiding place. That lonely old broken-down washing machine almost called out to me like a siren offering a much sought after repose from this evil, evil world, “come and sit inside me and you will forever be safe.” It seemed to sing to me and all I had to do was jump in and hide. But it was a stupid idea and I knew it so I never tried it, though I fantasized about it regularly. I was particularly worried about somebody turning it on –even though I knew it was broken.

Apart from being hell, the first day of school also meant that Assad, the pale introverted boy, would throw-up in the morning-assembly and become an instant role-model for others to follow. I’ll never understand why vomiting is such an addictive phenomenon. Assad would be the first one to show us what he’d had for breakfast -as a sort of welcome back present- but he would not be the last; he was just the first in a series of vomit dominos, and in his wake would follow half a dozen more. Much like the first courageous drop of rain that shames all the rest into action. Thus, swapping cowardice for bravery, he would set an example for those who had been keeping it in, struggling desperately against that malicious voice that whispered in their ears that it was futile to resist…submit…submit. Those who saw and heard him puke were the most likely to be next…though God alone knows why it had such a profound affect on them. Those who could smell his handiwork were less susceptible but certainly not ambivalent. Like wildfire the revolution would spread and within five minutes a gang of pasty faced bastards would be marched off to the toilet by grave looking teachers –perhaps themselves struggling against the temptation to let out a life-long store of broken dreams in an unbroken stream of yesternight’s dinner. Off to the toilets or the dispensary or wherever the hell it was that they were sent. Personally, I’d have sent them to be incinerated but that’s just me; I like to think about the greater good.

Assad would’ve been the first to go on my list. But he was such a mild, quiet, barely-alive sort of pale fellow. It would’ve been fundamentally wrong to burn him alive. I believe his one and only sin was his inability to keep his food down on the first day of school and even that rooted in a virtue: his inherently polite disposition and agreeable nature, which prevented him from ever telling his mother that he was not going to eat the goddamn breakfast, that it made him puke his guts out and that he was going to put his foot down and she could go get hanged. No, he wasn’t the sort who’d ever tell his mother to go stuff it. And so, year after year, the sins of the overbearing mother were regurgitated by the spineless son and suffered by the unlucky bystanders. The three monkeys could not have done any better than we did. See no evil, doesn’t do much good if you can hear and smell it, and it goes the same for the other two. A fourth monkey was introduced: the one that never ate. I suppose I was that monkey. In all my years in that particular school, I never brought lunch. This is how I became a parasite I suppose. All things have a beginning and an end.

Assad was in my class and that’s why I knew of his gentle disposition so well. I believe his elder brother who was a taller but equally uninteresting specimen was also the same. They were featureless people; you could look at their faces and just see through them; they weren’t real, they weren’t built upon the same atrocious, screaming, senseless foundations of human misery that most people are. They were quietly oblivious of what it meant to be alive and mortal. Once, I remember he showed up with something like half a shit sticking to his leg. Maybe it was iodine or something, but I don’t know, it just looked like shit and I was utterly baffled why any self-respecting boy would show up in school wearing a turd on his leg or even something that looked like a turd. It was incredible. But we, none of us were bullies and I don’t know why. Later, however, much later, most of us became social bullies. Some would wear the affluence of their parents in their accents as they spoke and some would let it dribble down their fronts shamelessly, with pride. That, more than anything else, made them repugnant to me whilst for others they became something to strive for. The others were even more repulsive. You could see the longing in their eyes. This unrequited need for affirmation, that was visible like a hardened cataract in their eyes; a constant reminder that there is no depth that they would not sink to, no deed immoral enough for them and no leg sacred enough to not yank at for personal ascent.
But when I was young I used to think that there were only two things which truly meant the End of the World for a boy. Two things that if ever happened meant total destruction, horror, and possibly, death from depression, shame, guilt etc all included. These two things were: failure to be promoted to the next class; shitting your pants in school. Not that we wore pants at the time, mind you; till the end of the fifth grade they forced us to wear knickers. I remember having to sit with my leg on top of the other, like a woman, to keep myself warm as my flesh turned blue. I would rub my thighs and try and pull up my socks as far high as I could but could not prevent goose-bumps cropping up all over my freezing cold and wretched flesh. I hated school for so many reasons.

