The not-so-queer case of male 'jhol'

No, the term ‘male jhol’ isn’t a Hindi word. It is hip and Hinglish. I am one of the many males in this orgasmic island city whose hormones get thumping and pumping, cajoling and jholing looking at other males (call us a minority and I will give you a thappad).

Yaah yaah... I am gay. And I love men. I think of making love to a man *can hear the neighbouring aunty say “haaaa look at him”* I am engaged to a man and have a ring to prove it.

And let me tell you, our joys, our sorrows are as different and unique as a boy to a girl or vice-versa.  (What are they called? Yeah, STRAIGHT!)

I’m often asked who plays the Man and who the Woman in the relationship. The truth is that gay relations are unique and different, and so are our love stories. We don’t fit into moulds. We define moulds.

I don’t believe that I need to identify as man or woman in the relationship or for that matter, the sexual act. We are two men in love. Period. ( I mean no period, pun intended!)

Our love stories are just the same and breakups — ditto as straight ones. Let me share my love story with you. My first love. On an early night in a drizzling June, at the windy Bandra Reclamation, I fell in love... and for the first time. Was it love at first sight? No. It was love at first kiss, though. And now I know the questions raging in your mind.

Aiyyo. So did someone see? Naahi vaatli bheeti? Naahin... Mumbai is a busy city. Who has the time to see and bajaao seeti?

He was not the perfect man. But he was as imperfect as me and perfect for me. As the dark clouds further stained the orange sky, the drizzle ended and there was a cloudburst. It was a perfect Gulzar moment  for us with a very situational Ek akeli chhatri mein jab aadhe addhe bheegh rahe the... playing on his iPod that was plugged into each of our ears.

As time passed, we got closer... and tracks changed — now it was Jaane do naa... paas aao naa — all this at the very straight Bandra Reclamation that kissed the Arabian Sea. The moon waxed and  time waned. I looked at my watch, two hours had passed. We decided to move to our respective homes. I called out for a rickshaw and, surprisingly, he sat in it. Puzzled, I stood there muzzled. He said, “Let’s spend the night together”. I muttered huskily, “Where”? He whispered “Bombay”. I hopped in. The rickshaw meter kept ticking and we sank into our past and present and future. From Bandra to Andheri and from Andheri to Bandra, and then from Bandra to Sion and then from Sion to Goregaon, we just “rick”ed it all over the night.

He spoke, I listened. I spoke and he listened. The conversations that were initiated that dawn-less night, held us together for the next four months.

Then we tripped and missed our steps. He found someone else and I was left alone singing melancholic tunes from the 1940s. I kept a big face for the first three months. But it took me four years of sad poems and reams and reams of tear-absorbing tissue to finally gain the confidence to rise in love again. And finally change my facebook status to “In a relationship”...

Does my rainy-day story sound like the Laila-Majnu love relationships that go little beyond raat-gayee-baat-gayee?

Well, we and our relationships are not queer. And if you insist we are, then I’d say we are as queer as straight ones. Our dils, in the same way go rock-and-roll, so what if it is male jhol?