The Show

I get off the motorbike and slant it near the pub entrance. The luminous interior, abuzz with customers and hazy with alcoholic vapors and cigarette smoke, beckons me. Sitting on a raised stool in front of the counter, I gaze at my face in the mirrored shelf behind the counter. I sweat profusely, partly because of the heat, and partly because this happens to be the first show since my father’s disappearance. I feel like I’m facing my first job interview.

The ponytail girl with large black eyes and jasmine white teeth, who’s running the counter, turns toward me after attending a customer, “What do you want, mister?”

So close to her pink presence, I keep quiet. She darts away to another customer who’s entered just now. She hands him whiskey and soda bottles and comes back to me. She cocks her face up, “What do you want, mister?”

“How do you say I’m a mister?” I ask her, mustering enough courage.

“You’re a man. Aren’t you?” she flashes a white smile.

“No. I’m not sure.”

She laughs.

“You must be joking.” She says, her smile contemplative and subdued now.

“No. I’m not.”

“Oh! No?”

“Just watch. I’ll start a show,” I say. I take a plastic vial and a 2ml syringe out of my side pocket and put them on the counter.

“No drugs here, mister,” she objects. Her dark eyes widen.

“It’s no drug, girl.”

“It’s a drug. What else can it be?”

“It’s not a drug. It’s hyposterone. Haven’t heard about it?”

“Let me see it.” She takes the vial and examines it. She reads the label.

“What is it?”

“You just wait,” I say. She hands my vial back.

“Go to hell.”

I cut the vial open using my molars and load the syringe.

Without looking at her, without waiting for her permission, I plunge the needle into my right thigh and push the piston. I toss the vial and the syringe into the dustbin. The girl stands like a statue.

Few minutes later, I can see the effect in the opposite mirror. My face become smooth, my voice mellows. My chest bulges and nipples push my vest dangerously forward. All body hair disappears, groin deepens.

The girl tries to shriek; but there is no sound.

I hear some noise behind my back. I turn around to see a band playing a Hindi film tune on the podium. A scantily clad girl dances to the song. Another girl sings:

Yeh mera dil pyar ka diwana; Diwana diwana, pyar ka parwana.

I don’t like the way she dances. I go in the middle and start dancing myself. I swing my hips, I move my bust, hither and thither. Drunkards start whistling and yodeling. The band plays fast. I gyrate, I twist, and I turn, and stop just when the band stops.

“You play that song from Geet Gaya Paththarone. I’ll do the peacock dance,” I exhort them. Before they say anything, the girl calls from the counter.

“Oh, mister. Come here. Don’t play any peacock or crow. Have this one and get lost.” She puts another beer bottle on the counter. “Shall I open it?” she asks.

“Yes,” I say, taking another vial from my side pocket, keeping it on the counter.

“What’s this one?” She asks, eyebrows raised.

“The opposite of the previous one. It’s for you.” I say, smiling.

“What?” She crunches her eyes.

“You can see for yourself.”

She takes the vial and inspects it.

“What does it do?”

“It’s for you. So you can have me later.”

“I don’t want this nonsense. I’m happy with my boyfriend. Drink that beer and get lost. You needn’t pay anything. Just think it’s for that dance. And for all your antics. Okay?”

“All right then.” I cut open the vial with my teeth, load the syringe and plunge the needle into my left thigh. I start drinking the beer she’s given me. She could have paid me a few hundred rupees instead of this beer. Soon my body hair reappears like a monsoon crop, breasts dissolve like ice cubes, groin bulges.

I get out of the pub and start my motorbike. The black tar road scrolls under, and streetlights slide past. I’m rushing through the evening traffic toward another unknown destination. Maybe for another show. Another dangerous show. What if something happens to me? Something irreversible. I start wondering.

My father, a snake charmer himself, who also used to catch snakes for an anti-venom firm, used to say, “It’s all part of the game, son. The show must go on.” They said he drank a potion and got transformed into a black cobra. And when he couldn’t recall the mantra and return to his self, he disappeared into the forest.