So we know how it goes. Boy meets girl. Girl drinks too much. One thing leads to another. Girl wakes up howling “oh god no!” Boy does victory lap of honour hi fiving his friends and revelling in the glory of his accomplishments like a medal winner hosting a press conference.
Oh yes, we know it well. The hero, the scarlet woman; the triumph and the humiliation.
Weeks pass, details are added, the teasing revs up to a roar, the memory is unfurled for public viewing, and the boy emboldened by triumph presses girl for an encore, (his indiscretion promising him a life sentence of anything but). An average American high school soap opera. Except, this is India. (Mother, uncover your eyes, uncle put down the gun).
In this country, if Bill Clinton said ‘I did not have sexual relations with that woman’ you could be damn sure he’s telling the truth. Oh sure, there’s scandal. It’s just there’s scandal over so much LESS.
You see, in this story, our hero didn’t sleep with the girl. Oh no. He didn’t get to first base (are you kidding?) In fact, the decadent pair didn’t even - to use the teenage slang – “make out”
Oh I’m sorry did you think that all the fuss and reputational ruin was over something SIGNIFICANT?
No, no, no – have you not been paying attention? This is India! Home of shuddering conservatism. No, the scandalous act of moral degeneracy that our Delhi Don Juan triumphed in luring our innocent heroine to was......
Wait. Stop.
Are you ready?
I mean, are you really ready?
Because some of you are family members...
And I don’t want you to think badly of me...
My grandfather is getting old and there are kids watching
Are you sure? You won’t judge?
Ok, then I’ll tell you.
[deep breath]
...
I felt his chest.
Yes, the act at the bottom of all the ribald humour, the teasing, hope, male aspiration and gossip was nothing more than the humble index finger on skin. And, I would understand it among 16 year old boys whose sexual experience is limited to GCSE biology book pictures. But no.
He’s 31.
So, I have left the country. I am away from India hiding in shame, on the run across South Asia and Europe until a suitably respectable amount of time has passed for my reputation to be restored. (‘Travelling for work’ I tell people, but readers, you know the truth).
Meanwhile, our swaggering hero has of course cast himself out of ‘the game’. Rule number one in the cassanova handbook: never tell – especially if you ever one day hope to find a girl to ‘make out’ with before a 35th birthday. Maybe one day our hero will reach first base, or kiss a girl, who knows, but whoever she is I hope she has the air miles to escape the furore....
I will be back reporting from a remote location soon readers, a mujahedeen are mobilising in nearby foothills to protect my honour.
