THE BUTTERFLY GENERATION
Praise for Eunuch Park: Fifteen Stories of Love and Destruction
'A rich, rewarding read from a debut writer with a formidable lineage who is only 34. Unusual, engaging ... memorable.'
Businessworld
'The short-story form lends itself perfectly to Mehrotra's candid snapshots that explore the spectrum from love to destruction. Each story peeps into bedrooms, throws aside a veil but most importantly lays bare our soul.'
The Hindu
'Palash Mehrotra's heroes usually inhabit seedy, ugly environs, from boys' hostels to train bogeys, to dingy bars. Yet, even as they display a certain air of abject aimlessness, they appear not to resist any opportunity to experiment, when it comes to their own sexuality. Or drugs. Or violence.'
The Sunday Tribune
'In an age where soppy teenage romance and household drama clutter bookshelves, Eunuch Park is a startlingly different read. The author has daringly picked subjects that Indian readers are usually wary of. However, the characters are skillfully dealt with, their emotions and passions drawn out, so that the reader is left empathizing with them, which can be a little unnerving. The experience can be disquieting, especially as Palash Mehrotra has not softened any blows.'
Deccan Herald
'The writing in Eunuch Park has an enviable economy. The insane boredom of a college hostel at night, the desperate gentility of an Allahabad restaurant, the sordid staleness of cheap hotel rooms all of these are deftly evoked. There is plenty here that can get lodged in your intestines.'
Biblio
'These stunning stories entice us into the dark, wild, seedy corners of urban India. This world of drug addicts, cross-dressers, prostitutes and other wayward creatures can shock, frighten or touch a raw nerve.'
BTW Magazine
'Reading the 15 stories is a little like having a ringside view of a Formula One car race. Anything could happen here and it would be safest to expect the unexpected.'
Open Magazine
THE
BUTTERFLY
GENERATION
A Personal Journey into the Passions and Follies of India's Technicolour Youth
Palash Krishna Mehrotra
Copyright Palash Krishna Mehrotra 2011
Published in 2011 by
Rupa Publications India Pvt. Ltd.
7/16, Ansari Road, Daryaganj,
New Delhi 110 002
Sales Centres:
Allahabad Bengaluru Chennai
Hyderabad Jaipur Kathmandu
Kolkata Mumbai
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.
The author asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
Some names have been changed to protect the identity of individuals.
Printed in India by
Rekha Printers Pvt Ltd.
A-102/1, Okhla Industrial Area, Phase-II,
New Delhi-110 020
For our parents, who kept it together
Each age, it is found, must write its own books; or rather, each generation for the next succeeding.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Each generation wants new symbols, new people, new names. They want to divorce themselves from their predecessors.
Jim Morrison
We would not think [butterflies] so beautiful if they did not fly, or if they flew straight and briskly like bees, or if they stung, or above all if they did not enact the perturbing mystery of metamorphosis: the latter assumes in our eyes the value of... a symbol and a sign.
Primo Levi
Contents
PART 1
One-on-One
There's a Rat in Your Room
've lost the keys to the front gate again. Normally, I would have asked my landlord for his key, got a duplicate made. But I've done so three times in eight weeks. Each time I've asked him for the key he's made a face, launched into a tirade, treated me as someone who's been trying to burgle his house.
So I say, Fuck it. Let's not bother him. Let's jump. Here I am, very tipsy, trying to clamber over this formidable Defence Colony gate. I'm perched on top and am about to jump when the door to the first floor balcony swings open. It's the maid, screaming, 'Chor, chor. There's a thief in the house!' at the top of her voice, hurling abuses at my frightened crouched figure.
Next, the ground floor door flies open. It's the landlord and his wife. I say hello. They join in the screaming. Confused, drunk, intimidated (what if the landlord owns a shotgun?), I decide against jumping. I stay perched on the gate, frozen, and wait for the storm to subside.
I'm on firm ground again. Thank god I haven't lost the keys to my tiny garage apartment, my little Hobbit house. I try and fit the key into the lock, fumble. The landlord and his wife crowd around me.
'What happened to the key?'
'I lost it.'
'Again?'
'Yes, again.'
'This is someone's house ... do you understand? We can't have people clambering over the gate like this. Look at the time ... it's eleven!'
The key finally slides in. 'Tomorrow,' I reply. 'Let's talk about this tomorrow.'
'Yes, tomorrow,' mutters the landlord, shaking his fist. 'Tomorrow. Tomorrow you're out of here.'
Defence Colony, New Delhi, is not a new neighbourhood for me. I was here before, almost a decade ago, when I'd come back from Oxford and was working my first job with a dotcom. In fact, not only am I back in the same neighbourhood but also in the same block, C Block.
Defence Colony, or Def Col as it's called, was initially planned as a locality for defence personnel and their families. Def Col now overflows with expats CEOs, embassy types, NGO workers. White couples wheel their prams in quiet leafy bylanes clogged with SUVs; the local market caters to their tastes: Japanese restaurants, expensive lounge bars, shops selling imported deodorants and cold meats and blue cheese and free-range eggs.
It's a very impractical market in many ways. You can't get what you really need: a basic haircut, a cheap samosa, underwear, a key chain. Okay, maybe that's exaggerating it you can get everything you want but it's all so-called designer stuff at designer prices. You can get an expensive haircut, or a key chain if willing to pay upwards of eight hundred rupees.
Eight hundred rupees for a silly key chain with a dinky black pistol hanging from the ring? You must be joking. In my first few days here, I tried hard to get a simple one. I couldn't. So I began keeping the two keys loose in my wallet's coin compartment. They often slipped out.
It's not my fault. That's what I'm going to tell the landlord tomorrow. It's not my fault. It's your posh market to blame where I can't buy even a key chain.
It's not easy, getting a place in Delhi. I found this one through an ad in the Times of India. The landlord and the agent want the money in cash. It's a lot of money. Four months rent in advance plus a month's rent as the agent's fee. They want all the money to be paid upfront, in cash, and no written record. For if the landlord gives a written record, he will have to pay taxes, something he'd rather avoid.
