The Lassi Lesbians were at a needle show. The kind of show that someone with a sirname like Chakarbatti has no business being at. A 70 year old woman that had lost a battle against gravity strode in 7-inch stilletos, a corset and a pair of knickers, across a huge raised perspex platform. With shocking red lips and layers of blue eyeshadow, she had a bored look on her face. Her sequence was repetitive: she would staple a long sheet of transparent plastic to an upright piece of cardboard, walk to the corner of the stage, roll around in a pile of glitter, soil and water, and sit down on a chair placed in another corner. A mixed race woman in a pair of black skinny jeans and a black shirt with her sleeves rolled up, wearing thick leather military boots and blue latex gloves, would then come and pin a rose to the 70 year old’s bare chest, forming part of a heart shape. Then the sequence would start again. It went on until, presumably, the shape was finished, but Jaya found it hard focusing in the near darkness, her eyes drawn to the glitter, the glint of the needle as it slid through the balmy leaves of the rose and penetrated the skin with minimum effort. The sweet taste of Jaegermeister tickled the back of her throat, the lights were hazy, and people were quiet. From the corner of her eye, she could see Kulsuma’s chest rising and falling. They were sat next to each other –as they always seemed to be. Meera sat to her left, her glossy hair resting like some sort of domestic animal, the red sole of her painfully high heels breaking up the blackness of the rest of her outfit.
People sat all around the stage; it looked like a watering hole for pretentious ponderers, the gaping pores of their skin like open mouths under the bad yellow spotlighting. The old saggy woman looked tired; the piece lacked the purposeful edge of contemporary art, the illusion of aloofness; it was far too urbane to weave its way in to halls of Somerset House. So it had ended up here; in the bowels of a discarded tobacco house frequented by art students and gays who loved telling their friends that they sat deep in to the night watching alternative art pieces man so boho right really playful, and thumping alternative electric body music.
There were three huge floors, winding metal staircases, and generally a lot of space that the darkness filled and magically disappeared if somebody walked in to it. The lack of human voices made everything seem surreal; as though everything was about to melt.
‘Who did you go and meet today Kully?’ Jaya asked.
‘An old friend. Waste of time. We don’t have much in common anymore. Used to know him from primary school.’
‘Do you like this place?’
Kulsuma looked around, at the pockets of huddled people. She thought about the concept of perceived popularity. While most people lived in their heads, perception was perfectly justifiable as a theory to live by. But popularity by definition meant calculating external masses, figured and numbers, was impossible to be judged internally. These people, who had their eyes narrowed as they looked at each other, their smiles for show, their faces bland –they had gotten it wrong. They were only perceived. There was nothing popular about them.
She looked at Jaya, just an inch taller, lights shining from behind her, lips moist and pouted, eyes with no judgement (was she thinking about Eleven right now?), looking expectantly at her.
‘You know what? No. I don’t. Let’s get to G-A-Y bar. It’s going to be pretty rammed, we’d better get there quickly.’
So they left Shunt and its space behind, heading towards Old Compton Street. Meera and Raj giggled about girls, eyed up passers-by and laughed incessantly. Kulsuma was quiet, like Jaya.
There was something Jaya had noticed tonight, in Kulsuma’s face. It was pre-occupation; the kind Jaya knew came from the queasy feeling of something internal being dislodged. It was different from the kind of attention she usually got from Kulsuma; the innocent listening of somebody easy-going and honest. Was Kulsuma too surrendering to the false consciousness of a twentysomething Lassi Lesbian? Had Jaya missed it? Was she supposed to say something? They had known each other for years and been the default setting for one another, the best type of friend there was (though certainly not best friends; Jaya’s best friend was an Irish Jewish via South African girl from North London). And why did Jaya feel inferior in the face of Kulsuma’s preoccupation (was there something on her face?)?
By the time they had arrived at G-A-Y bar, Kulsuma’s restlessness had evaporated. She was here; she was at the mecca of gay bingo: an Asian on stage playing an Asian instrument in a gay venue. Her existence didn’t get any more appropriate than this; she would knock back a few vodka and lemons, spill a few drinks over a few boobs and stop inner monologing.
The place was heaving with people; loud music, gays who certainly weren’t an affront to their stereotype, and moody emo kids trying to hide delight in their faces with their sweeping fringes. Thumping bass (as standard) and a long playlist of Pussycat Dolls, Kylie Minogue and Jessie J lined the TV screens. The public messaging service was sporting its usual clouds of futile pulling lines: ‘Hey you in the corner booth with the yellow trainers; wanna get it awn? BoyWithRedVestxxx’.