I was smart. I was smarter than everyone else. And I was brave too and an overall decent guy. I would get into righteous fights to avenge my friends and my friends were almost always the down-trodden, the oppressed, and the terrorized. I was not exceptionally tall or strong but if something made me lose my cool; my rage would be tough to deal with because I would stop caring about anything and everything except the destruction of my foe. Once I took on a fifth-year who had beaten up a class fellow of mine: a boarder. I had a soft spot for boarders because they lived far away from home and mothers. I got him real good, that fifth-year boy. His shoes were off and away by the time I was done with him. He broke a button from my shirt. I don’t know why nobody lost any blood. Another time, I fought with this massive beast after he had attacked my fellows, but he was too big and too strong and beat the shit out of me as well, but we were all rather resilient and figuring that he was outnumbered, he ran out of school, hopped into a rickshaw and drove off. I was really very surprised. I was too young to take a ride in a rickshaw confidently, or maybe I was just a sissy prick. As a general rule, however, my rage would always overcome my fear and that was most important to me, otherwise I would find no reason to fight. The best way to get me angry was to either deny me my right or to hurt my friends. It’s a fine line that separates the coward from the brave and the brave from the lunatic. In spite of it all, I believe I balanced the equation rather well. Add to that the fact that I was sort of always group leader among my friends and that we played all games according to my rules -because I’d come up with the games in the first place- and you’d know how important I was and felt. Yes sir, I was a natural born leader…for a couple of years at least.

I lost most of my flock when they – the administration- decided all the academic high-achievers should be grouped together in the A-section and thereby introducing our first form of class distinction and struggle. Now I was never one to reach for an A grade when a C was easier to achieve and well away from an E. I mean it’s only logical, why bother? I could never study. Studying meant losing out on play time and since I could get average grades without having to touch my books till the very end, I never thought it necessary. Half my friends were now gone but I didn’t care. I was a loner and a wanderer at heart and had a rather high opinion of myself even though they never selected me for the ‘Cubs,’ which was this group of boys who got to pitch tents in the grounds and wear scarves and do neat things that I don’t know anything about because I never got selected. There was a written test for it: ‘Write down all that you can see around you.’ And I did make a list of a lot of things, but I suppose it wasn’t enough for them. They always chose the prettier boys anyway. They chose boys from the A-section. I suppose somewhere along the way I decided it was safe to despise them.

But I was a worrier. A regular worrier; I worried so much I would get epic migraines. But not in the head, mine were invariably in the stomach. Put me in a stressful situation and I won’t be able to remain vertical for too long. Of course it didn’t happen instantly; it took days for the bastard pain to develop. It was like an octopus had taken up residence inside of me and was squeezing my innards with his powerful tentacles while I just didn’t know what the hell to do. Lying down didn’t help, sitting was worse, standing was impossible, carrying my bag –which by the way weighed a ton- all the way to my car was just plain torture. The doctors always thought I had appendicitis. They would come to this conclusion after touching me up in the nether regions and getting too close for comfort to my package. It was hell. In the end, after hours of pointlessly lying around in the operation theatre, they would not be able to find anything wrong with the damn vestigial organ (not my penis, the other one) and would settle on a migraine as being the cause. I agree with that final diagnosis. I was a worrier. Like the time that woman who taught us Urdu made me learn a poem so that I could compete in a poetry recitation contest. Horrible! Naturally I couldn’t do it. The pains took over me and I had to be taken home. Later when I submitted something for a hand-writing competition, that horrible bitch crumpled the paper right in front of my eyes and threw it in the bin. It was her revenge against me for not having participated in the bloody poetry recitation contest. Curse her brown tits; it wasn’t my fault. My octopus just didn’t like the goddamn poem.
It was a first day of school, when my greatly reduced gang of friends and I poured into our new classroom to find some bloke already seated in it from before. Evidently he had not attended the morning assembly and had thus missed out on Assad’s latest performance, followed by an ever ready encore by a band of backup vomiters. The smell of bad eggs and sour milk was thick in the air by the time we were allowed to leave that gas chamber of doom. This boy was sitting in class, behind his desk, silently weeping. I felt sorry for the guy. Judging by his height and his face, which reflected an impoverished intellect, it was obvious that he had failed. I could well imagine what he was going through and because I wanted God to never put me in a similar situation, I went up to him and sat next to him, made small talk and soon he was part of my gang. Over-sized cretin that he was, he was just a little boy and could be made into anything. Too bad he fell in with the wrong sort of people and turned into a druggie bastard later on. I should never have quit on him though. As long as I was around, he never did anything atrocious. But I had a short temper back then. Plus I was not sure what I was and I wanted to get away from everything that tied me down to whatever it was that they thought I was but I knew I was not. Confusing? You bet it was.

Him.

