on the threshold

‘Ok tell me, how are kids born?’ he asks.

I’m not yet familiar with the human anatomy and the biological processes although I’ve had a small inkling about the desire part. But I’ve watched one hell of movies…and I blurt out, ‘Nodu….on the first night, there’s a glass of milk. The man first drinks it and then gives it to his wife. When he drinks it, sperms are released from his mouth into the milk…and then when the wife drinks the rest of the milk, the sperms go into her body and meets the egg and….’

He was already on the road, laughing his guts out and I was staring at him wondering what on Earth had I blabbered to evoke this reaction!!! After a while he composed himself and then gave me a substantial account of the process and procedures. I was like…umm….good, is it? Ok, etc. First sex education session. I was in Class six at that time.

His name was parikshit…we called him porke. Terribly naughty fellow….he kedsd the entire class with his naughtiness…the girls drooled over him, and the boys, they learnt things from him. Before he arrived, we all were bhai-bhai, girls and boys, laughing and joking and sharing things together. Baddi maga…once he came and began tutoring, everyone became self-conscious…became aware that they were biologically different species. Something like Adam and Eve eating the forbidden fruit. He brought the forbidden fruit. The very first sex guru. Mini Osho.

Maybe the wet-dreams and fantasies started around that age. The urge to release. But something else arrived simultaneously. The first stirrings in the heart. Purely platonic. Untouched by a physical desire...purely romantic. Overshadowing the lust. Entwining lust and elevating the primal desire by a small notch.

There was Angel. And there was another one who arrived like a whirlwind, mesmerised with a hundred dreams and crashed out, leaving deadly deep scars of humiliation and shame that would take a decade to heal. The scars that were deep enough to push one into a shell, unwilling to open up to the beautiful song that was playing very close by in all those years.

Adolescent years. So magical. So fucking brutal.