Sun and Sea

Sun and Sea: Lifetime of Lies

Narrator: Kitoo

Local trains and the Metro line ( our subway) is the best way to get lost in Mumbai and reach home when you want to go back. Buy a day pass for anywhere in the city and get on a train, discover a new stop and walk through the by-lanes, find a park and lose yourself. The trains run all day, so they will take you back when you want to start talking to people again.

Today of all days, I didn't want to talk to anyone. So I wandered through the streets for some time, took the train and walked some more and found myself at Marine Drive. A very famous and crowded long Promenade along the coast of the natural bay of the Arabian Sea.

Another thing in Mumbai is that you are never alone, there are so many people around you and everyone wants to help. So to find a quiet corner and cry is almost impossible, someone will walk up to you, give you water and ask if there is something they can help you with. That's the way this city works, you support each other, people of this city are the first responders for each other and you will be surprised on how equipped the locals are for any kind of emergency.

Growing up I had my fair share of arguments with my Dad but he has never raised his voice or hand on me. Today, I had shouted at him, thrown abuses, and said I was ashamed to be his son before I left as he just stood there looking broken but didn't stop me or said a word. Now I feel I should have said more, should have argued and confronted rather than accused him and run away.

I am Khsitij Kakar, 18 years old and started college this year. My Dad never forced me to get good grades or pushed me to any specific career choices which made me work and study harder. I always wanted to write and hence literature and communication were my chosen subjects. I completed my high school studying Arts and am pursuing my bachelor's degree in Mass Communication and English Literature. We live in a suburban township in Mumbai and rely on local trains to commute.

I am taller than my Dad but not very tall, about 5 '9 and have been working out since I was 15, my Uncle is a gym owner and a successful trainer. Huh... Uncle, What a Farce! Bull shit!... Liars both of them! Tears started to fall on their own, I was feeling cheated and stupid. How can they do this to me? I hate them! I decided.

Myra, my girlfriend, came and sat next to me. She didn't say anything or touched me, just sat there with me if I wanted to talk. She knew me too well, if not with her or college, when happy I am out eating street food with my best friends Rehan and Tejas or when I am sad I always find my way to the sea, or I am with my Dad and Uncle.

"I hate them!" I voiced it to Myra.

"Give them a chance." she said in her measured cultured voice. "I have someone with me who wants to tell you everything unfiltered and unedited if you want to hear him out."

I looked behind and it was Uncle Rohit, a very handsome and extremely successful man, who ran a chain of gyms across Mumbai and trained Bollywood actors but still lived next to our apartment when he could afford so much better.

My two friends and I have always hung out in his gym when younger and work out in it for free. He has started training me to train others. Unlike my Dad who is sweet but introverted, Uncle Rohit is one of us. We love hanging out with him and he is always spoiling us.

I met Myra a year back and I took her to the gym to meet Uncle Rohit before Dad. When she was not around, he quickly cornered me and said "Look you little idiot! If you are not serious about her, get serious or let her go. No strike that, get bloody serious. She is too good for you and you will be a fool to lose her. She is young and stupid right now so you have a chance, if she gets wiser she walks. Get good grades and let her believe there is a future with you and look nice so you can be an arm candy if nothing else."

"But what if I am too good for her?" I argued.

He playfully slapped me and said "You wish son, you wish! But you are not. Believe me, people like you and me get one chance. Partner like this, you find once in your life. You hold on to her or later me and Anu (that's what everyone calls my Dad -- Arnesh) will have to find you a bride when you are like 30 or something." Myra walked in and smiled at us and I immediately saw his logic and didn't have to be convinced any further.

But now he was standing with his head hung, hands wrapped around his chest, looking hurt and in pain, a look that I have never seen on him and which didn't suit him at all.

I have loved Rohit Uncle all my life like my Dad, he picked me up from school and day care, drove me to picnics, birthdays and movies, stayed next to my sick bed all night when my Dad was doing his night shifts at the call centre. Seeing that he was in such a state was heartbreaking, a wave of guilt flooded me and I pictured my Dad, who will be completely devastated by the way I acted today. I wanted to take a cab back home and say I am sorry, but I wanted to know what's between him and Rohit Uncle. Why were they snuggling and sleeping in the same bed when I went to give Dad breakfast in bed for his birthday?

My Dad, Arnesh is an extremely good looking and the hardest working man I have ever met. He looks much younger than Rohit Uncle but is 3 years older. He works as an Australian Call Centre Manager from 4 am to 1 pm. Then he commutes almost 30 minutes to come home and cook for us, works out in the gym and helps Uncle Rohit with accounts and marketing. In the evening he sings at the small evening café that we run and is the happiest there, comes home, makes and packs our breakfast and sleeps for 5 hours to start again. I have never seen him show he is tired or complain. I have never seen him sleep on weekdays as he does it after I go to bed and is out of the house before I wake up. On weekends he insists on going out with me someplace nice and mostly Rohit Uncle joins us. You could never imagine he had secrets, he doesn't have the time in his life to keep secrets... I should have known better, these two men were larger than life, good looking and single all their life.

"Come let's find a Starbucks, get some coffee and some food for you and Chachu (Uncle in Hindi) before you guys start your intermittent fasting ", Myra held her hand out for me. I took it, looked at Rohit Uncle and started walking ahead of him with Myra. We walked for a long time which helped clear my head and found us sitting around a circular table. Myra left to give our order and there was an awkward silence between me and Uncle Rohit for the first time in my 18 years of existence.