They bought drinks and squeezed in with a few other punters who were already pissed, on a purple sofa. Meera was already beaming, her eye on a few girls already. Raj bore her usual look of a startled schoolgirl allowed out for the first time, not knowing where to start. The magazine with pictures of penises in the back (‘Boys, want some hot love in your ear? Dial 0800...’) seemed a good idea until the page titled ‘Cock Pit’ –which sported home photos of dicks from all over the country- showed a shrivelled one riddled with warts which almost made Raj cry.
The different voices rose above the bodies and it didn’t matter anymore. Whether it was a South London accent or the Irish or the Caribbean or the gentle warblings of an Arabian; they were being joined and fractured then glued again then broken with the joining still there until they were so fragmented that everyone became tiny little islands of individuality and were once again re-unified by their island-ness. There was the natural ebb and flow of sexuality which was, by simple evolutionary statutes of extending gene pools for survival, colourless and void of all accents, and there was no discrimination agains the baritones of the girls or the squeaks of the boys –or in this case, vice versa.
Kulsuma looked at the crowd, her arms folded, not touching her drink.
Jaya leaned over. ‘What’s wrong Kully?’
Kulsuma, who for one night actually felt like a Kully; part of something, some contempo-casual being that was rooted for by her own, smiled. It was a superficial smile for a superficial joy: Jaya’s black hair falling neatly forward because of Kulsuma; because she wanted to talk to Kulsuma Begum of the Unheard. She could confidently say that tonight she had changed the course of some of Jaya’s molecules.
She shook her head slowly. ‘Absolutely nothing, I-‘
‘Bullshit. There’s something wrong. You’ve been quiet all day. That display at Shunt would have got your juices flowing on any other day. Seriously, what’s up?’
‘I feel good, honestly. Work is good, Abba’s healthy, it’s all hot shit.’
Jaya held a straight face. ‘Yea right. I’ll get it out of you pretty soon.’
Kulsuma grinned. ‘If you say so. Anyway, who’s this new skirt you’ve been chasing?’
Jaya laughed. ‘O she’s chased. She’s chased down, mate.’ She took a long swig of her drink. ‘It’s amazing. There’s no pretence at all. No baggage.’
‘Apart from the kids and the husband?’
‘That’s even better, man. Seriously, it’s awesome; she’s not guna let anything slip cuz she has to stay with them –she’s not exactly going to leave them for me, I’d run a mile- but I get to have fun beforehand.’ Beforehand.
‘Ok, sounds cool. But like, is she, you know, all right downstairs?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘She’s had three kids an’ that. You know: she a bit stretched, like?’
Jaya’s eyes opened wide. ‘Compared to what? Your Thames barriers?’
‘Ha! Piss off!...no serious
ly. Do they hang down, the layers?’
‘...A bit.’
‘Haa! Mate that is weird. How much.’
‘Not enough to notice, but if she hadn’t had kids I suppose they’d be a bit less stretched.’
‘Mate, do Paki birds shave down there? Sikh girls don’t, you know. I was picking at my teeth for ages after Sukhi,’
‘Yea she does. She’s Muslim ennit? It’s all good. Regular check ins at Minge Maintenence.’
And it didn’t bother Kully one bit. She didn’t want to know how the girl looked in daylight; going straight for the image of an ugly vagina was all she needed to calm the torrents of jealousy that whipped away at her insides. She withdrew from the conversation quickly (which Jaya noticed, wondering how to make somebody -whose already segmented sense of belonging (to several different postcodes) -open up). The noise of the crowd lulled, the loud music stopped, and everyone sat down. The lights were dimmed. Jaya sat back and put down her drink, and the first few strums of the sitar were heard.
Anoushka Shankar sat cross legged on the stage, her sitar nestled in her lap, eyes closed, head bent. She barely made a crumple in the gold-edged sari that was laid out like a carpet across the platform. Her fingers plucked, one by one, dreary movements that moved over the strings as they kicked about on familiar terrain.
