How I turned straight and saved myself!!

When I started this blog, I deliberately chose to avoid writing about my sex life ( or lack of it ). I fancied that writing about my sexual orientation would have been limiting myself to just that facet of my personality, which has a lot more rainbow colors than just pink. In my defense, I always perceived myself as a bit of intellectual. Someone who would want to discuss politics, world history, economics and languages. My interest in cooking, fashion and being 'fabulous' was more seen as an attempt to be a 'Renaissance man'.

So why am I writing this all?

Since I arrived in the dutch capital Amsterdam, there was a transformation in me. It convinced me I was not gay.

I wondered why I had the opposite reaction by not becoming 'gayer' while being in country where not just gay marriage are allowed and celebrated, it was a place where the term liberal got a new meaning. ( I recall having read somewhere that homosexuality was tolerated since late eighteen hundred in Netherlands and it's just not a recent phenomenon). I had all the time energy and money to 'whore' myself. There are gay clubs, bars and cruises of all kind catering to all tastes in abundance here. Initially, I was very excited to go and check out the 'scene' and I had also created a profile of myself with new location so dutch guys could reach me.

When I was in home (in India) and not working, I was glued to my laptop just like everyone else. However, what was worrysome that I spent 95% of time on internet on being online on chat and gay community websites. ( I don't mean porn here) I have almost chatted with everyone whoever logged on Delhi gay chat room in last three years. ( It didn't mean that I met them all) I was way too discerning and conscious of my self image. I still am. ( Once a fat kid, always a fat kid)

I always wondered what straight people did for hours on web. There is only so much you can play farmville or mafia wars or facebook. There is so much you can read in news. What did these guys do? I think now I will ask this question to my straight friends. So, coming back to my original schedule, I would spend all that time doing something that I didn't need/want or get.

In retrospect, it looks foolish that I squandered so much time where I could have done so much stuff, read so many books, learn so many new things. But as they say, things are always clear in hindsight.

I was running away from myself and my life.

A life which had seen turbulence so severe in those years, that i was in denial. I was in denial of what was wrong with me. There are things you could fix. But one needs to know what to fix.

I considered myself as some sort of hyper sexual person who can't get enough of it. I had to do it. I was in auto pilot mode in most of those time and it had become reflexive. I felt guilty that not only I am wasting time on something frivolous but I started seeing myself as a pervert. ( I had to compulsively label myself all the time, even now!)

So there I was spending endless hours, doing frivolous things which I thought I would continue to do with more vigor in the free sex land of Amsterdam, which seemed like a gay mecca ( Are we allowed to use religious terms with gay?)

In the early days, despite the work load etc, I would log on on my new profile and wait for people to 'reach' me. I used to get bored of this within five minutes of logging in ( notwithstanding the fact there were not many people 'reaching' out to me which was not quite unlike what I faced in Delhi).

So it was not about rejection or not being liked, I hypothesized. ( not many people like me anyway)

It had to be something else.

Ohh, it had to be the food. Anyone whoever has the faintest idea of power of spices would certainly agree that our food intake determines our proclivities and urges. ( says ayurveda). I was subsisting on cold food, mostly salad and dairy products which lacked the fire of a Rogan josh and butter chicken.

I nailed it. I felt so happy that I had got to the bottom of problem which is 'degaying' me.

I had to start eating my regular indian spicy food in order to be 'up' again.

That happened soon after when I moved to a serviced apartment with a kitchen where I could eat all the spices I craved.

But to my disappointment, my hypothesis didn't hold much water when it was subjected to real world.

I got worried. What if I become straight in the place which is supposed to be European gay capital? ( Actually it's Berlin I think, but- hey, It's almost as gay)

Khair, I thought these are all symptoms of a prolonged jet lag and since I didn't have any male steward in my flight, this might have been exacerbated by that fact, so why not go and check out all those 'happening' gay places?

I decided to go to a very popular sauna, where unlike Delhi gay parties where people strictly come to 'dance', here one can leave all pretenses and just do it then and there. (They have all the facilities like cabins etc). The sauna is opened day and night and is most crowded on Sunday afternoons. Therefore, armed with all this information, and a little trepidation I stepped in the building on a cold sunday afternoon thinking how I would hide the fat around my waist.

There were guys.

Many guys!

Guys of all ages, shapes, sizes, color and 'sizes'!!

Some were extremely goodlooking and I could almost imagine myself making homemade porn with them. ( Then I'd leak it like Paris Hilton, and become a world famous bitch).

