Popagandhi

I write this with some urgency because more than one of you has recently implied, to my horror, that you believe I am married, or as good as; often this is said as a matter of fact, in that derogatory, insinuating manner that people who do not understand “long term R” (R for relationship) and monogamy are so fond of. I know because I have often said the same of others in that same derogatory, insinuating manner. But to say I am “almost married” is an utter lie. Anyone who is able to bring themselves to say this cannot count himself or herself my friend.

My friends know better. They know the significant other and I, do not at all resemble married folks, not by a long shot.

We’re really more “retired” than “newly wed”, and we know it.

Think of us as that retired couple that wakes up at seven on holidays, reads the newspapers - one of us (guess which?)scrubbing the bathroom floor. The other watching BBC World.

“Honey, there were floods in Mumbai.”
“Oh dear, I hope Vinod’s family is alright.”
“Could you make me some more tea please? This Tippy Flowery Golden Orange Pekoe from Darjeeling is most excellent.”
“Is that right? I preferred the first flush Assam tea.. what shall we have for dinner tonight?”

We then embark on a long quest to determine the precise location of our dining adventure that night, oblivious to the fact that it is only eight in the morning.

On our vacation videos - my God we even have a vacation video! and not just one! - there is a clip of us sitting on the edge of the bed. We’re chattering about, of all things to chatter about, how nice it is to have a fan in the room, cold water, and bedsheets. We’re eating potato chips, mumbling, talking about the luxury of having the bedsheets changed every three days. “So the other place was only 150 baht less, and they didn’t change the bedsheets.” (Camera zooms towards electric fan on ceiling.) Crunch crunch. “We have a working fan. That’s something to be happy about.” (Camera pans, for a wide angle view of the room. It stops outside the toilet.) “The cockroach in the bathroom stays stationary. The extra 150 baht was worth it, the insects here are cute.” Crunch. “Don’t forget, we have a FAN. Wow!”

“These potato chips are really good, let’s go out to get some more.” We head out, and come back with six litres of drinking water, just because a six pack costs 30 baht, but one litre on its own costs 15 baht - and no potato chips.

In another vacation video, it’s almost silent for three minutes. She’s handling the camera, and for two and a half minutes, we have footage of banana smoothie bubbling. It pans out to me, and I’m silent too, eating sweet potato fritters. Just because “retirees in bikinis” is in vogue.

Our private lexicon lets no one else through its doors - it is one which sounds as if it has been added to and polished to a finesse for decades. It has even become possible to converse entirely in sounds which, to the outsider, appear almost primate; yet really is the most sophisticated lexicon, comprising sounds, words, grunts, squeaks, idioms, obtuse phrases which make no sense on their own.

A girl walks past us, wearing a particularly bad combination of clothing. “Eee, as bad as tables and frames!” the outraged artist scoffs. “Tables and frames,” has been appropriated to describe anything which is ugly, badly designed, and/or utterly undesirable, any crimes against the laws of aesthetics. “Worse,” - I retort - “More like iframes and animated gifs.” Our friends look on, knowing they would never be let in into our little world of synchronised idiosyncrasies, then avert their ears when we begin referencing our library of shared idioms, usually too “graphic” to hear about. I am confident within months we will be capable of conversing solely in sounds, screeches, and squeaks, since 70% of current conversation already does. A badly designed shoe on display in a department store, outraging my beloved, the designer? “Tables and frames!” or simply “Eeeeeeeeeeee!” mean the same thing.

Then menstrual cycles start to synchronise. Together with fashion sense, taste for colour. Somewhere along the muddled path, computing preferences also began to sync. It doesn’t get more “retired” than this: wearing the same thing, entirely unplanned, in the same colours, unplanned too, at “that time of the month”, and soon, using the same computers too.

The one thing straight couples take as a given, is that you will probably never walk into a classroom to find your girlfriend wearing the same things you are, right down to the accessories.

Somebody asked me once, what do lesbians do when they hit forty? I replied flippantly, why, buy another pet. At twenty, we start looking for a pet, if we don’t already have one. Preferably of a species which is furry, has paws, and salivates - any other similarity to the owners is welcome. At forty, lesbian couples buy another dog to replace the ailing one which saw them through early courtship. Or in my case, perhaps a few more cats. Somewhere between twenty and forty, friends’ pets die, friends get married, friends move to San Francisco, pets die, somebody has an artificial insemination, countless people cheat on each other, kiss and make up, and then at forty the new pet arrives to usher in a new phase of Lesbiandom.

In a way the manic pace between the death and birth of each pet, between the breaking up and the patching up of each couple, between the time it takes for your best friend to hook up with your ex, and the ex’s best friend to hook up with you, is our equivalent of the marriage, the first flat, first child, child’s enrolment in top primary school, second kid, enter other ‘achievements’ here, and eventual upgrading to a HDB Executive Flat pretending to be a condo pretending to be the measure of all your worth in the world. Which one is a worse fate depends entirely upon your point of view.

In this light, knowing this is what awaits me, I suppose the deliberately slow pace we have picked for ourselves can’t be an altogether bad idea. You asked today if you had kept me waiting for too long, at the outset. In three times the amount of time it has taken for my many frantic affairs to gestate, be born, and die stillborn; you kept me walking, holding hands, talking. What’s important is how I still go home from you every single day, my jaw and my tummy hurting from the laughter. How I miss you exactly one hour, 9 minutes and three kisses before the time you’re needed home. How even when you’re sleeping in my arms I miss you as you sleep, and I think about how silly we must look, grabbing our stomaches laughing in unison. How beautiful you are, tonight and every night since the first I saw you, before I even learned to pronounce your name.