to stroll around their virtual Delhi, unzip each other’s trousers – and faster than it is possible to type with one hand, reach yet another monumental climax. It worked every time.
‘Your name, naam batao!’ Ram would gasp into the computer, and Manhattan Mania, who was a lot less proficient than Ram at typing quickly, would reply: ‘I CANT DON@T ASK.’
In the first few months, Manhattan Mania was cautious – afraid, Ram surmised, of being found out. ‘Where in Delhi do you live?’ Ram wrote one evening. ‘Can we meet?’
‘No,’ Manhattan Mania replied, and terminated the connection.
Ram remembered all too well how upset Manhattan Mania’s ensuing absence from the House of Sin had made him. His Internet partners were usually more brazen. There was none of Manhattan Mania’s reticence, his unfamiliarity with the language men use together. Every night for a week Ram logged on only to be met by nothing. Silence.
Then, ten days later, Manhattan Mania reappeared as usual, as if nothing was wrong: ‘We walk down Rajpath, arm in arm …’ he typed, and Ram added, ‘When we get to India Gate I pull you down onto the ground and …’
Via the ether of their top-floor chatroom, they fondled each other on a boat on the Yamuna (‘But the river is disgusting, yaar,’ protested Manhattan Mania realistically), on the lawns of the Purana Qila, on the dance floor of the Zed Bar, and went even further when sprawled across the bonnet of a dusty white car parked outside the Income Tax Office. Ram had a taste for the illicit: the Jama Masjid, the Hanuman Temple. Manhattan Mania revealed his more homely streak: Nirula’s ice-cream parlour (of course), the INA Market, the Pelican Pond in the Zoological Park.
Later, in broad daylight, Ram would occasionally revisit these places, haunting the sites of their verbal-virtual trysts, trying to catch the eye of passers-by, and wondering. Who was Manhattan Mania, really? People told each other such lies over the Internet. He knew that they assumed new identities, personas, even genders, in their Internet avatars. But he himself was just as much Man-God in his real life as during his midnight dates. Was it the same with Manhattan Mania?
Ram looked up from the computer and stared round him at his bedroom. He would like to bring Manhattan Mania here, to show him the trappings of his new life as Uncle Hari’s son. The screen was flashing. A message had appeared: ‘Do you remember the place we went to first?’
Manhattan Mania was certainly in a nostalgic mood tonight. He wanted to linger on Rajpath longer than usual. He kept asking Ram if he could remember what they had done where. ‘What’s wrong?’ Ram typed at last, and waited patiently for the reply to appear.
‘Man-God, if I don’t come back, it doesn’t mean I don’t love you.’
‘Where are you going?’
‘I’m not going anywhere.’
‘Then why might you not come back?’
No answer came. The fear jabbed at him, a premonition.
‘Answer me!’ Ram typed.
‘I’m getting married.’
‘NO!’
‘Isn’t that what people like us do, in India?’
Ram felt, for almost the first time in his life, the hot, maddening throb of jealousy. ‘No!’ he replied, ‘it’s not what we do. Not in this day and age!’ His hands were shaking. ‘It’s a brand-new era. Don’t you understand?’
He waited again, trying to resist the impulse to discover the worst. But he couldn’t resist, and finally, he wrote: ‘WHEN are you getting married?’
There was a moment of flickering emptiness, and Ram held his breath as he waited. Then the single word appeared on his screen, and Ram hit the keyboard and turned his head upwards and screamed. But the word was impervious to his troubles; it remained there, suspended before him: Tomorrow .
8
On the morning of Sunita Sharma’s marriage to Ash Chaturvedi, Humayun (son of Mohd Hamid, deceased) said goodbye to his cousin Aisha at the Ahmeds’ house in Nizamuddin West
‘Your name, naam batao!’ Ram would gasp into the computer, and Manhattan Mania, who was a lot less proficient than Ram at typing quickly, would reply: ‘I CANT DON@T ASK.’
In the first few months, Manhattan Mania was cautious – afraid, Ram surmised, of being found out. ‘Where in Delhi do you live?’ Ram wrote one evening. ‘Can we meet?’
‘No,’ Manhattan Mania replied, and terminated the connection.
Ram remembered all too well how upset Manhattan Mania’s ensuing absence from the House of Sin had made him. His Internet partners were usually more brazen. There was none of Manhattan Mania’s reticence, his unfamiliarity with the language men use together. Every night for a week Ram logged on only to be met by nothing. Silence.
Then, ten days later, Manhattan Mania reappeared as usual, as if nothing was wrong: ‘We walk down Rajpath, arm in arm …’ he typed, and Ram added, ‘When we get to India Gate I pull you down onto the ground and …’
Via the ether of their top-floor chatroom, they fondled each other on a boat on the Yamuna (‘But the river is disgusting, yaar,’ protested Manhattan Mania realistically), on the lawns of the Purana Qila, on the dance floor of the Zed Bar, and went even further when sprawled across the bonnet of a dusty white car parked outside the Income Tax Office. Ram had a taste for the illicit: the Jama Masjid, the Hanuman Temple. Manhattan Mania revealed his more homely streak: Nirula’s ice-cream parlour (of course), the INA Market, the Pelican Pond in the Zoological Park.
Later, in broad daylight, Ram would occasionally revisit these places, haunting the sites of their verbal-virtual trysts, trying to catch the eye of passers-by, and wondering. Who was Manhattan Mania, really? People told each other such lies over the Internet. He knew that they assumed new identities, personas, even genders, in their Internet avatars. But he himself was just as much Man-God in his real life as during his midnight dates. Was it the same with Manhattan Mania?
Ram looked up from the computer and stared round him at his bedroom. He would like to bring Manhattan Mania here, to show him the trappings of his new life as Uncle Hari’s son. The screen was flashing. A message had appeared: ‘Do you remember the place we went to first?’
Manhattan Mania was certainly in a nostalgic mood tonight. He wanted to linger on Rajpath longer than usual. He kept asking Ram if he could remember what they had done where. ‘What’s wrong?’ Ram typed at last, and waited patiently for the reply to appear.
‘Man-God, if I don’t come back, it doesn’t mean I don’t love you.’
‘Where are you going?’
‘I’m not going anywhere.’
‘Then why might you not come back?’
No answer came. The fear jabbed at him, a premonition.
‘Answer me!’ Ram typed.
‘I’m getting married.’
‘NO!’
‘Isn’t that what people like us do, in India?’
Ram felt, for almost the first time in his life, the hot, maddening throb of jealousy. ‘No!’ he replied, ‘it’s not what we do. Not in this day and age!’ His hands were shaking. ‘It’s a brand-new era. Don’t you understand?’
He waited again, trying to resist the impulse to discover the worst. But he couldn’t resist, and finally, he wrote: ‘WHEN are you getting married?’
There was a moment of flickering emptiness, and Ram held his breath as he waited. Then the single word appeared on his screen, and Ram hit the keyboard and turned his head upwards and screamed. But the word was impervious to his troubles; it remained there, suspended before him: Tomorrow .
8
On the morning of Sunita Sharma’s marriage to Ash Chaturvedi, Humayun (son of Mohd Hamid, deceased) said goodbye to his cousin Aisha at the Ahmeds’ house in Nizamuddin West
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