Sleeping with Movie Stars - Part 3

By Gitanjali Kolanad

In my second year, my father rented a house for me, just outside the Kalakshetra grounds, which I shared with an American student of the veena and a Sri Lankan girl who was biding her time until marriage.

Every morning I wrapped my dance sari and rode my bicycle along a sandy, packed-earth road past little thatched huts and a row of naked babies squatting with their heart shaped bottoms over little piles of turds. They waved to me and called out, "Vellakarchi, vellakarchi" (white girl, white girl) even though I was as dark as they were. Slightly older children in neat bright uniforms ran along beside my bicycle and one, or even two hopped on the back carrier for a ride part way to their school. Every afternoon, I rode back, drenched with sweat.

I was not beautiful in India, though I had been considered so in the West. I was too thin, too dark, for Indian tastes. My grandmother, whenever she saw me, said, "You used to be like gold, now you have gone black," using a word that suggested metal rusting. I had breasts that Goldilocks might have approved of, neither too big nor too small, but a more buxom build was admired in those days. The long wavy black hair and big black eyes which in Canada had been distinctive, were here as common as dirt. But I had my charms, and there were always boys hanging around the house. Those first two boys, and all their friends, and their friend’s friends came by and drank cheap Indian gin and local arrack in our front room, and smoked beedis and grass on our terrace. There were, as far as I could tell, no other young girls living on their own in Madras at the time.

The people in the nearby village didn’t know what to make of us, with young men coming and going at all times of the day and night. Sometimes we were woken by the sound of banging on the gate, and drunken voices shouted in Tamil, "Hey let me in. What I have between my legs is just as good as what those pants-wearing boys have." Sometimes they called for me by name.

But though I drank with the boys, smoked grass with them, and rode everywhere on the backs of their motorbikes, my long hair whipped by the wind behind me, no bodily fluids were being exchanged, not even saliva. We were like pups from the same litter, or the Three Musketeers – one for all and all for one. They took good care of me. When I said, quite stoned, "Look at the moonlight. Lets go swimming," whichever boy was there came with me, right into the waves glowing with phosphorescence, even if, as I discovered later, he couldn’t swim. On the other hand, if two girls and I were with three boys on the backs of their bikes, and we went somewhere, the boys would drop one girl home, then the other girl, before stopping at the side of the road to unzip their pants and pee, saying "Thank god its just you."

Anyway, I had a crush on the young man who played Lakshmana in the dance dramas: impetuous fiery Lakshmana, short-tempered, easily angered in his brother’s defense. Lakshmana is the one who cuts off Surpanaka’s nose and ears when she comes to him aroused and lustful, who leaves Sita alone only after she hurts him to the quick by accusing him of desiring her, and wanting Rama out of the way. This dancer depicted all that perfectly on stage, and even in real life had a haughty way of holding his head, as if he really was an arrogant prince of some ancient lineage. The way he tied his veshti for dance showed off his shapely calves and his big high-arched feet. Everything about him said ‘noli me tangere’ thus making him even more desirable.

One afternoon, after many speaking glances had been exchanged, he cycled to my house. I served him tea. "Very good place." "Yes, I love it here. You can see the ocean from the terrace." It was clear he didn’t understand a word I said. He smiled. I smiled. Suddenly, he said exactly these words, "Let us have fun" and leaped on me, pressing his lips hard against mine, and molding one breast in his large hand. I wasn’t averse; only, after some intense pressing that seemed to be going nowhere, I attempted to change the nationality of the kiss, that is, to make it ‘French.’ He leapt away from me as if my tongue was a snake that had just bitten him, ran out the door, jumped on his bicycle and rode furiously away.

I too, when I was ten or so, had thought the idea of someone else’s tongue in my mouth disgusting, like eating worms. But to be labeled a bad kisser was a fate worse than death in Grade Seven, so I had practiced in our basement rec room with a skinny Italian boy who played the guitar, and thankfully didn’t wear braces. We took our lessons from the movies, figured out how to negotiate the hazards of nose and teeth; we learned that it is best to close the eyes, because if you keep them open, what on earth do you look at? By the time the hormones kicked in, I was well rehearsed.

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