I'll never forget the first time I had sex. I was nineteen years old and had just graduated from high school. Being young and probably a little bit naΓ―ve, it seemed that the whole world was opened up to me. Soon I would be going away to college, getting a good job, and doing whatever it is that a "typical" young person does in America. I really don't know.
But the one big thing that still kind of bugged me? I was still a virgin! From the gossip I'd heard, maybe three fourths of the school had lost their virginity by senior year. But not me. No, you see, not only was I something of a nerd, but I was also the only Desi kid in the entire school district. Don't ask me how that one happened. Once they came to America, my parents -- both successful doctors and hailing from the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh -- had decided to set up a family practice in some small town in the deep south. We were miles away from the nearest Hindu temple or Indian grocery store, and most people we knew always commented that they "never met an Indian before." Never mind the fact that I was actually born and raised here in America.
And to top things off, my parents were very traditional too. They insisted that I marry a good, traditional Indian Hindu girl. Hell, I'm pretty sure that they would have been happy forcing me into an arranged marriage of some sort, if they could have done that. As it was, they had to settle for keeping me from ever having any intimate contact with a girl from the day that I hit puberty. They didn't let me get a driver's license, let alone a car. They kept me from going out to parties, school events and just about any other place I would want to guy. They even kept tabs of what I did on the computer.
Looking back on it, I'm not entirely sure that they needed to go so far. Like I said before, I was kind of nerdy back then, and being the only Indian kid in a predominantly white school district probably didn't help things. And between homework and my after school job, I never had more than fifteen minutes worth of contact with a girl outside of school anyway. More than anything, that's why I wanted to go away for college. Finally, I'd be free from my parents and be able to do whatever the hell I wanted... drink, experiment with drugs, make out with girls, watch American tv... you get the idea.
Well I didn't expect that I would finally lose my virginity, not in some far off dorm room, but in Guyana of all places.
And now I bet you are wondering how that one happened, right? Well as you may or may not know, the South American country of Guyana has a huge Indian and Pakistani population. In fact, something like half of the country is descendant from South Asian laborers who came over in the 19th century. So it shouldn't come as any surprise to find out that my family has relatives down there, and that the same year as my graduation, my family went down there to visit some old relatives and friends.
Of course, needless to say, a trip to Guyana was probably the last thing on my nineteen-year old mind. I was young and horny. At the time, I would have much rather gone out to Atlanta, Miami or New Orleans and partied my ass off. Guyana just made me think of a bunch of old timer sitting around speaking Bhojpuri and watching pirated copies of old Bollywood movies from the '70s. It was... sort of embarrassing.
But Indian parents don't usually take "no" for an answer. Even if I could have worked up the balls to say something like that to them, my father would have probably just slapped me across the face. With that in mind, I decided to just bite my tongue and go along with it. It's not like I was going to have to spend any money or anything. So that's how I wound up in Guyana.
Since we were visiting family, we wound up staying with one of my (many) uncles who owned a place down there. It was pretty humble, especially by American standards, but it had a nice warm bed, a kitchen, and a roof to keep the rain out, so it wasn't really that bad. Especially since the weather down in Guyana is warm and tropical year round. It was also located in the middle of a bustling Indo-Guyanese town. And I know that back then I was sort of embarrassed about my ethnicity, but being surrounded by brown people for the first time in my life made me feel... I don't know, less weird.
I was extremely surprised how relaxed my parents were about letting me go out around town. When we were back in the US, they wouldn't have let me out of the house without knowing where I was going, who I was going with, and exactly when I would be coming back. But when I said that I want to go look around and see what Guyana was like, they just casually nodded and let me go. I don't think they even said goodbye, in fact.
"He wants to explore his Indian heritage," my father proudly boasted to my uncle.
Well like I said before, this wasn't exactly a big town we are talking about here. In fact, I think that I probably exhausted everything of interest within only a couple of hours. But I had saved one thing for last; the Indian video store. Pretty much every South Asian neighborhood has a little mom and pop video store that carries all those old Bollywood movies, as well as movies in other languages I Punjabi, Gujarati, Bengali, Tamil, Telugu and so forth. I never really watched a lot of Indian movies at the time, except for the ones that my parents owned, but for some reason felt like checking this place out anyway. In the end, I'm glad that I did.
I don't really know what I was expecting the guy who ran the store to be like. In my experience, they were usually either married couples (hence the term "mom and pops") or old mustachioed Punjabi guys who smell of too much chutney and tikka masala. Very little middle ground on those two stereotyped. The last thing I was expecting was to see such a beautiful looking woman sitting at the counter.
"Namaste," she casually greeted me as I entered her establishment.
Maybe I'm exaggerating, or maybe it's because she was the first woman I had sex with, but if I saw her again today, I'd still tap that. She was admittedly an older woman who looked to be in her forties, and like many South Asian women, she had definitely put on some weight. But she was still a very attractive looking woman. Voluptuous would probably be the best word to describe her.
In fact, truth be told, the first thing that I noticed about her were her boobs... her big, round, juicy Indian boobs. Sure, I was a hormone-crazed nineteen year old who couldn't stop thinking about boobs for more than twenty seconds, but ANYONE would have been hard pressed not to notice those puppies! They must have been freaking F cups, and they were desperately straining to escape from the dark green saree that she wore. As it was, it took all of my effort NOT to stare at her monstrously large breasts.
"May I help you," she asked in English, her heavy Indo-Guyanese accent coming through.
"Ummm yeah," I said as I tried not to stare, "I'm looking for... Devdas."
I don't really know why. It was just the first Hindi movie that popped into my head.
"Oh yes," she said as she reached under the counter, "That is a very good movie! Very popular!"
She pulled out a rather dusty looking old VHS in a clear plastic case. There wasn't any doubt that this copy was definitely bootlegged. The title was even crudely scrawled out across the label in both the Roman and Devanagri scripts in permanent marker.
"That will be two dollars," she said.
I slipped her a couple of dollars, plus an extra dollar as baksheesh, and picked up the VHS. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed that she seemed to be staring at me, so I looked over at her.
"I haven't seen you around here before," she said rather matter of factly, "You are an American yes? Did you come down here to visit family perhaps?"
"Yes that's right," I responded, "I'm with my family. We're staying in town over at my uncle Narayan's place."
"Oh yes," she smiled, "Mr. Sharma! I know Sharma-ji very well. You will have to tell him that I said hello. I haven't seen him in a long time."
Looking over at the clock, I realized that I should really get going. My family was going to expect me back for dinner soon, so I decided to say goodbye and run back to my uncle's place. The woman seemed very friendly about the whole thing.