Jaya’s ears felt like they were weeping. Each note was slow and deliberate, there seemed to be no connection between them; they could easily have been removed and placed neatly in to another composition. The silence between each strum was full of fear. But then, each twang started becoming higher than the one before. Slowly, really really gently, the notes came closer and closer together, faster, building up speed, the twangs weren’t allowed to run their full cycle of vibrations before they were hit again and again in a different way with a different sound and a different rythm and a new determination. A flick of a wrist would send forth another layer of another kind of song. She built it and built it and was soon plucking the sitar strings with such speed and precision that her hand became a blur; god! How fast was she! Boom twick twee twang faster than the brain could process and soon she was flipping between so many different notes that the music sounded like it was having a conversation within itself: a high pitched string of notes would immediately give way to a low bass which would be repudiated by a disjointed melody which was then interrupted by a pernicious jaunty baritone.
Her hands sprinted across the sitar and gave birth to golden notes; they leaked in to every crevice of the room; behind the sofas, inside the plastic straws, in to the creases of bandanas hanging out of back pockets, stuck to the links of gold chains on wrists, resting in the dip of the free condom packets at the bar, rolling along the grooves of car keys on tables, sliding down the necks of empty bottles and even leaking through peoples’ eyelashes.
Why, and how, do certain things strike more of a chord with certain people? And why did Jaya think of this music as full bodied? Words floated through her consciousness, along with pictures and mists and ambiences and people; they seeped in to her mind and saturated it like a sponge. She couldn’t explain it even to herself, gorger of Thought that she was, this was beyond her fathom. Which strange forces made her, who had never had any reason whatsoever to like sitar music; the music of the old and boring black and white Indian films which she didn’t understand or care about; the thoughtless background music of A-level film pieces on culture? Did she believe her own theories of transcendental appeal to the senses?
She didn’t care what she believed. She knew what she didn’t believe –most of the time- and she felt just a few levels below divinity, basking in the relaxing sound of the sitar. For all she cared, everybody else could have been bored shitless, but Jaya CHAKARBATTI felt solid and defined and anchored right now. There were few situations where she felt in complete control; that there may have been Histories or Forces or some enigmatic lull behind the scenes that tugged this way and that; but in this moment, there were no blushing secrets, no hidden nooks in to which she couldn’t reach. There was contentment indelibly tied to all encompassing knowledge -nobody else needed to know.
Eyeballs were glued to Anoushka Shankar; some faces had smiles on them, some looked mildly confused, and others looked at their shoes, heads cocked a little. Were they genuinely appreciating this music? This strange music that had no place in their lives at all? Or was it a show, a polite toleration borne from years of conforming to political correctness? Were they too afraid to say ‘well actually, that was a bit shit’? Had these poor white folk been beaten in to submission? Because (Jaya thought woefully) that would be the biggest disaster of all (asides from third world poverty, rape and manslaughter): denying the White folk from the very freedom which they advocated for the Windrushers and the Indians? The Freedom of Speech? Jaya suddenly became conscious; she found it tough to get in to the consciousness of a white man; or a white woman… did they make racist jokes amongst themselves as she did with her family? When dad suddenly said ‘All Englishes are bastards I tell you; racialists’, did white people also have their equivalent? It was ok to be racist against the whites at their dinner table; had racism in English households also passed the dinner table test? Would they appreciate the sitar music they listened to tonight and talk about it at the table? Or would they jokingly say something they would never repeat in public?
As these thoughts had a way of sneaking up on her, Jaya took a deep breath. It was difficult to live in the here and now sometimes; she’d been struggling with it since birth. She tracked her thoughts back to the sitar music, just as it ended.
The room erupted in to applause. Not a polite, token kind of applause –a shameless, individual applause that didn’t need to be checked or verified by the neighboring body. The decimal level of the room was astounding and for a minute blocked out any other kind of sound. It was the only time Jaya was happy to be part of something so large, although these things were difficult to monitor in the larger scheme of things.
And the evening went on in the kind of blur that university weeknights did; some things happened, the one thing you wanted didn’t.
Jaya didn’t want to a Moment Person; swooping in and draining Kulsuma’s feelings, getting a temporary high and then reclining. She kept an eye on Kulsuma, but in doing so, notice she was being watched herself. In that way that awkward moments continually keep passing between two train passengers who attempt to ignore each other even though they’ve taken the same commute for the last three years, Jaya and Kulsuma too didn’t know what to say when their eyes snagged on the other’s vision. It was a strange sensation, not knowing what to say to someone whom you’ve know for years and for a minute, their colliding gazes made Jaya miss Eleven. Of course, surrounded by Clubbers’ Lust and pumping music was the most alienating of feelings, depression waiting just behind waiting to pounce at any moment but Jaya, Jaya Chuck-Your-Batty was in check with her public face. If it got too much, she went to the toilet and looked at the scrawlings on the wall or sat on the toilet lid for a while (when there was one), recuperated and joined the party; given, after each emergence her smile went down a notch, but that was how everyone felt even if they didn’t know it. That was why people got worn out. Not dancing or drink. It was mental wear and tear.
