The following-hopefully the firsts of a series-is a true life experience. Depending on the response I get, I may write more!
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Looking back, I feel that I was lucky not to be a person who would worry too much about religion, conscience, society etc. As otherwise the unexpected events which took place in my life would have left me spending the rest of my life in a psychiatrist's couch.
I come from the southern state of Kerala in India. The Christians in Kerala are well known in other parts of India for their academic brilliance and affluence. Even though I was never ever brilliant in studies, we were quite rich, thanks to my daddy. He inherited quite a lot from his father and by slogging it out throughout his life he made sure that the next few generations would never ever have to struggle. When he died of liver cirrhosis [a good drink was his only pasttime] , he left all his riches to my mummy Sosamma [Indianised version of susan] , my elder brother roy, my sister tara and myself sunny. I was 25 at that time.
My mother, now 48, was 19 when she got married and had Roychayan [that's how we affectionately call him] one year later. My father died when I was 15 years and it was Roychayan who looked after matters since then, which made him a very mature and responsible guy. Tragedy struck a couple of years later when my mummy-we call her Amma-went for a routine gynaec. Operation. Something went wrong with the anaesthesia leaving her with some brain damage. The doctor who did this-a close family friend unfortunately-was keen to explain that it would not leave her paralysed.
Therefore it was a big relief to see her walking properly after the recovery period. But we realised that her memory was severely affected and for all practical purposes she was just like a mentally retarded child. Because of our wealth we were lucky to get maids just to look after her. In the meantime my brother got married to a doctor and I went to Bangalore-a beautiful city-to study for engineering-thanks to our family wealth. By now it must have been obvious to my readers that I was the black sheep of the family. 'Being the youngest in a rich Christian family in Kerala is a sure passport to hell'-my friend used to tease me. It was true. I had the most wonderful life in bangalore with my friends-we started off with booze, light drugs [gave it up soon, we were scared of addiction!] , pornography and finally sex. My best friend then was ron -a 6 footer from goa-who had the looks and charm to pull in the gals.
He lacked money, which I had and we therefore were the perfect 'shikaris' [meaning hunters, another nickname] . My nickname of 'kaman' [the hindu god of love and lust] was appropriate as by now I was addicted to sex. I finished my studies somehow and was looking out for any job there -I did not want to lose my 'collection'-when my brother asked me to come over to Kerala.