Myra placed the food and coffee on the table and held each of our hands with hers like a weird séance.

"Chachu you wanted to say something to Kitoo (Indian parents give kids pet names... everyone calls me Kitoo), please let's talk and sort this out."

Rohit Uncle looked at Myra and smiled, placing his hand on her head, a gesture in India for elders to bless their children. "God bless you beta (child)" he said.

He looked at me, "I know you are hurt and confused Kitoo. But it's not as it looks. I am not sure if Anu wants me to tell you anything because he has strived all your life to protect you. But I want you to know, you have to know, you can't judge your father without knowing his truth, his life and his sacrifices."

"Why now? Only because...because..." I looked down too angry to finish the statement.

"Yes! Now beta... you have to know and then pass your judgement on us."

"I can leave Chachu if you want to talk to him alone." Myra is considerate as always. "No beta, you have a right to know too."

Sun and Sea: At first sight.

Narrator: Rohit

I was 18 years old and living in Nainital at the time (a beautiful hill station in Uttarakhand, North India at the foothills of outer Himalaya) with your grandfather, Ranvijay Kakar, the ex- Army officer who had taken voluntary retirement after my mother died when I was 10 year old.

We ran a popular gym in the town and between the two of us won almost all body builders awards in our categories. I was in my 12th year in Birla Vidya Mandir and as far as education was concerned I just wanted a graduation degree to get by. We lived in a popular neighbourhood in Bhimtal, which is located 22 kilometres away from Nainital and I used to drive around in our Polo.

Before the start of the school term in April, the restaurant under our gym was getting redone by new owners. As in small towns where everyone knows or at least wants to know about everybody, this was big news.

The Randhawa family was from Chandigarh, a much bigger city than ours, a couple and their children.

I was leaving the gym one day and saw my father speaking with the new family. Ashwin Uncle was about my father's age, a jovial, bit overweight but handsome man and Rutu Aunty, a small slim extremely fair woman with intelligent large brown eyes and a fake smile.

I was introduced by my father to them and their really beautiful daughter Bhumi. She was as fair as her mother with big brown eyes and long lashes. She had joined Ramnee High School for girls and was in her 11th year. We looked at each other and silently decided... no sparks!

In the next 2 months till it took for them to start, Ashwin Uncle and my father had become very good friends as we lived close by and their restaurant was just below our gym. I would meet Bhumi at the entrance of the commercial building but we never became friends till much later.

They had arranged a specially catered daily packed meal from the restaurant for healthy eaters which got really popular with the gym members, Dad being their first customer.

After about 40 days of meeting them, I went to pick our dinner from the restaurant for the first time after my shift in the gym and that day changed my life forever.

He was sitting on a small elevated platform illuminated from the ceiling, all other lights dimmed as the staff arranged the chairs. He was tuning the guitar, his fingers moving like magic on the fret and fingering the chords and playing scales. I couldn't take my eyes off him, sitting on a high bench with his legs barely touching the floor, wearing blue jeans and a blue and orange check shirt. He was fair and looked like Bhumi but somehow more beautiful, his face angular unlike her rounded face. His hair like black silk falling at one side of his face and neck. He hummed on the microphone and I felt like it hit me physically. I stood there staring at him.

"That's my twin brother, Arnesh. He will sing here every weekend from 7 to 10 pm, just to draw in the crowd. Hey Anu!" She waved and gestured to him to come and meet us. "I didn't see him in my high school", I inquired.

"No he will restart his 10th standard from June, he skipped a year", she replied.

He stood up and was taller than I expected and way thinner than he should be and gorgeous, I couldn't stop gaping as he slowly walked towards me. When he came into the light of the reception, I noticed his eyes were bigger than Bhumi's and green, it was like I was hit by lightning. I hadn't seen anyone as beautiful as him. Everything I didn't feel when I met Bhumi, I felt now just looking at him. He extended his arm and we shook hands introducing ourselves. I felt static when I touched him and my heart started to beat frantically like a small animal trapped in a cage. When we stopped touching everything felt calm but I wanted to touch him again and torture myself. I took the food bag and practically ran out the restaurant flustered and freaked out.

When I was driving home, I started to analyse my unfamiliar reaction to Arnesh.

Why did I find him beautiful? I have been around good looking guys and have seen them in all stages of nakedness in the gym and haven't felt anything.

Why did his hands feel warm and made me want to touch him again? I have played sports all my life, contact sports with men came naturally to me, why touching his hands felt this different and erotic?

Why am I feeling like this for a boy? I haven't been attracted to girls, not like how my friends look at them and talk about them but I haven't felt anything for a boy either, then what happened today?

By the time I reached home, my head was spinning with unanswered questions and my mind kept wandering to his image, my body reacting to it unintentionally.

I couldn't sleep, I convinced myself that I was reacting to him like this because he is new in town with the whole movie star under the light and guitar thing that was happening when I saw him first, the image making my body react immediately.

I remembered how I put my hand in my shorts and thought about him till I was dry and couldn't cum anymore imagining those big green eyes looking at me as I touched myself, but edited it out for the kids. It was like a door that was closed for me till now had suddenly opened and I was more excited than scared to explore this.