Black and white

It’s funny. It’s desperate. It’s honest. It’ll move you. And so, frankly, do I say there’s no going back to it, yet I reminisce, often, with uncontrollable laughter. Yes, I’m going to tell you about my childhood incident. It happened when I was 7 years old. Eh? I’m not sure precisely. Probably it was in 1992. At Norbuling, my village, almost two-hour walk from Gelephu.

I was, then, in stick limbs, burnt skin. But uncommonly alert, bright and resilient lad. I could tell. And I had a handful of friends-all alike me. Unkempt. Rowdy. Lilliputians. In their company, I used to huff and puff around my village, causing constant troubles to villagers especially young girls. And I would return home only when hungry. Say what you like about a notorious lad-and I had all.

You would never guess how much allergic I was to taking bath. As much as dogs hate it, ha-ha. My hands and knees were always dirt stained. All blames put on marbles. I would be playing marbles, oftentimes. And you know what? I had learned a correct way to strike marbles. I’ll show you how. I would close my left eyes and my right eye aiming at marbles in a ring. My right knee bent, left one on dusty ground (for balance), a swift kiss for luck and then strike to knock marbles. Wow, I had won a boomer jar full of it. My coveted achievement though.

Now, I know, you must be wondering what my parents had been doing? I’ll tell you, my parents gave birth to 13 children. I’m the youngest son. That’s why they couldn’t, at all, give care for us. Of 13 siblings, two died-one from untreated malaria and another from evil spirit. But unfortunately both died home, not in BHU or hospital.

And those days, you don’t know how much fascination I held for watching video. Ajay Devgun in his side pungs and damnless looks. Sunil Shetty, for his bulging biceps. Akshay Kumar, for his sexy voice and flying kick. I was also equally fascinated by Rambo‘s guns and Superman’s costume. My room’s walls papered with post cards of these stars. Also my auto books.

But those days, in the whole village, my uncle (a recent retiree, then, from his service as a RBP constable) was the only one who had video. Black and white. Solar energy. He’d invite us to watch video when he had hired new cassettes from the market. But this was very rare. And my father had only a Philips radio. I loved listening to film dialogues and songs in his radio. How sweet! But this too was very rare as my father had been glued listening to news. Of course, his best companion.

And the interesting part? At my uncle’s house, I was always asked to rewind video cassette. With the help of a stick. It required quite a deal of energy and time to complete the task. Almost the length of a-cup-of-tea-long conversation. After that I’d sit in a corner, in well-behaved silence, watching video without even blinking my eyes. Ah, next day, in my school, I’d be narrating about the film to my mates. Even imitating film’s dialogue and enacting in front of them. 

One afternoon, a friend of mine brought a cassette. I don’t know from where he got it. I gathered, instantaneously, all my friends and went to my uncle’s house to watch it. As my uncle put on his video, we sat on the floor all in polite smile and happy. My uncle and aunt also sat in a divan to watch the film.

First scene: Gunfight in a swimming pool. Two men killed.

Second scene: A blonde climbs down a stair in bathrobe. Colour of her bathrobe? I don’t know. I already told you that it was a black and white video screen, no? And two men, masculine, appeared out of nowhere. Oh my gosh! The blonde, uh, starts undressing herself in front of two men. The scene bizarrely plunged into something quite unexpected. It was a triple, sex among three of them.

As they go hammer and tongs at it, thunderous strikes of orgasm revved up and ranted the room. It was a breathlessly awkward moment that I stood confused, caught between whether to continue watching video or leave the house. A catch-22, absolutely. Videos, those days, had no remote control. So, my uncle ran frantically and ejected the cassette. He threw the cassette at us, laughing. We raced out of house.

In fact, that was my life’s first time that I watched porn video. That’s also with my uncle and aunt, ha-ha. It’s hysterically weird, but nevertheless true. Undeniably. Unforgettably. 

Photo courtesy: Tashi Wangchuk; googlsearch