put my fingers inside her.
"Do you like this?" I asked, wanting to know the range of my strength.
"Whatever you like," she answered. To have power after so much unhappiness and confusion made me feel as if the world could be mine.
I laid her on the cot and got on top. As I started moving, I saw my friends standing outside at the window beneath which they had been hiding. Their watching excited me.
The orgasm didn't feel like much right then. My penis trembled and spurted and that was it. But for the next few days, I was crazy with happiness. I would run and slide down the shaded gallery outside the classrooms. I kept finding myself talking loudly or humming. I had discovered a way to happiness which sidestepped all the demands life made of me.
I went to the prostitute several times after this, paying with a five-rupee wrestling award. Soon I couldn't feel my guilt. I think my mother's death had distended the elastic cord which ties our actions to our conscience and the cord hung slack. The prostitute was eighteen and named Rohini. After I gave the money to her husband, he would sit outside their cottage smoking bidis while I visited. As we had sex, I could hear their children in the courtyard. But I soon began to love Rohini in secret. She had a slow walk that made me think she was heavy with sweetness. Once, Rohini told me I had very handsome eyes, and when I looked in a mirror I noticed that indeed my eyes were quite large. Rohini's husband thought I came from a well-off family and I went along with this. But when he began asking me for cigarettes, I realized that his demands might increase and I stopped going. Once after this, I saw her on a path outside town, but I hid myself in a cane field before she could notice me. My falling in love and then quickly abandoning her felt like a working-out of my destiny.
I failed eleventh standard. Nearly half the students with whom I had entered higher secondary had failed at least one year by then. There would have been no shame in repeating the year. But failing eliminated what little confidence I had remaining, and I decided to leave school.
We were at war with Pakistan and I wanted to fight for my country. I also thought joining the army would provide me with the opportunity to rise quickly in the world. I began imagining myself a general and grew a thick mustache such as I imagined a general might wear. But I had flat feet and ended up in the navy. As soon as I learned I was going to be in the navy, I became happy with the choice that had been forced on me. I saw myself traveling all around the world. I shaved my mustache.
Compared to farm work, the three years in the navy were like a long holiday. This is because a farm is yours, and since it is the only thing that is yours, you are always worried. I did not mind the constant work in the navy, because it was just work. Locks had to be greased regularly, chains and cables carefully examined and repaired or replaced. Equipment, radios, generators, parts of the engines often all of a sudden stopped working. In return for doing this, I saw the ocean for the first time. I visited cities where people spoke strange languages. More than these things, though, leaving Punjab freed me from the sadness I had been feeling for the last year and a half I again began to believe that my life could be lived purposefully.
If we had ever gone into battle, I might not have considered myself lucky. But my years in the navy were a series of marvels. Once, while we were far from land, enormous dark clouds began pacing back and forth several miles away on one side of the ship. On the other side, also several miles away, were similar clouds, which looked like gigantic jellyfish dragging their million rain legs beneath them.
But directly above us was the sun, a clear sky, bored gulls. It was like being in one of those zoos where the people travel in buses while the animals roam free.
I visited Calcutta, which in my memory is only boxy jute
"Do you like this?" I asked, wanting to know the range of my strength.
"Whatever you like," she answered. To have power after so much unhappiness and confusion made me feel as if the world could be mine.
I laid her on the cot and got on top. As I started moving, I saw my friends standing outside at the window beneath which they had been hiding. Their watching excited me.
The orgasm didn't feel like much right then. My penis trembled and spurted and that was it. But for the next few days, I was crazy with happiness. I would run and slide down the shaded gallery outside the classrooms. I kept finding myself talking loudly or humming. I had discovered a way to happiness which sidestepped all the demands life made of me.
I went to the prostitute several times after this, paying with a five-rupee wrestling award. Soon I couldn't feel my guilt. I think my mother's death had distended the elastic cord which ties our actions to our conscience and the cord hung slack. The prostitute was eighteen and named Rohini. After I gave the money to her husband, he would sit outside their cottage smoking bidis while I visited. As we had sex, I could hear their children in the courtyard. But I soon began to love Rohini in secret. She had a slow walk that made me think she was heavy with sweetness. Once, Rohini told me I had very handsome eyes, and when I looked in a mirror I noticed that indeed my eyes were quite large. Rohini's husband thought I came from a well-off family and I went along with this. But when he began asking me for cigarettes, I realized that his demands might increase and I stopped going. Once after this, I saw her on a path outside town, but I hid myself in a cane field before she could notice me. My falling in love and then quickly abandoning her felt like a working-out of my destiny.
I failed eleventh standard. Nearly half the students with whom I had entered higher secondary had failed at least one year by then. There would have been no shame in repeating the year. But failing eliminated what little confidence I had remaining, and I decided to leave school.
We were at war with Pakistan and I wanted to fight for my country. I also thought joining the army would provide me with the opportunity to rise quickly in the world. I began imagining myself a general and grew a thick mustache such as I imagined a general might wear. But I had flat feet and ended up in the navy. As soon as I learned I was going to be in the navy, I became happy with the choice that had been forced on me. I saw myself traveling all around the world. I shaved my mustache.
Compared to farm work, the three years in the navy were like a long holiday. This is because a farm is yours, and since it is the only thing that is yours, you are always worried. I did not mind the constant work in the navy, because it was just work. Locks had to be greased regularly, chains and cables carefully examined and repaired or replaced. Equipment, radios, generators, parts of the engines often all of a sudden stopped working. In return for doing this, I saw the ocean for the first time. I visited cities where people spoke strange languages. More than these things, though, leaving Punjab freed me from the sadness I had been feeling for the last year and a half I again began to believe that my life could be lived purposefully.
If we had ever gone into battle, I might not have considered myself lucky. But my years in the navy were a series of marvels. Once, while we were far from land, enormous dark clouds began pacing back and forth several miles away on one side of the ship. On the other side, also several miles away, were similar clouds, which looked like gigantic jellyfish dragging their million rain legs beneath them.
But directly above us was the sun, a clear sky, bored gulls. It was like being in one of those zoos where the people travel in buses while the animals roam free.
I visited Calcutta, which in my memory is only boxy jute
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