Somewhere along in these years of nonsense I saw him walking around in a corridor; sitting on a chair; holding a fancy bag; playing cricket (I hated organized sports); waiting for his car, I don’t know, I didn’t see him around too often but I did see him whenever I saw him and he caught my eye like a peacock on fire. I never asked about him. I don’t know…it didn’t seem right, or maybe I did ask about him…nonchalant sort of discrete inquiries made. When I would see him, I would stare for a bit. I would sort of not appreciate his existence, mainly because he was always with some nice looking friends, laughing, chatting, and supremely unaware of my being. Eventually I found out he was one of the A-section boys, which meant that not only was he a pedantic creep but that I would only ever get to see mere glimpses of him. So I got him out of my head and moved on to being a loner. But that comes later. There were many rainy days when I would watch him wait for his car. And one day as I waited for my own, Ms. Abid –the woman who was in charge of the ‘Cubs’- came along and asked me what I was doing. I told her I was waiting for my car and I asked her if she’d like to play a game of yassoo punjoo with me. She agreed and readily flopped down cross-legged next to me. This pleased me because I had always admired her from a distance. Not sexually…she just played the piano and that was cool.
She played rough though -not the piano, the game- and she didn’t strike your hand –as you’re supposed to in that particular game- no, she would slap you across the face each time. And that made me laugh. I was never the sort of boy that you couldn’t slap around the face because you felt something beautiful might be damaged. I was a convenient mistake and a flawed bit of construction that could be used for all sorts of things because there was nothing specific I seemed to have been made for. She won that round and then she left, for good. There was something wrong with her physically…inside she said. I don’t remember…maybe it was the liver or something. She left after having vented her frustrations on me. That makes me laugh even now.

A year I spent in complete isolation. Things had changed. The swings were gone…or rather left behind. This new section of the school didn’t have a playground. I mean they did have a playground but it wasn’t the same without swings and merry-go-rounds and sand pits and slides and seesaws. The swings were now a distant memory that you could look at from across the road. It took a year of repeatedly bumping into Assad and his elder brother -and then trying to avoid the demented duo of repressed voices and overly polite, mild manners- and counting all the friends I’d lost to the harsh world of modern day academia, before something happened which compelled me to leave my mountain hideout and seek for myself a treasure in the world of pleasure.

Personally I never felt like I fit in. I was never like anybody else. I loathed cricket, (which automatically reduced my chances of making any long-term friends) it was just too damn boring and orderly. There were rules that I could never understand. What the hell did ‘leg’ and ‘off’ mean? These words had different meanings in my head and I could not change them. My hand-eye co-ordination was laughable. I could never understand what ‘slip’ or ‘gully’ or ‘silly’ or bloody well anything meant apart from what it actually meant according to the goddamn dictionary and even if I tried to play the damn game it just underscored the fact that for once in my life I was entirely ignorant. In a world of ignorant bastards of subhuman intellect, I was the stupid one because I could not connect the bat with the ball. I hated it. The only reason why I played football was because one day while I was standing in the goal waiting for something to happen, a boy kicked a ball at me; it hit me and went off somewhere else. One of the teams cheered and thumped me on the back and so on and so forth and I was forever goalie. I was also forever praying to God that my team never be in a situation where the existence of a goalie would be of any consequence. My hand eye co-ordination was laughable. I had no friends during recess and I couldn’t be bothered to make any. I enjoyed just walking around over the irrigation channels and thinking and watching people and thinking. Just…I don’t know, I was smart but I had lost my former glory. I felt like a general who had retired or who had been deposed and didn’t really care about this new world and this new war. They had changed the rules and I was not going to play. To play would mean to accept the rules. To accept the rules would be to bow, to submit to the winds of change. To change would mean that there was something fundamentally wrong with what I was before. I believed I was in the right so change was out of the question. My rebellion would one day swell into a march against all this nonsense. I would, one day, reclaim my kingdom. I think perhaps I thought too much and maybe I was an idiot. But I was smarter than everybody else. So there I was, alone and friendless and somewhat odd and aware of my many oddities and aware of other things; things that I could not help but like…intensely.

That boy again.

And then I saw that boy again. The peacock on fire, I saw him. There he was in his cricket kit, all white and godly. His hair, brushed majestically in the prevalent fashion of the times and his sparkling eyes shining in the sun. I looked at him and I bit my lip and I wondered. He struck me as rather beautiful. Why what how? But he was beautiful and that was all I knew. I saw him from afar and I bit my lip and I wondered. During one of my lengthy conversations with God, I asked Him for two things: the boy; and never to be taught by that crazy old hag who looked like a great big rag doll that had been burnt in a fire and only had tufts of hair and a look of hardened revulsion for all that was light and hopeful in life.

And then one fine first day of school when Assad too had become history and nobody puked, I waited for the morning assembly to end and then I went to my class and there he was: the ‘peacock on fire’ was in my class. So was the old hag-rag-doll of terror. I looked up at the heavens with my eyebrows raised and I think I heard a faint chuckle.

Hah…I thought…very funny.

