Lean Days

By Manish Gaekwad

Fed up with his tedious desk job, a young man decides to quit on an impulse. He wants to write a novel, but doesn't think he has a story to tell. So the would-be writer, who was raised in a kotha, sets out to travel, hoping to arrive somewhere: at a destination, at a story. But it's not just about arriving. What about the journey? The joy and pain of trudging through the country without a plan, or a map? If his aim is to write, who will document his search for inspiration, and for love?Lean Days is the story of an artist's voyage through the country, mixing history with imagination, and finding people and places whose stories he can tell along with his own. It is a book of journeys without an end in sight, about the yearning for romance and succumbing to the temptations of the flesh.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins India
• Release date: Mar 25, 2018
• ISBN: 9789352776757

Manish Gaekwad

Manish Gaekwad has worked as a journalist based in Mumbai for such publications as Scroll.in and Mid-Day, and freelanced for The Hindu. This is his second book. His first novel, Lean Days, was also published by HarperCollins India in 2018. He has written a Netflix series and worked as a script consultant.

Book preview

Madras Days

The thick drawl of Madras is so attractive, I am almost tempted to approach the loud-speaking, bespectacled boy at the coffee shop: ‘Please lower your tone, you are exciting my loins.’

He is in conversation with a man. The two of them are discussing the intricate details of a computer program, injecting just the right amount of geek in the room to send the gaydar of the desperate into a tizzy. Young women at another table look on indifferently, even past his good looks. I find him looking in my direction as he keeps talking, without pausing to breathe during his monologue. He raises an eyebrow over the thick rims of his glasses in the smooth arc of a Magritte pipe, making him look like a piece of art I am presently doodling hastily in my head. His concentration does not threaten my imagination.

‘Excuse me, you remind me of the bland wit of a surrealistic painting.’

If I said that to him, he would scan me for a fool. Because it is quite a corny thing to say, as one fumbles in front of the admired.

The circumference of his open mouth is exactly the size of his wide eyes. I imagine his response before I walk over to say hello.

In search of love, I want to travel across the country. I am starting this expedition by going down south first. Dive deep. Somewhere it will find me.

The two men slurp their cold coffees, making primordial sounds to win the attention of the three women who have sauntered in to occupy the table next to theirs. The teaspoon I am twirling in my cup, to curl out a tendril of chamomile scent, rattles.

Ceci n’est pas une cuillere (This is not a spoon)

The dishy geek boy approaches the table of pernickety girls reading their menus aloud indecisively. He shakes hands with one of them and she stands to introduce her friends. Who knew? They are friends! Is this how it is done around here? In tag teams?

He looks at me, asserting himself, seeming pleased to show off. He walks out of the door with his colleague, turning one last time to see if my eyes are following him.

I duck.

The boy-meets-girl scenario in Madras takes place under the smug smile of a benevolent Amma or another unsightly politician watching their every move through giant cut-outs, posters, and hoardings put up around the city. Amma’s looming presence is a protective layer against the brazenness that Mumbai’s public display of affection allows.

What’s a good cruising spot for a writer in a city he knows nothing about? A public library is a safe location to tarry. I am soon looking for a man at the Anna Library, where I guess there will be plenty of single lads willing to be my muse. Poorly managed, the library also has a warning sign at the entrance, ‘Bring your own book to read’, to which I am delighted to make a mental note: ‘plus booze.’ Every seat in the house is taken, the place looks like a sitting terracotta army of readers with not a single soul to fix my eyes on. A library without the distraction of a few handsome men and women is a library to avoid. If there is no respite from reading, to vacuously rest one’s tired eyes on them – what else is a library for, then? I visit libraries for distractions, way past the history section, and into the poetry corner, where the gentle souls gather.

The library scoured, I move on to the Chennai museum where the muses might be free and available. Artist K.K. Hebbar’s Construction catches my eye. I want to take a picture of it on my phone. Where is the docent to seek permission? I walk towards three guards lounging on a bench, and what I can deduce from their savoir faire to the museum problem is that they will reproach me for asking. I ask, nevertheless.

