administrator, the Mukhi Saheb, of the local Jamaat Khana, which was the Khoja community center cum mosque. No matter what sort of mischief Zayaan got up to behind closed doors, in front of the world, he had to be the no-nonsense Mukhi Saheb’s son.
I was super-duper intrigued by the naked naagu bits. I was appalled, at first, but intrigued more. I’d spent the night picturing all kinds of debauchery, and I couldn’t get the image of a girl sandwich out of my head. I felt breathless just thinking about it. To be completely truthful, I felt hideously jealous.
I wanted to be the sandwich filling. I wanted the growly-voiced guy to press my face into his chest while the American-accented guy with the quick hands massaged my back. I’d smooched a couple of boys from my old school. It’d been nothing impressive, just some suction action on the mouth accompanied by a waterfall of slobber. Totally yuck .
I imagined smooching Zayaan and Nirvaan and decided it wouldn’t be yuck at all.
I felt naughty. And for the first time in six months, I felt alive.
I put forth a bold proposition in exchange for my silence. I offered myself up as their secret second helping. Not that Anu, the sandwich girl, was much of a secret. The guys had openly vied for her attention, like Archie and Reggie over Veronica. Other kids in our complex would bet over who’d win a date or a kiss or something much cruder from her. Most would put their money on Nirvaan. He was, after all, a homegrown boy even if he was an expat now.
Zayaan, on the other hand, had moved to Surat only a year ago from Pakistan. Plus, he made the other kids wary with his quietly clever disposition and grown-up manner. He had a job already. Zayaan helped his father run the Jamaat Khana. He was being groomed to step into his father’s footsteps. He wasn’t overfriendly or spontaneous like Nirvaan. Neither did he throw awesome parties. Money was an issue for him. He never seemed to have any, so Nirvaan would end up picking up his tab.
Zayaan was night to Nirvaan’s day, yet they shared everything. It was soon apparent that no one but me—and Sandwich Anu—knew the extent of their sharing.
Nirvaan, after a stomach-clutching hooting session, took me up on my offer and began to tag me along wherever he went. Zayaan refused to be blackmailed. I’d set myself up as Betty, and in true Archie Comics-style, nothing I did thawed Zayaan.
If I’d known then how sacred a clean reputation was to him, I could’ve forced the issue.
My behavior should’ve embarrassed me. It didn’t at all. I was fed up with being a good girl, and I had come to the conclusion that good things happened to wicked people, and vice versa.
I didn’t seem to threaten Anu darling’s space either, naturally not. I was plain-faced, where she was gorgeous, and flat and gangly like a ten-year-old boy, where she was voluptuous and sultry. I had short boyish hair. I’d walked into a salon one day and hacked off my locks, unable to care for it without my mother’s guidance. I’d cried for two whole weeks in the aftermath, and nothing my brothers said, complimentary or not, had cheered me up. I sported a tapeli -cut hairdo while Anu’s hair cascaded down her back like a movie star’s. She treated me like the guys’ pesky younger brother instead of the enemy I’d set myself up as.
Pretty soon, the dynamics of our pack began to change and solidify. For every moment the guys and I spent apart, we would spend twice as many together. In keeping with my bold metamorphosis, I kept up with their boisterousness. We raced scooters on highways, played pranks on elderly heart-attack candidates, and jumped off walls of our complex into the Tapi River, earning ourselves the Awesome Threesome sobriquet from our peers. We did everything naughty and some things nice.
Sandwich Anu faded into the background within a month. I never heard of her again.
It was serendipity. I believed, with every atom of my being, that my
I was super-duper intrigued by the naked naagu bits. I was appalled, at first, but intrigued more. I’d spent the night picturing all kinds of debauchery, and I couldn’t get the image of a girl sandwich out of my head. I felt breathless just thinking about it. To be completely truthful, I felt hideously jealous.
I wanted to be the sandwich filling. I wanted the growly-voiced guy to press my face into his chest while the American-accented guy with the quick hands massaged my back. I’d smooched a couple of boys from my old school. It’d been nothing impressive, just some suction action on the mouth accompanied by a waterfall of slobber. Totally yuck .
I imagined smooching Zayaan and Nirvaan and decided it wouldn’t be yuck at all.
I felt naughty. And for the first time in six months, I felt alive.
I put forth a bold proposition in exchange for my silence. I offered myself up as their secret second helping. Not that Anu, the sandwich girl, was much of a secret. The guys had openly vied for her attention, like Archie and Reggie over Veronica. Other kids in our complex would bet over who’d win a date or a kiss or something much cruder from her. Most would put their money on Nirvaan. He was, after all, a homegrown boy even if he was an expat now.
Zayaan, on the other hand, had moved to Surat only a year ago from Pakistan. Plus, he made the other kids wary with his quietly clever disposition and grown-up manner. He had a job already. Zayaan helped his father run the Jamaat Khana. He was being groomed to step into his father’s footsteps. He wasn’t overfriendly or spontaneous like Nirvaan. Neither did he throw awesome parties. Money was an issue for him. He never seemed to have any, so Nirvaan would end up picking up his tab.
Zayaan was night to Nirvaan’s day, yet they shared everything. It was soon apparent that no one but me—and Sandwich Anu—knew the extent of their sharing.
Nirvaan, after a stomach-clutching hooting session, took me up on my offer and began to tag me along wherever he went. Zayaan refused to be blackmailed. I’d set myself up as Betty, and in true Archie Comics-style, nothing I did thawed Zayaan.
If I’d known then how sacred a clean reputation was to him, I could’ve forced the issue.
My behavior should’ve embarrassed me. It didn’t at all. I was fed up with being a good girl, and I had come to the conclusion that good things happened to wicked people, and vice versa.
I didn’t seem to threaten Anu darling’s space either, naturally not. I was plain-faced, where she was gorgeous, and flat and gangly like a ten-year-old boy, where she was voluptuous and sultry. I had short boyish hair. I’d walked into a salon one day and hacked off my locks, unable to care for it without my mother’s guidance. I’d cried for two whole weeks in the aftermath, and nothing my brothers said, complimentary or not, had cheered me up. I sported a tapeli -cut hairdo while Anu’s hair cascaded down her back like a movie star’s. She treated me like the guys’ pesky younger brother instead of the enemy I’d set myself up as.
Pretty soon, the dynamics of our pack began to change and solidify. For every moment the guys and I spent apart, we would spend twice as many together. In keeping with my bold metamorphosis, I kept up with their boisterousness. We raced scooters on highways, played pranks on elderly heart-attack candidates, and jumped off walls of our complex into the Tapi River, earning ourselves the Awesome Threesome sobriquet from our peers. We did everything naughty and some things nice.
Sandwich Anu faded into the background within a month. I never heard of her again.
It was serendipity. I believed, with every atom of my being, that my
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