This is what dreams are made of


I have never been a winner. Always on the outskirts, never there, never on spot. Throughout my school years, I used to be in the top few; college was not much different. So, when my room mate confessed in me that he is so totally smitten by my friend Aarif, I thought to myself – “there you go again!”.

Krishna Nathanial Parker, my flat mate for the past one year and seven months is a nice bloke. He is lucky in love in a very unlucky sort of way. A guy he likes is very likely to be already in love with him. But somehow things have never worked out for him. He has had 5 serious and many non serious affairs. That’s a lot considering his age of 23 years.

Krish was born to British father & Indian mother. I advertised for a gay flat mate on the net and of the 3 guys I had short listed Krish was the most eligible of them. Born and brought up in Liverpool; a talented musician who dreams of making it big in Bollywood; had already been in India for 2 years when we met; Kind and humble and very brainy (sort of); also beautiful. So, he moved in with me. We had this understanding from the beginning that we will keep our personal lives to ourselves. Sigh! Only I have no personal life to keep from others. So, Krish moved in with me and we were doing well. He kept to his room mostly and I didn’t miss him much when he was not around.

I CANNOT go on a date with a stranger. It just freaks me out. I tried going against my instincts once - made a complete fool of myself – and returned home with a bruised and battered dignity. So advertising for a roommate was like participating in Fear Factor - like being jailed in a 3x3 box with 2 dozen fat rats. Not that disgusting, but definitely as fearsome. My friend Aarif egged me to do so.

Now Aarif… is another story. He’s my oldest friend and the only person in my world who knows I am homosexual. I came out to him after the fiasco that my first date was, almost two and a half years ago. I returned from the date all sad and depressed… and there he was, waiting for me all “EARS” to know about the hot girl I had described to him. I was so humiliated, I couldn’t help but cry. And when he tried making me feel better my crying grew even louder. He kept saying things like “there are more girls out there and definitely kinder than the one I had just met”. I felt the need of telling him the truth about me. Looking at his concern I felt as if I was cheating him. Sometime during that night when I was not crying anymore I came out to him. He took it in his stride. Up till that day he had been out of my circle of eligible boyfriends. After that day I started looking at him from a different angle – the dream angle – where I and he lived happily ever after. Sigh!

I never saw Krish as a competitor. He is the ideal gay guy. Very comfortable with himself, out to every one he knows. He would never even think of getting serious about a homosexual, who is in denial or a bisexual, leave alone a straight guy. So, I had Aarif all to myself.

Every day I was falling more and more in love with Aarif. His words of kindness, his humility, his supportiveness and care, his protective attitude towards me and his loyalty to me as a friend – everything was taking me closer and closer to him. My dreams included a penthouse apartment on Worli sea face, with a large terrace where we would have our coffee in the morning – his black and strong and mine with sugar & milk. Throughout the course of the day I’d drift into my own world several times. I’d dream about different things like – the two of us on a trip to Italy; Venice, Rome, Verona and then moving on to Austria; the two of us talking to our friend Wasiqun, discussing the issues involved in her becoming a surrogate for our baby; the two of us going to meet his parents and they treating me as their second son which they never had; the two of us lamenting over the fact that we can not have a joint account; the two of us toiling over a Senior Chocolate Avalanche at Mocha, after we have downed the Dutch truffle shake and the brownie shake. Yum!

A couple of months after Krish moved in with me I gave a party where Krish met Aarif for the first time. They hit it off from the very beginning. Much to my discomfort, they talked through out the party. After the party the three of us were together many times – mostly on insistence of Krish. They traversed the distance between friendly acquaintances to good friends pretty quickly. Like within a couple of weeks. This became a matter of grave concern to me. My only respite was in the fact that Krish would never fall for a straight guy and Aarif is not gay, not even bisexual. Still, whenever I saw Krish getting comfy with Aarif I felt like going up to him and hitting so hard in his balls that they come sputtering out of his mouth.

Then one day all of the sudden Krish confessed in me “I think I have developed feelings for Aarif. Crazy as it might sound, it is true.”

CRAZY? No, dear Krish Nathanial Parker, this is outright murderous. You better be aware!

This guy who sat beside me, on my bed, in my room, in my house had no idea what he had done to me by uttering those silly words.

Feelings! Feelings my ass! What does he know about feelings? He who has had feelings for more than a (let me think over, what is it now? 24 different guys?) Thank GOD, oh gracious Lord thanks for Aarif is not gay; else what would have become of me?

One is bound to think what a moron I was. I was thanking god that the guy I was desperately in love with was not gay which saved him from becoming a prey of the great Krish Nathanial Parker. Yes I was. What you don’t know is that every time I thanked god for this I followed it with another very private prayer where I requested him to make him realize his latent sexual identity – let him come to me and tell me – Varun, I love you too. I have always been smart like this.

Things moved very fast after that. So fast that they left me behind, far behind. How far behind? I realized that after I inquired about Krish’s health, when I didn’t see him leaving his room for a few days. He grabbed the ground beneath my feet and threw it out of the window when he told me that he talked to Aarif about his feeling for him. I felt as if the roof had fallen on my head. I wanted to cry and shout but I couldn’t make myself do it. I had gone dumb. He told me how much he had disturbed Aarif with his confession. That’s when I realized the reason for Aarif’s not being in touch. It hurt me even more because I expected him to come to me and tell me about it instead of avoiding me. WHY? I sat there like a stupid and listened to Krish going over his conversation with Aarif. I couldn’t retain anything of what he said. All I saw was the vulnerable 23 year old, whose confident side was not on for show. He was sitting within the covers, talking about how much he cared for Aarif. At least he had the sense of laughing at himself and the futility of the situation. Seeing him laugh like that hit a chord somewhere in me, I laughed with him. We were in the same boat and both of us didn’t have any oars.

It took a lot of talking, 7 cups of coffees, 2 crying bouts and several hours of looking at Aarif’s picture to come to terms with reality. I would have gone through the same had I tried doing something like that. May be life was teaching me a lesson through Krish. Maybe I could become a winner after all.

I confronted Aarif and we discussed this. He was concerned about Krish and asked if he was going to be alright. I told him, he was going to be fine.

After my conversation with Aarif I told Krish about my feelings for Aarif. We started connecting. After that we started spending a lot of time together. We used to sit on the terrace and talk for hours about life and love – in general – nothing particular, certainly not Aarif. He came out of it faster than me but I surprised myself by coming out of it at all. I never thought it would ever happen. My dreams had never covered this scenario.

Today, Krish still lives with me. It’s been two years since the Aarif episode. Aarif is married and is expecting a baby in another few months. I, Krish and Aarif hang out together sometimes. Krish is dating someone else but I know they are not going to be together for long. I on the other hand have warmed up enough towards Krish. He adores me and may be someday he will realize that he can’t spend another day without me by his side.

I am a hopeless case :-)