The Gospel according to St.John

"Don't you love me?" is the magical question that seals all the cracks in a relationship. It appeals to a mind that wants to believe that things last forever and that you will ride into the sunset with your Prince Charming - the first and the only one to do so.

And so, John asked me one day "Don't you love me, anymore?" I meekly surrendered, I was so afraid of the answer to that question, that I didn't want to face it yet. John was the kind of unremarkable person whose very simplicity makes them dangerous. These are the people who are like recreational drugs, you play around with them for fun or out of boredom, and you never fully recover from their effects. His was the kind of demeanor that never threatens you, and so never alerts you to its pitfalls.


He was a 24 year old with an evidently fake American accent and a slightly thinning scalp. His achievement in life was that he worked with well-meaning whites in the "Christ the King" fellowship programme. When he was around, I could pretty well have been the center of the Universe. I liked the fact that his mediocrity made me feel so much better about myself. Not to add I had everyone's admiration for being able to look beyond physical beauty. To feel loved is a wonderful feeling.....to feel worshipped is to loose ones mind. John could make you feel worshipped and I had the ego to revel in his worshipping ways.

Every morning I would find him waiting for me at the bus stop, with a smile reminiscent of a sunrise. I would reel off the instructions for the day and he would patiently nod his head to everything. Somewhere along the way he would let it slip that he had to go to the Good News center because there was an old woman who had found Christ but not enough money for her hypertension medication. Somewhere along the way my hand would involuntarily slip him a 100 or 2. Somewhere along the way I stopped looking at him when i spoke to him. Somewhere along the way I stopped listening when he spoke. Life was kingsize, so was my self-importance, a few expenses were expected and a few, created.

Once every so often he would also show up at my college during the day, his only purpose would be to make sure that I had had my lunch. He would then be late for his prayer meeting at Rev.Yesupaadam's prayer hall. It wasn't too much for anyone to arrange for 50 bucks, after all an autorickshaw would solve the problem.

Admiration corrupts, absolute admiration corrupts absolutely. Attention has a strangely addictive quality to it, one can never get enough of it. And when one doesn't manage to get it, the consequences can be......let's call them unpleasant.

So, I had a boyfriend called John. His mandate was limited and rather clear-to serve me well. One rather busy Sunday morning I received a call from John, he was calling me to tell me that he wouldn't be able to meet me that day. As it happened, it was just a day before my father's death anniversary and hence I expected all hands on the deck. I was counting on his presence to take care of all the minutiae, hence, his absence meant an effort on my part .It was an extremely inconvenient thing to speak to people and arrange for things. After all if you have a boyfriend with low self esteem and a lower income, you must have some returns on all the time and money you invested in the person. Of course, he could only have made up some story to escape his responsibilities and to make more money out of my oh-so-kind&large heart. An enlarged heart is a dangerous affliction and I was determined to cure myself of it.

Over the next many days, I stopped taking his calls and with great sorrow told my friends of how I had been at the losing end of the deal. He was the cunning, mean and manipulative villain of my nightmares and I was determined that nobody else would be cheated the way I was. I sent him a stern message not to show up at my door. He made me a martyr and the sympathy for a martyr was something that I found quite agreeable. I found new sources of attention to supplement the loss of John. He became a name in a long list of benevolent conquests.

Months later, we met accidentally. I greeted him. I was secure in the knowledge that I was the wronged party in the incestuously limited world of Hyderabad's gay community. His new "best friend" was my acquaintance and hence I struck up a conversation. I was at my amiable best. I asked him how they'd met, he told me that he was the physiotherapist treating his sister. It did not strike me that John's sister needed a physiotherapist because she was ill. I just anticipated him to ask for money.



She apparently had met with an accident, on the day he had disappeared. Their already tenuous finances sunk under pressure. Thanks to my unwillingness to listen he could not ask me for help. Thanks to my circle of friends, no one would lend him money. Serves him well.....how could he have not shown up at my place and begged with me for forgiveness. The horror of being disregarded, sickened me. I left the place thoroughly disgusted at his vile selfishness. It hurt me to think of him and I took a litany of lovers to get over him. I was entitled to some solace after what I had to go through. And people fell in eagerly to sleep with the Saint of Hyderabad who looked beyond beauty and lived for his love.


But thinking of John still hurts me.....I sometimes wonder why?