It didn’t take a lot of time but soon he was my friend. He was like a young god of handsomeness. The sun itself was his hair and he shone from head to foot in a light that was pure and miraculous. He was astounding and I had always been astounded by him. But by now I was very bloody damn sure that I was astounded. His innocent eyes were big and light-brown with a molten beauty to them that I can’t explain and I would die when I would see him and when I would see myself reflected in those gorgeous eyes and when he would speak, his voice was charming and his lips were pink and seemed soft and his teeth were perfect and he laughed when I made a joke and I made jokes to make him laugh and I was so madly in love with him that everyday I would just sit there and watch him and die and love him more and go mad and understand nothing and listen to him as he would curse and sing and speak all sorts of nonsense and talk of girls and talk of sex and talk of things that meant nothing to me and I would smile at him constantly. His hands were beautiful. Perfectly artistic but not girly; manly but in a way that made it obvious that God took more care with him than most of us. He could only be the descendant of kings I thought. He could only be pure and gorgeous and beautiful and he must be mine and mine alone. Everyday I would be the first boy in school and I would roam the empty corridors coming up with witty rhyming doggerels for his amusement. He would ask me to make up something dastardly about so and so and by tomorrow I would have that something -lethal and sharp- and I would hand it to him and in my heart I would say, “Go my prince, and kill and I shall watch you kill and I shall love you forever.” And laughing like a fresh flower he would run off to destroy some boy’s hapless ego. I was in love with him. And I would sing an old Indian song for him, though he did not know I sang for him. And he would sing with me and sort of make kissy faces at me after each verse of the chorus; an innovated requirement of the song. I was such a bastard, getting my jollies in this creepy fashion. But I could not help myself. At the drop of a hat, in the wink of an eye, in the beat of a heart, I would’ve made a fool of myself for him. He was the most beautiful creature God had made in this new world. I was forced out of my isolation by a shining jewel of humanity. That this love of mine would become the yardstick for all my future voyages into the sea of love, I had not known. Much later did I realize that I only liked girls who had his eyes -those shining, beautiful brown eyes that could melt me with a gaze. I would be attracted to girls who had his laugh -a carefree, genuine, unadulterated laugh that began and ended in his eyes after spreading all across his being and pouring out in streams and making heads turn and so addictive…the only thing comparable to his addictive laugh was Assad’s chain-reaction projectile vomiting. I think now perhaps that I have never enjoyed the touch of someone as much as I enjoyed his. He was so beautiful that words fail me now…even now. He was not as tall as I was and the difference was to become important in all my later affairs. His skin was unblemished and impossibly soft and fine. His voice was gentle and musical. That was perhaps the first time I had fallen so deeply in love -but naturally, not the last time. I once found a girl who embodied all his attributes. Unfortunately she embodied all his attributes...except one or two… so I could only love her from a distance. His nose was perfect and since mine is like an ugly hook or a bumpy over-large mountainous slide that penguins might use -were it covered with ice- his nose would seem a work of Heaven by comparison, as if angels with delicate tools had shaped it after years and years of devoted attention. His entire frame, his body, his face, everything was a testament to devotion, love and care. His existence was the affirmation of a divine being who could, not only create but who alone was worthy of worship. It’s almost ridiculous how through man we have a short cut to God. At the moment it seemed as if I was itching for a short cut to Hell perhaps…but God made hell; the other side of perfection is still perfection I say. Well anyway…suddenly school was a lot more fun than it used to be. And I learnt to play cricket though I still loathed it. These were the good years. But I’d like to take a breather here to sort of make it crystal that I never condemned anything I felt as unnatural, as evil, or even sinful. I never thought there was anything wrong with me that way. I was so comfortably assured in my infallibility of emotion and sentiment that I never felt as if I had distanced myself from God. We had a good relationship I always believed. I would want whatever I would want and God would decide whether I should have it or not. He always decided I should not. But never was He angry with me for just harbouring a desire:

“Ok so I’ll let you have a look or two because there’s no harm in wanting, sort of like window-shopping if you will…but that’s all. No more.”
“What if I want more than just to window shop?”
“There are lines, boy, lines you must never cross…transgressions are punishable. You can’t shoplift on God’s watch!”
“But God…I am in love…I will do everything I can…I will scheme and I will plan…”
“Indeed but as they say, I am the best of planners…so just listen to me. Listen to me: It will hurt.”
“-You or me?” said I with defiance that has always been the noblest attributes of Man.
“Sigh…so be it…you have been warned.”
“I like the fact that you’re All-Knowing.”
“I love the fact that you’re not.”

And people ask me why I am so emotionally stunted. I know the answer but I haven’t yet phrased it properly in my head. It’s still in the developmental phase and it’s impossible to say just what I mean. Damn girls aren’t even funny…and truly, they can never be a friend.

And then I learned cricket to bowl him out. Yes sir. He said I would never be able to do it. I knew this: he had bowled me out in his own way and one good turn deserves another. but then