A Lesbian Kamasutra

Fiction

When Lila sent a voice message on WhatsApp asking Anna to join her on a pilgrimage, Anna was naturally surprised. They belonged to two different religions. And nowadays no two religions are supposed to love each other. Hindus and other religious believers are supposed to hate each other in India, for example. The raison d’etre of the Jews of Israel seems to be killing the Muslims in their neighbourhood. Similarly, the God of the Muslims is too eager to exterminate all non-Muslims from the face of the earth. Why does Lila, a Hindu, want Anna, a Christian, to accompany her on a pilgrimage? It’s a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma, thought Anna, though she couldn’t recollect who had coined that extended metaphor and in what situation.

 Lila and Anna were classmates in high school. They belonged to nearby villages and studied in the only English medium convent school of the nearest little town. The nuns who ran the school ensured that no two girls ever touched each other. Touching another person is a sin, girls, the headmistress bellowed repeatedly from different platforms. Lila could not resist the urge to touch Anna. “Touching is a sin only for nuns,” she assured Anna. So she sat next to Anna on the same bench and touched her every now and then. When Anna looked at her questioningly, she said, “Enjoy the pleasure of sin, my dear. Life is going to be hard ahead.”

Life turned out to be hard indeed. At least for Anna. She was asked to marry a school teacher as soon as she completed her graduation. Parents and some elderly relatives made the choices for you in those days, especially in rural areas. Anna’s husband was chosen by her father and an uncle.

Lila was married to a rich public works contractor and had a fairly smooth life with a lot of affluence at home. Yet she was not quite happy. “I miss you, Anna,” she would say every time she rang up. Anna could hear Madonna crooning in the background.

When you call my name, it's like a little prayer.
I'm down on my knees, I wanna take you there
In the midnight hour, I can feel your power,
Just like a prayer, you know I'll take you there.

Madonna was Lila's favourite singer during their school days.

“I want to touch you, Anna,” Lila said one day. “Like I did in those days in the classroom. When the teacher was killing us with the story of the Pandavas bringing home Draupadi like a trophy and then making her their common wife.” Lila’s question was why they – Lila and Anna – couldn’t live together forever if one woman could live with five men back in those days. 

Anna had no luxury to think about those things. Let the Pandavas do what they wish. Anna had her own worries. Her husband was a manic depressive whose moods swung between the extremes of a maxima-minima graph, with the troughs dominating most of the time. He hardly smiled at her, let alone embrace her. His rare laughs had no life. Like the laughter of the man who was tapping away on a tombstone in a cemetery one late night. The guy who was taking a shortcut through the cemetery wondered why this man was chiselling away on a tombstone in the middle of the night. Then the man said, “They spelt my name wrong.” And he laughed. Whenever her husband laughed, Anna was reminded of that ghost’s laughter.

Anna wished her husband would at least utter a word of affection once in a while. How they managed to beget a son is quite a mystery. Anna longed for a touch. Like those which Lila gave her in the classroom long ago when adolescent blood surged in their veins.

Anna wanted to be with Lila once again after all those long years of absence from each other. But could Anna, a Christian, go on a pilgrimage with Lila, a Hindu, especially these days when it was the national dharma of some people to kill some other people in the name of religions?

“Dharma is an excuse invented by criminals to justify their deeds, says Vatsyayana in Kamasutra.” Lila laughed having said that. Her laughter was very unlike the ghost’s laughter in the cemetery. Lila’s laughter had life in it. It had a soul that Anna could sense in her veins. “Our dharma is to enjoy the simple delights of harmless sin, my dear.”

“But visiting temples?” Anna wondered. “Am I allowed?”

“Gods have no religion, my girl. Anyway, we’re not going to fall prostrate there. The temples are our excuses. If we tell our husbands that we are going on a pleasure trip, will they let us? No. Pilgrimage, yes. You just tell your old man that you’re joining a friend on a day’s pilgrimage. I have booked the ticket for you. Board the bus from near our school.”

Anna wanted to go. To be touched by Lila. To be soothed by her loving touch. To be healed by it. To be made whole at least for a while.

Krishna played his flute and his Gopis flirted around. Lila and Anna were standing outside a temple. Lila put her hand around Anna’s shoulder. Anna moved close to Lila. As close as they could to each other. Was it Krishna who laughed somewhere? Could be Vatsyayana, Lila said.

PS. This post is a part of ‘Out and About Blog Hop’ hosted by Manali Desai and Sukaina Majeed.