‘May I take a picture?’ I use my softest timbre.

An old woman, preparing for lunch by unscrewing the lids on steel boxes, garrulous in her operation, looks up at me and states bluntly, ‘No.’ Around us, people are flouting rules, left, right and centre. No one has sought her approval, but she cannot be bothered to chase the unlawful. Not at her age, as she immediately begins to complain.

‘What we care? Little money we get, working hour long time, no bonus.’ I can hear a long list of troubles coming my way.

‘Okay,’ I bow and walk away from tiffin-time gossip. The intermingling scents of spicy rasam and steamed rice are thickening the air.

The Kangra paintings of Krishna take some getting used to – the foliage, for one, my god! Each leaf tickles my senses. The Raja Ravi Varma painting The Lady with a Mirror radiates under the arc lights. As I bend over it, about to click my faux-French tongue in praise, an old fauji guard standing behind me, his arms akimbo, booms, ‘Take it,’ as if I can unhook the tall frame and walk out of the museum as the coolest art thief ever.

So, when you take a picture of a painting, are you not stealing from it? Its right of ownership, to belong to its gilded frame? A fuzzy camera image on a mobile phone is a smear campaign to deface the beauty of the painting. My emotions echo in a wistful look Shakuntala gives me from a frame in one corner. I defer to a Van Gogh print of Gypsy Caravan. His name is misspelt. Van Gough. An earful.

Past the library, past the museum, the beach must be a cruising spot?

I head towards Kottivakkam Beach, where I spend the evening as a flaneur. The beach feels like an extension of the shores I have left behind in Juhu and Versova. The Kottivakkam sand is much cleaner, though, or the lack of litter-friendly people does it.

Walking barefoot, the beach puts me in the shoes of The Monk by the Sea. German author Clemens Brentano had said of the Caspar David Friedrich painting:

How wonderful it is to sit completely alone by the sea under an overcast sky, gazing out over the endless expanse of water. It is essential that one has come there just for this reason, and that one must return. That one would like to go over the sea but cannot; that one misses any sign of life, and yet one senses the voice of life in the rush of the water, in the blowing of the wind, in the drifting of the clouds, in the lonely cry of the birds. No situation in the world could be more sad and eerie than this – as the only spark of life in the wide realm of death, a lonely centre in a lonely circle.

Goethe had called it an ‘upside down’ painting. Kottivakkam offers me that solace this evening, where I could be floating in the sky if I decide to drown myself.

A message pops up on my phone. An online dating website introduces me to Vasanth, who is around. He meets me outside the abandoned Thiruvanmiyur Railway Station, and takes me to the Besant Nagar Beach, which is this city’s equivalent of Bandstand.

We are done with the Besant Nagar Beach in a jiffy, it is mostly Vasanth showing me the promenade lined with groups of young college students. Women are accompanied by their husbands and lovers. He cruises on the beach.

‘I like straight guys. It is easy to pick them,’ he says.

‘And how is that?’ I ask.

‘When I sit here, it’s all about eye-contact.’

‘Aah,’ the famous South Indian film hero’s menacing come-hither stare, ‘I vill keel you’ I attempt to say in a pathetic Tamilian accent. Vasanth is not the least bit amused.

‘You remind me of Mahesh Babu,’ I say.

Vasanth has the actor’s puppy face and dreamy eyes.

‘Who is that?’ he smiles at me, the boyish smile of Mahesh Babu that I have seen on TV when I am remote-control lobotomised. I haven’t seen any of Babu’s films; neither has Vasanth. ‘Mahesh Babu is a star from the Telugu film industry,’ I tell him confidently.

After Vasanth has scanned the promenade for potential lovers, he zeroes in on me as his last resort, or so I get the impression from this beach date. He wants to have sex in the back seat of his car, which looks like a garage to me. This is how he does it with the men he meets and when he has no other place to take them.

‘Let’s do it, then,’ I warm up to the idea of a vigorously shaking vehicle as one sees in commercials where randy couples are seeking some discreet time in a parking lot.