But she missed Eleven’s holding gaze, her smug smile, her ear nips, her chauvenistic degradation disguised as femme fatality but immediately followed up by a look that said she was only testing the waters; the constant teasing, the hugs that were rare but so sure of themselves, the kicks under the table and the unexpected kisses after a few moments of neglect on a mobile phone; the inability to make any decision without consultation, and the ability to switch major plans after just one sentence from Jaya. The absentminded creation of a dip in her shoulder to accomodate Jaya’s head when they sat next to each other and the bored look of despondency when Jaya trilled about money or politics or identity. The feigned yawns when Jaya wanted to watch something on TV and rejected her sexting; there was, effectiv
ely, nothing about Eleven that was theoretically consistently right, but nothing she could do wrong.
And as if momentarily caught off guard by herself, she walked to Kulsuma.
‘What’s wrong?’
Kulsuma blinked. ‘I’ve been thinking a lot recently.’
Jaya grabbed her wrist and led her to the sofa. Kulsuma felt like royalty and a peasant at the same time. ‘Look yea, Kully, I knew something was wrong. You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to, but I suggest you do. Like, it’s unnerving. You look miserable.’
‘I don’t mean to be. I’ve just had a rough couple of days.’
‘Why?’
‘Mate, things aren’t going very well. I hate my job, I don’t know what I like anymore, I’m sick of hanging around. I think I just need a re-evaluation.’
‘O god not you as well,’
‘What?’
‘You’re turning straight aren’t you?’
Kulsuma’s eyed widened. ‘What the hell? No!’
‘Everyone else is!’
‘Not me!’
‘Look, if you were, it’s fine. We’re all going to have to do it anyway, I just didn’t expect everyone to be doing it so soon,’
‘I know. We will have to do it soon but my parents aren’t pushing me yet. How about yours?’
‘Seen a few guys, just to keep the peace, y’know. But don’t really see it happening for a few years, really-‘
‘What are you waiting for?’
‘Just not ready yet. Need to meet someone first,’
‘O right. Need a few years do you?’
‘Yes.’
‘To fall in love with him?’
‘Well when you put it like that...Actually no. I just don’t want to get married yet. I have to first turn straight, or try to, just, y’know, get mentally prepared at having to marry a bloke, then get all the gay out of my system-’
‘You don’t believe that for a minute, Jaya.’
‘I do. Sexuality is fluid.’
‘Not yours. You love pussy way too much. I can’t picture you with a guy at all, the world will turn upside down, you’re way too gay, man,’
Jaya became irritated. ‘What do you expect me to do then? Stay lonely for the rest of my life, like the rest of the idiots in here? What kind of future do you think we have? Gay women can’t have kids together yet, you still need a sperm donor, the female-female baby thing is probably centuries away; gay men still cheat the most and still have the highest rates of HIV and still think it’s ok to stick your dick in anything that comes your way.’
‘You think straight men are any better?’
‘That’s not the point Kulsuma, I’m not after his loyalty-‘
‘So you’re ok if he shags around then?’
‘No of course not; I’d get an MOC then-‘
‘So you want to have a genuine marriage yet you’re telling me you’re not after his loyalty?’
‘When did this turn in to an interrogation?’ Jaya’s brow creased in defensive confusion.
‘You don’t make any sense Jaya. You were always the one campaigning for equality and waving those big boards with the crowds at uni. I think everyone’s a bit confused as to what you’re doing.’
‘What I’m doing?’
‘Yea; like, everyone’s confused.’
Of course, it had never occured to Jaya that people felt ownership over the processes of her living. Were they finding it hard to look at her and see plurality? Had she, instead of being adaptable, just become spineless? Had Jaya Chakra-Borty’s long line of bloodline heritage tradition become such an entity unto itself that it’s wisdom had become so all-encompassing that it became self absorbed and obliterated itself by imploding? Was she self-annihilating?
