Smalltown Romances



The ‘boy meets girl’ routine in small-town India used to be pretty heavy business. In Patna, guns played an important role in legitimizing that very American institution dating. In the late 90s – 1997 to be precise – my school, an all boys’ grind for more than a 100 years, turned co-ed. "I’ve decided to throw some roses among the thorns," declared A.D.Rozario, the principal.
I fell in love. Thorny, bespectacled me fell in love with rosy, anorexic Lavanya. She had matchsticks for legs and long, very long hair.
I discovered New Kids on the Block and yellow Digene. I bought an Archies card (10 clocks on the front and inside the deadly punch line ‘It’s time we got together’) and gave it to Lavanya in between the covers of a Math’s register.
So far so good. Lavanya invites me to a Football match. It’s 7c vs 7a. I arrive in a white Smash t-shirt; light blue Wranglers and a Rexene belt studded with stars. We say hello and shut up for another hour. Afterwards she says goodbye and leaves with her girlfriends. Minutes later I am surrounded by three guys. They have country pistols. "Light-eyed lover boy (‘kanja deewana’)," they tell me, "get off her trail or else…" I cycle back home.
In the next few days I discover a thing or two about dating in Patna Want girl? Need ‘backing’. Whose backing? Hindi Medium School kids – the kinds who’ve been flunking class 9 for the last 5 years. They have real bombs, they have scars, they have the lingo. A typically violent Bihari lingo
* * * *
The English Medium kids need the Hindi Medium goons. The latter need the former – they want to be seen with the cooler English speaking kids (that would be me…Ahem! Ahem). In the evenings, they form groups and hang out outside downtown soft drink booths.
I graduate to calling Lavanya up every evening at five. I have Karan’s backing. Karan just had his arm blown off in a crude bomb attack. I never graduate to taking her to ‘tila’, a desolate mound on the outskirts of the town, at the very edge of the cantonment area, overlooking fields of mustard. Serious couples come here to plot elopement and discover the sense of touch. There’s no place for them on the main drag. They exist on the fringes, away from prying, provincial eyes.
* * * *
That was 1997. The year MTV came in a big way with their ‘drop your side burns’ ads and all-American programming. No Govinda. Just the Pearl Jam-obsessed Danny McGill. For the first time we heard of something called ‘Valentine’s Day’. We were not sure so we went to our English master, Valentine Massey, and put the question to him. He asked us to get back to Shakespeare.
This is 2006. I find myself in another small town: Pune – smaller than Patna, wetter, doesn’t believe in pavements. Barista and Coffee Day opened shop some time back. Cheaper local alternatives have changed the local landscape. They all have one thing in common: clear glass fronts, trendy furniture, music and light, lot more light, still more light. Couples no longer hide, they want to be seen. The coffee shops provide them with message boards. Kids communicate via pink post-its (‘Shalu, I am sorry – call 098…’) and mobile phones.
But, as always, the country is too layered for there to be one simple generational change. There are still loads of couples who fix dates inside cinema halls and make sure they are never seen together outside.
Recently, I went to watch ‘Krish’. Two boys walk in early and block four seats. Soon their girlfriends arrive. They eat popcorn, sip milky coffee, hold hands. Show over, they hug, whisper, giggle, say goodbye. They leave through different exits, the boys together again, the girls clutching their handkerchiefs. Outside they wait separately for autos.
Or take the case of my friends Ashish and Nidhi who were ‘caught’ hugging outside The Polo Bar. "Take this crap to your bedroom," shouts Mr. Khanna from inside his Hyundai Santro. "This is not Taliban country," Nidhi shouts back. Then, Mrs. Khanna, who has been observing proceedings from inside the automobile, decides to get into the act. She begins shakily, ‘You you…’ she mutters before exploding with a thumping coverdrive, ‘…what kind of a man are you? Can’t you control your wife?’ Nidhi is very upset. ‘Nobody controls me… or you,’ she says, trying to make a larger feminist point. Mrs. Khanna, completely missing the point, lunges forward and sinks her talons into Nidhi’s right forearm.
Moral of the story: as long as you sit across from each other in full public view, it’s fine. Just don’t hug or kiss or touch. This is small town India. Changed but still changing.