143 days - The Return of the Curse (Vol. 2)

You know what’s the greatest tragedy in a 19-year-old teenage boy’s life? Ya! I know what you sons of bitches are thinking: Being gay (god hate homos), divorced parents, bitch-of-a-step-mom, girlfriend hooking up with best friend & all that crap. That shit’s nothing.  

I’ll tell ya the real tragedy. The real fucking tragedy. Is when you find out you’re the only loser in your family of 6 who isn’t getting laid. Your sister, brother, mother, father & holy jesus, everybody is getting laid. Oh it’s a catastrophé. To add insult to injury you’ve taken the longest to get laid & still a virgin. Holy cow!

In about a month you’re gonna be 20. No more a teen & still a fucking-virgin (spot the oxymoron). My dire condition gave me nightmares. My bed, the nights scared the living daylights outta me. Oh you don’t wanna know unless you’ve suffered like I’ve then you’d know it already. Hurts.

When you’re a teenager the greatest agenda of your life is to get rid of the dreaded virgin-curse & get laid. When push comes to shove you don’t even care if the girl weighs 300 pounds for christ’s sake.   

There was a time when I was younger I didn’t think much about it. I knew it will happen eventually. When I turned 17 I got my first flicker of doubt. Once that doubt crept in, it grew bigger & bigger as I grew nearer to age 18.

It’s not like I’m bad looking or scared & shit at talking with girls. I’m alright. I just kept failing at the final hurdle. My greatest moment of high school was when I made out with my classmate George’s blue-eyed 16-year-old-gorgeous-&-slutty-as-Cinderella-sister in the gym room. But that was the start & end of my escapades. There just aren’t enough slutty girls anymore. Excuses.

Then before I knew it I was in College. And no ordinary college. The goddamn Stanford Law School, California & moved in to live on Campus. Another year passed & I still had nothing to show for.

And then when all hope had died ……..it happened. Her name was Hope. Wow, right. I thought when Hope would wake up she’d realize what a terrible mistake she had made & say the only reason she slept with me was coz she had had way too many cheap beers at the frat party (I tell you after being virgin for way too long than what’s socially acceptable all my confidence had been flushed out). And I saw no reason why anyone who looked like her would hook-up with a virgin like me. But I was wrong; she actually liked me & asked me to hang out with her friends the next day. We went out for three months & those three months resurrected the broken walls of my confidence with the girls. Then I had two more relationships in the next year. So now I have had sex (a lot times) with 3 girls. All of whom were at least 6 outta 10 (California standards not Gujarat standards mind you). Oh! I didn’t tell ya I was born in Surat, India. I’m a gujarati boy by birth.

My father decided to move country when I was 9-years-old. We migrated to Southampton, England. What a shithole place that was & I got beat up in school a lot. I was tall, skinny & frail. Ate fafda & dhokla for lunch. Oh boy I got beat a lot. But I had the heart of Rocky Balboa. I stood through it all like a warrior. Fucking bones still hurt. Those four years in the crappy, old & underage-criminals-filled town of Shithampton made me tough. When daddy informed us that we’re moving to the United States I jumped so high I almost hit the roof. I’ve been in California for the past 8 years & I love it. And that’s why it was so much more painful to be a virgin till almost 21 in a city filled to the walls with beautiful girls & widespread debauchery.

Anyway my sex life & public image got an impressive boost with me dating three good looking desirable women within 3 semesters. In addition to that I was scoring impressively in all the big semester exams. Oh this little Gujju boy had come a long way from getting beaten in the bathroom stalls of Shithampton’s Public School to being the Most-wanted (well, almost) boy of Stanford University. I liked it.

For the record I never cheated on any of my 3 girlfriends I had. Not because they were hot & I was loyal & all that bullcrap. Truth is I didn’t wanna get caught cheating & beaten in public by the girlfriend. I don’t have the prerequisite guts for cheating.

Anyway one day I was sitting doing some reading in my room & I got invited to this party downstairs. During the party I got a little too cosy with Veronica. Thick lips & that killer smile. I think she grabbed my derriere as we made out. I like that in girls. Adventure.

And as we were about to take our adventure to the room: mine or hers. Doesn’t really matter does it. Something happened that actually mattered.