But now comes the important part. Everyones was prowling in that place. No one would force you but in glance and nudge will be enough to get you some time alone with that guy. In my case, I planned to play it very cool and act as if I came here a thousand time.

Planning and execution are two different things. I was too shy and always attracted wrong kind of guys. ( Old/ Skinheads/ bears with huge piercings/ basically average or weird looking guys). The truth was none of those future pornstars in my home production were giving me any 'bhaav'.

It happens.!

Life is a bitch!!

My looks are not determined by me!!!

I rationalized and went about my business. So without giving any further details, let me say I didn't come home 'dry' that night.

But this whole trip made me very sad. I could see eighty year old trying to get an erection ( no exaggeration). More than seventy percent people there were over the age of fifty. I couldn't understand how these people living 'here' could be so desperate and miserable.

Now, I know free sex is not just a gay territory and straight people indulge in it as much as us. But one thing that kept cropping in my head was if these guys were not able to find someone and lead a 'normal' life, what hope was there for people like us. Do we have to fight all our lives and in the end get to the same stage where they are.

This put me off so much from the word 'gay' that I almost started imagining a parallel straight life. A life where things are simpler.

You fall in love. ( I don't know how that happens).

You get married. ( and feed 1000 people on that day you never wish to see again)

You have kids ( I am happy being uncle to my niece)

You have Teenage Kids ( is there anything worse than that?)

You Die. ( Leaving everything to those kids who don't like you in the first place)

I think this is how a perfect love story unfolds in a straight life.

Since, I was not getting attracted 'enough' to boys, I thought- why not turn straight and see the other side of the fence. I mean I like girls. But just not in that sense.

How long will it take me to 'degay' me since half the work has already been done with that sauna trip?

I think my denial phase has begun. I haven't turned straight yet. ( nor I think I will ever be)

But it's just a thought.

A very random beginning

I am in denial. The last three months that I spent away from home has been my escape. Escape from myself and my memories.

Every night for last four years, when I picked up a book ( always fiction set in non-indian setting) it was an attempt to flee from what I faced every day. Bickering family, non-happening career, zero social life and non existent love life. It was comforting to know in those pages that there were far weightier issues than those present in my life. It had become a ritual and the only thought that used to come to me while drifting to sleeps were those characters, their lives and their problems. It was my comfort.

Since last three months, though I got a few books assiduously with me for my sleep, I haven't touched them. They were not required. In fact, I did not have to think of an imaginary world in order to get away from my present. I was living in it.

I did not have to run away.

Every morning when I would open my eyes half asleep, I would look around think about what I had to do for the day. I had perhaps imagined myself always like this since it does not feel unreal. Unreal it is. This is not my life. This is not me. Yet, I feel there is so much of me in the role I am playing now. Just like my past life was a dream, a bad dream.

But all good things must come to an end. These three months have been unreal. I escaped from myself which I think it did me a lot of good. I did not ruminate over my life and it's travails. I was damaged. It healed me.

Now, I am good to go forward.

or so I think!!

p.s. New years never make any difference to any one, so I will save you the obligatory wishes.

In which we resurface

So I have been away. If I start giving reasons on why I was away, I would not have many. But the primary and most important reason has been my laidback attitude. When I am writing this post right now, I am thinking ( in the age old ways of psycho analyzing myself) what has changed that has made me write this post. Probably it’s the onset of autumn. There is slight dew in the air, days are brighter, sunlight is crispier and there is a strange sweet smell in the air. I wonder how these seasonal patterns correspond so well to hindi calendar. Tomorrow, I guess is the first nav-ratra ( going by the stall selling pooja samgri), and though I have no interest, inclination or belief in these things I feel nostalgic of the days when my mother would send me buy some last minute thing that she had forgotten.

Khair. Enough of reminiscence! I have cribbed a thousand times on how my life is so boring and uninteresting that I have nothing to write, that I feel guilty now that so many interesting things have happened recently and I have been darn lazy to write about any of them/

First things first. I got myself tested for HIV. My second time. It was something I had been planning, procrastinating and afraid to do for long for simple reasons. Every day, I would pass by this lab and stop and look at the sign board thinking wheather I would need a prescription to ask for the test, and what the people at the counter, the lab assistant who may take my blood sample will think. Will that make me look gay, or they will think I am a promiscuous bitch?