There was a shift between them then; Kulsuma and Jaya looked at each other in that way that two people deep in thought accidentally end up staring at each other without realising. Was Jaya being humiliated or exhalted?
Kulsuma shrunk back in to her seat. ‘Listen, I know you’re going through the same stuff as everyone else. But no one else goes on about equality and empowerment. No one else is as publicly out as you are. Plus, you didn’t exactly sound disapproving when Harsha, the biggest dyke of us all, ended up pulling a guy the other day,’
‘Listen yea, going straight is the biggest taboo for gaysians cuz we’re all guna have to do it at some point; I’m no different –I didn’t want to comment because I’m going to end up doing it-‘
‘Are you?’
‘Kully is this what’s on your mind? Is this why you’re miserable tonight? Because of the fact that I’m going to marry a guy?’ Jaya took a long swig of her drink, falling in to the big, bold movements of a rowdy Coventrian –it was a role she occasionally took on when her foundations were being inspected. ‘Because it’s unfair that I’m the one being called up to answer when the rest of us will end up doing the same thing. A bit of sympathy wouldn’t go amiss.’
Like somebody walking in to a Birmingham subway past midnight after reading statistics in the local rag, Kulsuma knew there was a high chance some social violation may take place tonight but couldn’t be bothered to back track. She could see Jaya’s defences torn; Kulsuma’s usual method of placation didn’t offer its vastness any more and the ripples of rejection began to push Jaya slowly outwards towards the shore. Kulsuma was bemused inside at seeing Jaya startled; perhaps Kulsuma had rocked her boat (that would be a first) but it was ok to piss off people who were superior to you; it was comical, endearing even. Only when it’s the other way around, The Truth Hurt.
So Jaya thought for a little while whether or not to humour Kulsuma’s taunts, or to pish-posh them away with a grin. It hurt, being poked like this. Asides from the idea that somebody was attempting to poke a hole in her ego, there was also the possibility that somebody was nibbling away at the inside canvas (the self-assuring idea that she was flexible and adaptable and made allowances for every school of thought), exposing the real inner tube that kept her inflated: an irrational default wagon by way of Islam (depending on the time of day; and race and girls and having something to kick against and something as vague and precipitative as freedom of thought and speech, but never clueless liberalism). She had to claw back ownership of her actions.
‘Kully, I understand that things are tough being us; a lot of people say it’s tough being Christian and gay but they’re just trying to muscle in on our death ground. It’s extra hard for us; but if we keep on torturing one another over how bad the other is then it will only be more difficult. When I’m married, I-’
‘Look, you don’t have to justify anything to me, or us. I’m just worried about, you know, our lifespan.’
‘What?’
‘Like, how long we’re guna stay together. Inevitably we’ll have to go our seperate ways at some point.’
‘Why?’
‘Well we can’t stay in touch when we’re married, can we?’
‘What, why?’
Kulsuma laughed. ‘You look so hurt, bless you.’ She touched Jaya’s knee in what was possibly one of bravest things she’d done in her life. ‘Well we’d constantly be reminding ourselves of the past,’
‘And?’
‘Stop being silly. You can’t have lesbian friends when you’re married...’
‘Why? I’m not friends with you because you’re a lesbian, I’m friends with you because I enjoy your company.’
‘...Really?’
Jaya nodded, watching Kulsuma carefully when she looked at the floor digesting this.
Kulsuma looked up and was swallowed, wholly and completely, by Jaya’s stare. Off guard, she was knocked over and sucked in to the chasm that was Jaya’s face. Her straight back, her erect posture, the delicate hands, the hollowed cheeks of some Manga character and the long neck. It made her think of God. It made her want to suggest that Jaya begin wearing the niqab. It made her want to scream to the world ‘Stop mining us for morals!’ because she feared what they may find; a world as
chaotic and full of resentment as the digger himself; a hollow place which turned out just to be a reflective mirror, perhaps murkier from being kept underneath for so long. They had their own victories (India, Cricket World Cup 2011) and their losses (ban on Islamic face veil, France, 2011) and they had their rewards (Equality Act 2010) and their punishments (everything towards Muslims post 9/11). And it was this that made Kulsuma withdraw from Jaya when her toes were so close to the edge: this idea that perhaps Jaya was nothing but a reflector of Man, like Suskind’s Jean-Baptiste –fated only for the self indulgent nihilistic people who would become obsessed by their reflection til they gorged on their own desire and died.