‘Are you serious?’ he stops driving the car as it enters a dark alley, not convinced I am ‘that type’.

‘Nah, I can’t do it,’ he says.

‘Why?’ I ask, confused that the man has suddenly decided to take a U-turn.

I am easy on the eyes – tall, fair-skinned, light eyed. Not athletic, but I don’t have a beer belly, which is a sure sign of not getting laid. I could well become the prize catch in the fishing nets around here because I am new to the pond. Rejection could break my heart if it came next. It comes, nevertheless.

‘I am not carrying condoms,’ says Vasanth.

Silly reason. We can still make out.

Nothing happens in the car. Turns out, Vasanth is a gentleman. He treats me like a lady, and does not even try to kiss me when he drops me home. Not even a little peck on the cheek. I really like this guy, disappointing as fuck, but it is the chase that thrills me. We plan on catching up at a party the next day where the city’s small network of gay men will gather to try their luck with each other, as I am told. Oh, my nerves! I can hardly wait.

Tilting my trilby, I walk into the party the next evening and immediately lower my head in shame. In a room the size of a public restroom and dark as a dungeon, the lousy crowd is jiving with the pathetic possibility of what will one day be moral policed by bhakts if it becomes anything bigger than what it is now. Skinny young boys hold on to their beer bottles, and are dressed in Spencer Plaza clothes, wearing floaters (an unseasonal fashion faux-paw) as footwear, and dancing to shrill Tamil film songs that the northies dub as noise. Whose idea of a gay party is this? Where is Vasanth?

I dash towards the door, manned by a greasy, out-of-shape organizer, a few minutes after I have paid entry charge. The organizer has gel-slicked hair and his tumescent body is jouncing about in clothes too tight to breathe in. He huffs and follows me when he sees me climb down the staircase to escape.

‘You are not from Chennai?’ he asks as he hands out a drink coupon. A drink, yes, that would make me stay.

I call Vasanth to rescue me; he is on his way. He arrives a little while later in Kolhapuri chappals; his feet stringy, newt-like. He is into the ‘gold business’, I am later told by Ricky, one of his friends. Still does not compensate for dressing down. Varun and Shekhar are the other two friends to whom I am introduced. Ricky and Shekhar are married to women and have come here just to socialize. My inhibitions lessen after a couple of rum and cokes as I drag Vasanth onto the dance floor. He is checking out a cute younger boy standing by himself in a corner. The young man is sipping his beer reluctantly. He could use a straw, and a sugar daddy to warm up to. I cannot have Vasanth look away. I try to snog him. He avoids my advances.

‘He’s married,’ Ricky tells me. ‘Ooh, all the more reason to have some fun!’ I try again, desperate for Vasanth’s attention.

‘I think he likes you,’ Ricky tells me at the bar counter. He adds, ‘He will not do anything with you, you are his friend now.’ I can feel the alcohol slip out of my bloodstream.

‘What?’ I can’t give up on him so soon.

The party winds up early and Varun invites us to his house for drinks. He works in the local film industry as a stylist and choreographer. We first met five years ago in Bangalore at The 13th Floor Restaurant for drinks with some mutual friends. The cool wintry evening on the balcony offered a scenic view of the city lights. Varun upped the offer with an unsolicited view of his tummy. His body taut, complexion dark, teeth pearly white, hair spiked; he was flawless in every which way and was everything my friends and I were not. ‘Do you guys want to see my belly button?’ he had abruptly inquired in the middle of our conversation. Before any of us could ask why, he stood up and pulled up his deep V-neck white shirt to show off a pellet-sized diamond rock winking at us from his belly. We gave him the nom de guerre: Diamond Belly. That belly could certainly impale the unarmed in you-know-where, someone joked. Our glasses clinked in celebration. The evening broke into a rash of laughter thereafter.

Pari (what a becoming name), a transgender friend of Varun’s, who is chaperoning the party at his house, welcomes guests in the chippy style of a diva. Varun’s clique of friends, Pari warns me, is drying up. ‘Everyone is taken,’ she hisses.

