The first step.

Since with Loyana it was always about her and other people ceased to take on a personality, I was pretty taken aback by her sudden interest in me and my life. Why lie? I hate it when people ask me to talk about myself. That's because I find it really difficult to tell them anything but the truth and when I do, they find it extremely unpalatable. I decided to give her an edited version of the events that had brought me so far.

It all started in Jodhpur. The sun city of Rajasthan. A place charachterised by sandstone, heat and mirchibade. The last thing is a snack that consists of a HUGE green chili stuffed with mashed potatoes, coated in chickpea flour and fried in boiling oil. America gets fat on Big Macs, fries and coke; Jodhpur clogs its arteries with mirchibade stuffed between two slices of bread and lassi. Whatever works I guess.

My earliest memories comprise of sitting in a patch of sunlight in an expanse of red cemented coolness. I grew up thinking that the red color came from the blood of demons that populated my grandmother's stories. She'd tell us all those wonderful yarns that would leave us wanting more. There was a whole brood of us. Cousins by blood ties on our mothers' side and friends by default. I was the quiet one. I had to be.

I was born on a frosty January evening when the rain gods danced in the heavens with the ferocity of dragons fighting for their lives. The rain came down in torrents and the wind made every ghost story come alive. I'd fought my way out into the world a month early, my impatience manifesting itself in the need to see for myself what exactly was it that my mother warned me against every night before she fell asleep.
I was lucky I was a boy, if I'd been born the girl that my mother so desperately wanted then in all probability I wouldn't be here. I'd be part of the statistics that are quoted each year to gather funds for women's emanicipation in India. Another victim of accidental childbirth. Another unwanted child. Now that I look at it that might not have been so bad. At least, I'd be dead and hopefully at peace.

I was the boy who didn't speak much. The situation was so bad that my mother was afraid that I was dumb. Then finally the rain came to my rescue and the first drop falling on the dry dust of Jodhpur gave off a magic that brought words out of my mouth and my mother heaved a sigh of relief.

When I was about five years old I got on to an airplane that took me away from the wonders of the demon blood stained courtyard and into an equally dusty and dreary land of camels, oil and the smell of money that makes dreams come true for every person who sets foot there. Dubai. The land where the very pavements are paved with the gold of opportunity and the rising sun sets your spirits on fire, the fire to achieve what you'd set out to do.
My father had followed his dreams of a better life to the partnership that he had attained and now he was ready to become whole again. I led an idyllic existence while my mother slowly stifled her dreams and counted out the last few years of her life by immersing herself in the glistening luminiscence of embroidery material and the soft clicking of knitting needles that formed the background music to the gentle beat of time. While her home sparkled with the vitality of her life force the very life was being eaten from within.
A perfectionist to the core, She died with the quiet dignity that she had possesed and worn like a cherished heirloom till the end. Her death did not affect our lives. It was the eventuality of living without her presence that did us in. You never know what you've got untill you lose it. I learnt this the hard way like I did every thing else.

I told my dad not to get married, begged him but all he had to say was,"There are needs that every man has that only a woman can take care of." I was eight years old. Too young to know what he was talking about. But the day my body started to release the animal that every man carries within , I began to hate myself and my body, I hated the animal needs that arose in me and I hated most of all (although I would never acknowledge it to myself untill it was too late) was my father for being human. I hated him for being honest about things that I should never have been forced to acknowledge. I hated him for not being strong enough to love and for being weak in the flesh. I never told him I hated him. He made it plain that he couldn't care less soon enough. He got married within a few months and a few years later I was packed off to Jodhpur having put up with enough physical and mental abuse to last me a lifetime.

At this point Loyana stopped the jeep on the side of the road and began to cry. I told you that you'd find it unpalatable. She didn't listen but kept crying. Silently at first and then in a high pitched keening that told me that whatever it was had little to do with me and more to do with her.As usual.