‘Would you never tell your parents, Jaya?’
Jaya looked at her and shook her head slowly, regretfully, but absolutely. ‘There’s no question about it, never. I’d never do that to them.’
‘If you did it, you’d be happy. I know you’ll scoff at that, but in 50 years time when you’ve been longingly staring at women for so long but you’re stuck in this marriage... I mean, what kind of life is that?’
‘In 50 years time, I’d be in love with him by then... surely?’
‘Maybe. But imagine if that was a girl, something that comes naturally to you. You wouldn’t be looking at other men would you? You’d be in love with a girl, and you’d be making a life with that girl, and that’s who you are.’
Jaya looked in to her lap. ‘I’ve always held the conviction that I can change.’
‘You’ve tried haven’t you? You shagged that Chris geezer. And it hurt you, and you went in to the toilet and cried your eyes out and you never cry you cold bitch. And you tried stopping thinking about women and it almost drove you mad. You do some crazy things sometimes Jaya, but going the whole hog will destroy you.’
‘This goes beyond obeying parents Kully.’ She looked up. ‘I don’t want to go to hell.’
And even though she didn’t mean to, Kulsuma from the line of God-fearing maids and mullahs, spat out her drink in an explosion of laughter. She laughed and laughed and laughed til she had to sit back to stretch out her stomach muscles as they cramped from each wheezy exortation. She bounced up and down and held her stomach, then jerked forward til her head hung over her knees and her hair was splayed over them. Her eyes had begun to water. She looked up.
‘Jaya, are you taking the piss?’
‘No. And you didn’t have to laugh for that long, it wasn’t even funny..’
‘That is the funniest thing I’ve heard. You eat pussy, you drink, you’re shaggin a married bird, you smoke, you watch porn, you don’t pray, and yet you’re afraid of going to hell?’
‘Yes. You make it sound like it’s something you’ve never heard one of us say before.’
Kulsuma wiped her eyes and sat back, her stomach muscles throbbing. ‘No, mate, I have heard it before. But that’s why you don’t want to marry a girl? Because you’re afraid of going to hell?’
‘That’s pretty much the long and short of it, yea.’
‘So you’re going to subject yourself to a lifetime of misery just so you don’t go to hell?’
‘Listen you twat, you’re making me feel like I’m KoKo the fucking clown. It’s a perfectly legit point of view,’
‘No it isn’t Jaya. What about everything else you do? Aren’t those things going to send you to hell? Yes they will. So you might as well go the whole hog and make your time on earth completely haraam,’
‘I don’t see the point in digging myself in any deeper. Marriage is so permanent, so deliberate. If I do it right –to a man- then eventually I’ll go to heaven. And for the rest of the stuff, well, I can repent for that when I eventually get my hoosh and stop it.’
Kulsuma shook her head, took a sip of her drink and looked around the club slowly. ‘You know, for a rational person, you do talk a load of shit sometimes.’
‘You know you feel the same way I do Kully.’
‘No Jaya. I don’t. If I love somebody and that love is pure and I don’t hurt anybody else and I build a future with somebody and read my namaaz and give my zakaat, I’m good. I don’t feel that means I’ll get hot pokers rammed up my vag in the hereafter.’
‘That’s a load of shit. It’s fish hooks that’ll get torn through your cheeks.’
‘O yea, course.’ She brought her gaze back to Jaya. ‘You’re in for a miserable time.’
‘There’s no other way Kully. It’s life.’
And Jaya Chakarbatti shrugged her shoulders and sat back. No, perhaps her salvation wasn’t in the stars alongside her hoosh acting like some celestial middle man. Perhaps she was kidding herself that she would ever get to heaven with the horses and the trees and the all-knowing New York Times journalists and cotton sari’d Bangladeshi poetry teachers reclining on layers of fluffy cloud. But she knew that going all out anti-Muhammad wasn’t the right way to live her life; she knew there had to be some strife for Salvation. It was just too easy to give in to the the Nafs, the evil Inner Being who made out all wrongs as rights. Yes, yes, perhaps she was willing to accept some suffering in her Present to make allowances for the Future. What you reap today, you sow tomorrow, go make me a cup of tea, I’ll give you 20p. Dad had always cleared the playground for her. He had always been there. And Mrs Chakarbatti, who was always in shawls and flowing sari’s because things sewn in a body shape offended her and she had never worn a cardigan in her life, was always watching her and shielding her like the gently swaying and rustling branches of a tree. Nothing but thinking was ever required of Jaya, the daughter of the peaceful and calm parents whose unspoken love was enough to fill the canyons of the universe and whose worries were enough to shatter the earth. Yes, they held back the walls of the world to give Jaya her space to obliviously assemble her blocks so that she could one day stand up and make the walls run away just with her clarity and wisdom of thought and would not have to break her back holding them at bay as her parents had done.