Pari has set her fortunes on a wealthy man, she jokes. ‘He loves me a lot,’ she says, drumming her lacquered fingers on my chest, snug on a sofa beside me.

She has a celestial Zen halo about her, which can seem a bit risible to an audience watching her gazelle-like movements across the room. Her concerns sound glib in her voice – she is not even drunk yet. Her position as an entertainment editor at a local daily, her political lobbying for equal rights, her struggles with her body – it is a heady cocktail of her pole-vaulting ambitions to launch herself as a brand. ‘Pari hoon main,’ she punctuates the pop song with additional vowels. She is determined to reach where all the posturing will take her and it is going to be nothing short of a miracle when that happens. Can I say she has a lipstick mafia agenda, or is that outrageous? She does make me want to grab Vasanth by his balls. ‘You know he has three children, right?’ she tilts her head, her eyes wide, her mouth comic, her glass empty, for more.

The Girl with the Wine Glass

Pari frightens me with her ice-cold composure. I collect her glass for a refill. ‘Sherry, darling,’ she calls out to me as I make my way to the kitchen. Her evening has just begun. I walk into the back garden of the house, where people are smoking up. I grab Vasanth’s hand and walk him to one end of the house, where we are enveloped in the shade of a coconut tree.

‘Look at the moon,’ I tell him. As he lifts his chin, I draw in closer to kiss him. He looks into my eyes and steps away.

‘No, no,’ he shakes his head. ‘You are drunk. Let’s go back in, have some biryani.’ Vasanth tries a different tactic by trying to hook me up with someone else, saying, ‘You should meet my friend Arvind.’

He drives us to an apartment later in the night. Arvind is cleaning up after a house party, his red shorts with slits on the sides highlight an apple-shaped bottom (which is also a clue to his preferred role in bed), when he bends to clean up confetti from the floor. His sculpted derriere glows in the soft light of yellow night lamps – a pome fruit ripe and ready to be sliced open. At home with Arvind is a designer friend glued to a divan. Draped in what appears to be a cream shroud, the designer’s colossal weight, under a zero-watt bulb, gives him the appearance of a hermit in repose.

The Caterpillar missing its hookah

From his perch on the sofa, the designer is supervising Arvind’s chores. He even has the superior countenance of a wonderland creature. But for all I know, he could be a harmless ‘darling’, sitting there while Arvind tidies the place, making passing conversation with his cogitated ‘umm’ every now and then. Arvind brings us some coffee. He will blush if I call him a hausfrau.

‘I am going to take a nap,’ Vasanth says, making his way to a bedroom.

Arvind tucks him in bed and returns. We chat for a bit. ‘My brother has written a book,’ Arvind informs me. It will help me realign my interest in his illustrious background. Arvind is a banker, which had so far taken the conversation nowhere.

‘That’s nice,’ I sit up. ‘What is it about, what’s the name of the book?’

‘Oh, I can’t remember,’ he pouts.

‘You don’t remember the name of the book your brother has written? Do you have a copy?’

‘No,’ he says, ‘I don’t read books.’

Right.

I am okay sleeping with someone who does not read books as long as they are not defiant about it. ‘I don’t read books’ is to insult those of us who do. It’s as if the other person is telling us that they have better things to do. Like what, exactly? Dusting upholstery dressed as a saucy chambermaid?

The designer shifts to another bedroom with such stealth that none of us notices. It is late and I am drowsy. Arvind tells me to stay over and leave in the morning, after breakfast. He is a hausfrau indeed. My friend Nimmo, whose house I am putting up at, is some distance away in the suburbs. She has a stickler of a husband. No late nights for them, and for their guests, an even bigger no. They have no clue about my whereabouts since I stepped out for a walk in the evening.

‘I will not sleep with Vasanth,’ I tell Arvind.

‘It is a big bed. We will all fit in. We’ll have to manage somehow.’ He decides to play the part of a wall between us, saying,