My classmate Brad proposed Kirsten, his girlfriend of 4 months, to marry him. Stunned silence followed. Anticipation, oh this was like the movies. And after what seemed like years, tears poured outta Kirsten’s green eyes. She grabbed him without saying anything. Then she said “of course I will marry you, Brad. I’d marry you right now if I could.” Brad bent, grabbed her by the thighs & lifted her into the air; tears rolled out her eyes & sprinkled on Brad’s face.

Brad then pulled out a ring, still holding her upright (bloody gymnasts), & slipped it into her damn wedding finger. The whole room filled with shrieks, shrills, woo hoos, rooting, whistling & clapping. ‘Well, now that you’ve asked me to marry you I’ll cancel my plans to kill you with the ice-pick tonight’ Kirsten said laughing madly. Movie reference, I love movie references, that too Basic Instinct. No wonder Brad loved this Madonna-tattooed blonde girl.

I had seen stuff like that in movies & I’ve even cried in some of them. Yep judge me I cry in movies. But this was happening right in front of me. It gave me the chills.

In that moment I realised when mortals like me were having a good time, having awesome sex there were some who were falling in love. That thought gave me another electric round of shivers. I think Veronica, who was holding me, too felt it. Brad & Kirsten had raised the bar for me.

I mean I’ve said I love you to all three of my girlfriends but that’s the decent thing to do right. But I never felt like asking any woman on earth to marry me. I’m damn bloody sure the same goes for the girls wanting to marry me. Fuck no!  

That night I hooked up with Veronica, in her room. She was real good. But we weren’t alone. I kept thinking of Brad & Kirsten too. It was a bloody foursome. It was awkward, like funny awkward.

Veronica & I didn’t date. I found out she already had a boyfriend. I mean she told me the very next morning. When I didn’t get any threat calls by the alleged boyfriend or got beat up in the next month or so I knew I was in the clear.

In the next 5 months I made out with three more girls but didn’t make the move to take it to the next level (read: my room or hers). What the fuck was happening to me. Damn Brad-&-Kirsten syndrome.

I did sleep with one girl in that period. But that was coz ‘she’ made the move. And everybody knows you don’t say no to a girl. There’s rules bro, I don’t want to go to hell.

Did you notice my puzzling transformation? From a loser who’d agree to first degree murder so he could get laid with a 250-pound girl was now passing on opportunities of great sex with girls way above his grade coz he didn’t feel anything when he made out with them. I swear to jesus I’m so going to hell anyway.

A month & a half ago as I was walking back from University I saw this half-torn flyer stuck on the notice board. It read: Want to go to Australia as exchange student: Apply NOW.

I just knew it in that moment that I had to: Apply. But how on earth will I convince my pain-in-the-buttocks-never-do-anything-if-it-doesn’t-benefit-financially father. But that’s when I caught a break. My father who was having a truly busy season with his garments business (clichéd huh!) was clearly distracted. He didn’t read the paperwork like he’d always do & made the vital mistake of trusting me when I told him I will get full credits for the units I will study in Australia. Of course I was only getting half credits. For once my father missed this glaring flaw that nobody goes to study on exchange programs & Okayed my one semester transfer to the land of kangaroos.

I’ve been sitting for the past 17, 18, 19 or whatever hours squeezed between these two wildly obese ladies. ‘When the hell will I land in the land of Kangaroos’ I want to yell at the hostess but I’m too timid to yell at people.

I hate airplanes, the economy class. I avoid them like boys avoid fat girls. Oh I’m shallow. Kiss my ass, will you. The day someone falls in love with a fat ugly chic then come back & bitchslap me till it hurts. Until then zip it.

Hey I think I’m there. Yes, I’m definitely there.

21 minutes later.

I’m sticking my head outta this yellow cab completely ignoring the Al Pacino look-alike driver’s stern advice to keep my head in. I can’t control myself. I’ve never lived anywhere with my family not within the radius of 25 kms. Now I’m 13000 kms away from my fafda eating family. I feel like a POW out on parole for 5 months. And I’m making this solemn oath to this crisp aussie wind that I will make the best of it.

It is 13^th February 2005. It is the beginning of the rest of my life.