Jaya knew she would go home and not cook a curry (she didn’t know how, she’d never needed to cook one and the last time her mother had tried to make her had erupted in a violent scuffle between her parents as her dad said their daughters’ time to study and ‘think’ was more important). She knew she would be allowed to stay in her room for days on end without anybody interrupting her serenity (save a few shouts for prayer) and she knew she wouldn’t be asked to do the housework. Instead, she was expected to report on the progression of her post-University prospects, her reflections on life, and whether or not she wanted to take driving lessons. She knew that all legal matters and property purchases her father would make would be professionally photocopied and all letters typed up by her father’s assistant (the trusty Mr Mujib who stepped about the office as delicately as a shadow so as not to intrude on their lives and had respectfully only said about four or five hushed words to Jaya over the 30 years of his tenure at Chakkarbatti & Co Chartered Accountants, Coventry). And she knew that even though she stressed about her future, the space of her present was cleared by the organization and labours of her father’s loyal Hunter Gatherer instincts and robust approach to his client accounts. For a man to spend his lifetime dedicated to the mendacity of fiscal figures for the sake of a steady income and the maintenance of his family even though a creative beast roared inside him was something that almost bought tears to Jaya’s eyes.
But yes, Kulsuma and many others like her would have to deal with the shackles of the present which included being asked to do the hoover and Mr Sheen the TV and Blu the loo. How long, Jaya thought, would it take for somebody to break out of that cycle, and how long, she thought, in the final trailing whispers of thought that night before the whiskey silenced her mind, would it take for her to confess to Kulsuma that tonight, Jaya Chakarbatti knew that Kulsuma Begum wanted to kiss her on the lips.
Transpiring across borders was an enormous task, thought Asif. He hoped the media treated his memory kindly and gave it its due before the fashion passed, and filled his own lacunae with po
ignant soundbytes from his friends and family. He hoped Amma and Abba wouldn’t be afraid of the cameras gathering at their doorstep. He hoped they understood. He knew that they would be happier if he didn’t have to die, but the bigger picture, the martyrdom, giving them the credit they deserved: yup, he had it all down.
There were a few things that he noticed when they emerged from their little nook on Old Compton Street after praying to Allah; firstly, he quietly ackowledged Him for the fortune that he was bombing the streets on the same day as the government cuts protest only a few roads away: the media was already out in force and it was added publicity. He gave a knowing mental nod towards the skies for that one. Secondly, he was shocked that there were still people gathering at the bars even though there was chaos so close by. He was disgusted that these people still wanted to have fun amidst all the serious shit that was going down in Central. How far removed must these people have been to not care about anything but socialising on a day like this?
He didn’t need any more fuel, but these factors added to his List of Reasons to Bomb the Gays. Anchored by the moral certainties gifted by religion, his Five Pillars were reinforced. Just a few more minutes (they had to find the biggest crowd) and 1, 2, 3, push.
And even here where the libertarians (or ‘librarians’ as Brother Munir pronounced it) were supposed to be at their finest, Asif could hear hateful things:
‘I’m updating my Grindr profile. Here ‘avalook,’
‘Ok, wassit say? Oooh: “I want you to suck my ass long and hard. No Asians: sorry guys but you just don’t do it for me.” Yea I know wha’ ya mean maaaaate,’
Or: “You ever tried a bit of chocolate?” “Yea, no, not for me like” came the nasal reply. “A bit of brown? No? Not even a little bit? Not even a little bit of spiiiiice? Noooo?”
It was everywhere: groups of young Indian students being rejected for not being ‘regulars’, not ‘having membership’ or ‘reserved party only I’m afraid’ before letting in older white couples or younger white couples or straight white couples or young gay white couples etc. It was a frothing sea of white with the brown people bashing away at the shore before thrown back in to the sea. Asif watched with a scowl on his face. There was no reprise from it; this was modern Britain at it most modern. Skewed, discriminatory and foul.
‘Let’s hurry this up guys.’