I am sure they have better things to worry about than these things when its their daily routine to come across jerks like me. So there I was, two weeks back at Lal path labs mustering all my courage. I asked the lady at the counter for a HIV/ ELISA test. ( I had got it done first when I found a hicky on my chest which looked a lot like what caposi sarcoma looked on Tom Hanks in Philadelfia.) The person who took my blood sample was as nonchalant as I expected him to be. Though I wanted to run away from there asap, he made me sit and hold the cotton on the point where sample was taken. And did it feel like eternity, sitting there surrounded by that eeky spirit and phenyl air?

I am sure most of you have seen the SATC episode where Samantha ( Btw, did any one check out the new movie’s pics? They all look fab.) gets her test done and she is anxious to get her results while waiting in the hospital lobby to be called any moment to get that counselling. Dr Lal labs saved me from that torture since they have online reports. I can’t begin to imagine to collect a test report finding oneself positive. With my heartbeats going up and staying there, I opened and found it was negative. It was negative. ( on second thoughts, I think if I was a better writer, I’d have begun with the suspense of the test and not broken out the news that it was negative in the first line itself. The way I see it, I too can do it. Just that I am lazy. J )

Hmm, the second thing. I finally met the designer and my notting hill moment did not just stay as an audio conversation. He was actually very nice and cordial and horny . I had already gotten over with the whole thing, so it came as a positive surprise. Peace.

Last month, I also decided that I needed to beautify myself so I invested in a chemical peel session. And I just looked like Samantha when she had got her peel done. ( for those who havn’t seen SATC, go watch it. You have no excuse). It was horrible. I had to be not only indoors but confined to my little apartment. I face resembled a desiccated currant, and no way I could have gone to work looking like that. ( yes, being a style icon does have its downsides). Thankfully, the swine flu scare was at its peak and I cleverly excused myself from going to work by telling people that I have Cold. Anyway, my ordeal lasted for one whole week and I could see a lot of suppressed smiles on my neighbors when I picked my morning newspaper ( only time I went out of home in 7 days). For those who are interested in knowing the results of the experiment can write to me, I will send them before, after and ‘in between’ pics.

P.S. I have been thinking of late why I chose 'TLOB' as my blog alias. I had finished reading the book when I started this blog. To rediscover my quirks, I went back to the book and fell in love with it. I will write a review soon, I think, at least, my alias deserves that,

The Monsoon Hungama

It's finally raining here, and what do rains bring with them? Raincoats, umbrellas, chai pakoras, rainy day etc. But being a responsible adult I have gotten over most of these things except one. Yes, Discount sales. This is the time of the year when all the brands I have been eying for past summer season are available for some discount, provided there are some pieces still left in my size. ( Is this only me or does everyone feel that they never get the size of a particular outfit they desire most?)

Speaking of shopping, it always makes me feel good, however short natured my happiness may be post that binge. It's for nothing that they call it retail therapy. There is another thing that takes over me everytime I enter a mall. I feel like a man possesed. I feel like there is a greater calling for me there. I feel I am here for a mission and I have to salvage the earth from these hoardes of shoppers who have come to find precisely those same things which could make my life so better. I have to be quicker, faster and better in findings those items than these lesser mortals and save humanity. I try hard. I scan every one around. Every one else is suspicious of every one else's intention. We are all competing in the same pool, one better be. Resources are scarce, and there is too high a demand ( trust me, you will feel the same way when you see the que outside Benetton showroom in CP. And yes, the que was for billing ).

Well, you win some and you lose some. Not always I grab the best stuff. ( most of the times you can't really wear it till next season. So one has to be Patient.) But I do have reputation for haveing the eye for the best stuff. Stuff which people overlook. Stuff I know will look on a a body than a clothes rack.

So, this year, or rather this sales season, I am holding myself a bit. Reason is the great economic situation. I had a negligible salary raise which can't even compesate for the inflation, let alone for my fashion needs.

But I am happy. There is always a next sale season to stuff on the gooddies.

hmm...I am sleepy and tired

Yes, that's what you do when you surf till late night and wait for things to happen to you. On top of it, when I woke up this morning, picking up my daily dose of newspaper I saw the headline say " Did you see the longest solar eclipse of the centuary?". Ahh, now they are making us feel guilty for sleeping late. Or rather waking late.

I can be least bothered. I am not gonna give any 'daan' becuase of the eclipse, that's so Pagan. I wish we indians had some more objectivity and we could start questioning the expected beliefs. And I bet any one who has experienced the nuisance caused by 'Kaanwariyas' will surely be put off by this brand of religion.

Now, this reminds me to declare that I am not religious at all. I am not proud of it, nor I am concerned. It's something fact of the matter. Chris: if you read this, I'd like to know what you think. Btw, I know that you sleep with your Blue book beside your bed table.