knights in white satin

one summer evening in 2001, at a cool, calm apartment in napean sea road, i met a man called daniel pearl. it was a surprise birthday party for tanvi, and danny and his wife marianne were guests, as were assorted frenchmen, a few nris, my friend lou, and tanvi's then boyfriend julian, whom she eventually married.

while i sipped vodka and lou struggled with wine, i asked danny what he did for a living. "i represent the wall street journal in mumbai," he said, and smiled a beautiful smile. i remember him as a fairly tall man, very attractive, a man most women would have no problems striking up a conversation with. "i live near theen buteeee," he went on, smiling while lou laughed and i tried to get him to pronounce 'teen batti' correctly.

marianne was as interesting. curly-haired, colourful, outspoken, easy-going. i could see why they were a couple. we spoke of other things, like music. danny could, he said, play fiddle, electric violin, and mandolin. i didn't know what electric violin was, so he enlightened me. around us, the indians, frenchmen, and tanvi chatted, white wine-and-vodka-laden.

the next morning, i told ashok about this man from the wall street journal, and suggested we do a story on how the internet was making it possible for him to do what he did so many miles from home. ashok agreed. the story idea was finalised. december arrived.

one summer evening in early 2002, reports mentioning the abduction of a certain daniel pearl in karachi began to sprout. lou called later that day. "is it him?" she asked. "yes," i said. and she hung up, upset. it was in mumbai, apparently, that daniel had begun working on his story about terrorism, tracing the steps of a 'shoe bomber' called richard reid.

months later, a video appeared online, depicting the last minutes of daniel pearl, throat being sliced open. available for download. free.

i haven't seen that video. i never will. what i keep in mind is a smiling, attractive man who told me what an electric violin was. what i keep in my wallet is a faded visiting card. a reminder of how some nice guys never have a chance.

r. i. p. danny (1963-2002)

water views

“the pool
are you alive?
i touch you.
you quiver like a sea-fish.
i cover you with my net.
what are you -- banded one?”

-- h. d. (1886-1961), ‘the pool’

“one with her hands
open
don't be afraid, she said
no one will know it
just you and me
and when it's over
i'll go back”

-- tori amos (uk winter part 1), ‘the pool’

the men in moustaches

when i was five, mallu came along. i don't remember how we met, but i can picture our mothers waiting outside class, scanning rows of unruly five-year-old faces, trying to pick out mine and his from the screaming swarm around us both.

when i was ten, chris arrived. this i remember better. he arrived from another school, from another set of schoolboys, dressed in neatly pressed, carefully creased blue shorts. mine were a mess -- as they remained throughout my tenure in school -- and my crooked tie stuck its tongue out at his neat, well-adjusted one. but, we got along.

mallu and i spoke till school was over and done with. he had the cutest cheeks in the building, after all, and not speaking to him would mean forfeiting the chance to pull them daily. chris and i, on the other hand, decided to form a secret club. i could talk about it in detail, but then i'd have to hunt you down and kill you (sorry, club rules).

chris could draw. i couldn't. i could move though, so we started discussing breakdance like it would change our lives forever. he was the first guy in school to go to a rock concert (so what if it was bloody europe, huh? so what, huh?) and we had secret handshakes, secret codes, secret signs and a couple of other secrets. yes, boys and girls, a frightfully secretive business it was.

mallu, in the meanwhile, decided he liked shonn better. they were both small, both talkative, both prone to giggling in class, and both capable of slipping under the thighs of big, scary, class-ten guys. i was still allowed to pull his cheeks though, and he sat next to me at the class photo shoot of 1989.

with time, chris changed. he decided (i assume) that he wanted to be even more saint-and-goodytwoshoes-like than he already was. he decided he couldn't stand boys who misbehaved, boys who yelled, or boys who abused. i happened to possess all three characteristics in abundance. and so, one evening, chris decided he wouldn't, couldn't, shouldn’t, speak to me anymore. conversations with a boy who abused would, he imagined, ruin his delicate, sensitive soul.

even worse, he broke the boy code and -- shudder -- complained to my mother.

school passed into our past. as did college. as did the beginnings of our individual careers. chris and mallu and i went to other institutions, other places, other groups of people, other life-changing choices.

then, seven years later, chris called. he wanted to find out if lindsay, the editor of a particular magazine, was the same lindsay he went to school with. 'abey chutiya, aur kaun rahega?', i asked. and, this time, he didn't call my mother.

we met a week later, chris and i, and ordered the same drinks, and withstood the same staggering amount of alcohol. that was a surprise. two weeks later, mallu came along as well. the last time i had been in the same room with the two of them was over a decade ago. strangely, it didn't seem like long ago. i examined mallu's cheeks, watched chris swallow a tandoori chicken whole, and stared at their moustaches and little french beards.

we have managed, over the past year, to slip back into our adolescence, slipping on old gloves when we meet, ignoring the present to live in a state of boyish noise from a time long gone. chris yells at me. i yell at mallu. mallu yells at chris. chris abuses me. i abuse mallu. mallu abuses chris. it's a noisy circle. an abusive circle. often, a madly-drunk circle. the two of them sit on either side of me, moustached and french bearded, like sentinels from my childhood.

and, for those periods every week, it feels a little like the eighties all over again.

mallu doesn't like the idea of me pulling his cheeks anymore. and chris (thank you, god) can now yell "lindsay, you stupid fucking bastard, i'm going to whip your ass," without bursting into tears or feeling the need to confess to a priest.

if this is what it’s like to grow from boys to men, i’m not quite sure i see the difference…