They all snapped in to action. Asif seethed; his teeth were clenched and his feet hit the ground with every step, his anger bubbling away in his stomach as it had done all these years, spitting away. The acid was enough to double the explosion of his body tonight. He was highly flammable material.
They moved towards the centre of the street and had all of about 30 seconds to quickly get to middle of the crowds before they would notice the boys with their rucksacks and their floor skimming kurtas.
‘Bismillahirahmaaniraheem.’
In the name of Allah, the most merciful.
‘Brother Asif,’ whispered Munir as they marched, ‘do we do this together? Will there be a countdown?’
‘Yes Brothers, there will be a sign. We will stand in a circle facing inwards and I will shout ‘Allahu Akbar’, then we will push the buttons in our rucksacks.’
‘But brother mine is a string I have to pull it!’
‘Pull it then.’
Munir sighed in relief.
‘Oh my gosh Brother Asif I can’t reach all the way in to the rucksack while it’s still on my back,’ Junaid had begun to squeak as the nerves tightened his throat.
Asif rolled his eyes and slowed his pace. ‘Then bring the rucksack round to your front.’
‘O yea,’ he whispered. ‘Allah is the Greatest.’ His eyes rolled around the entrance of G-A-Y bar. ‘There’s a lot of Asians comin’ out of that place.’
‘Pray, Brothers. Do your final prayers.’
And with those final words, Asif took the final twenty steps before they all arrived at the entrance of a bar where squeaking boys and booming girls and beaming transsexuals spilled out on to the street, tripping over the velvet roped barriers and stumbling off the kerb, getting their heels stuck in the drains and vomiting over others’ boots.
It took all of about three seconds for the whole of Old Compton Street to suddenly realize that these four boys were not in fancy dress.
Asif, Junaid, Munir and Hanif stood in a circle, their rucksacks nestled on their chests, puffed with pride, their right hands disappearing inside the small holes where the zip had carefully been opened by four inches. They looked at each other. The rain fell on them slowly, spitting and soaking their shoulders, seeping through their skull caps.
Asif nodded.
‘ALLAHU-AKBAR!’
‘O God Asif I can’t find the button!’ Junaid yelped, sudden panic creasing his face.
‘Junaid!’ Hanif’s usually serene face looked thunderous. He leaped forward and tore open the front of Junaid’s rucksack.
Two girls saw the mesh of wires, dropped their bottles and ran in separate directions.
‘It’s here, it’s here!’ Hanif savagely pointed at the bright pink button.
Sweat was pouring down Junaid’s face. Asif looked around and saw a crowd of people coming to the slow realization that they were about to get the shit bombed out of them.
‘Hurry!’
Hanif returned to his place in the circle. Junaid looked skywards, his finger on the button.
‘ALLAAAAAHU-‘
‘Asif?’
A soft voice called out from behind him. His breath caught in his throat. His eyes bounced to the right.
He could only see long black hair from the corner of his eye.
One second of deafening silence.
Jaya slowly walked up to him, curiousity on her face.
She poked her head around his shoulder, looked him in the face, and smiled.
Asif’s chest visibly deflated.
The boys’ mouths were all open in expectation, their hands still in position, eyes darting between the girl and Asif.
‘O- o- o, hey,’ his cracked voice resonated along the whole street.
‘What are you doing here?’ She was still smiling.
She hadn’t seen Junaid’s exposed wires yet.
‘We- we got a bit lost.’
His hand slid out of the rucksack and flopped by his side.
She chuckled softly. ‘Oh, ok. Where were you supposed to be?’
Asif beckoned for Junaid to zip up his rucksack.
‘It’s ok Jaya. We have to run and catch that cab. Give my salaam to your parents.’
The boys’ heads darted from side to side, looking at one another in confusion.
‘Come on you lot!’
And Asif leaped away from the crowds, the Brothers in tow, hearts collectively beating at over 1000 per minute.
They ran and ran, in to the darkness of the winding and messy streets of the centre of London.
‘What the fuck was that about?!! WHAT THE FUCK?!!’ Junaid was crying, his voice broken, rain drops mingling with the sweat on his face.
They slowed to a stop. Asif doubled over, his palms cupped his knee caps.
‘No way man, I can’t do that.’ He panted, shaking his head, his lips and cheeks hanging heavily towards the ground. His skull cap fell on to the wet pavement. His voice cracked.
‘No way, man. I can’t kill someone I know.’
Chapter 9