Eternal Sunshine of an Ignorant Mind

The first night post wedding is a grand affair for most Indian men. It is then that they usually give the performances of their lives. There is a lack of dick softening fear; to impress, to satisfy, to provide, to hurt, to make an effort, to be a man, to stop breathing, to start smelling, to look presentable, to seem very cool about the thing. The thing seems natural enough, so much so that pulling back the foreskin doesn’t hurt, entering the cunt becomes easy and the woman underneath stays a mere rivulet of sweat away from a toe breaking climax.

Unfortunately, this was not the case with Mr Banerjee. He has issues.

For the first time in his life, he realized that a diet of meat dipped in a cup of the BP oil spill isn’t the answer to all questions related to life. By the time his newly minted wife took off her jewellery, including the golden nose ring that attached itself to her forehead through a rope like contraption, which Mr Banerjee was hoping she wouldn’t take off, he was experiencing acute discomfort. His smaller intestine was exercising its right of first refusal against his testicles, who carried the burden of proof, his penis shuddered at the thought of it being the initiator of an act so untimely and his libido went and stayed so low it almost got married to his self esteem. In other words, one can safely say thet he was not really in the mood, sexually speaking.

Then there was the question of her perception of his nudity.

Mr Banerjee wasn’t too glass shattering. In fact there used to be a time when he took great pride in the fact that he did not have much body hair. He liked to look at himself in the mirror, admiring his wholesomeness, making its presence felt in a metaphorical sense, he once remarked, and run his hand over his belly, which he never really loved nor hated, carefully considering the smoothness of skin, the variety of contours that surely women-natural explorers that they are- would find intriguing, the apparent ease with which one may get lost in the folds and manifolds he exhibited so effortlessly and the four strands of chest hair that defined his masculinity in brief, like an elegant mathematical equation, non verbose.

But the night we are talking about, the night when something terrible happened to Mr Banerjeee, was the night he was short of the kind of confidence that prevented him from talking to the female species for most of his adult life. He was, for instance, beginning to consider the possibility of him being something other than devastatingly attractive, in a manly sort of way, his mother’s praises suddenly started seeming pretty hollow, the choice that he exercised of safeguarding his virginity till that night started seeming more than just a choice, and then there was this other thing.

His wife.

She was, in fact, a woman.

Was she attractive? Mr Banerjee couldn’t really come to a decision before marrying her. He had gone to meet her and her parents after reading a best-selling book on behavioural economics, the decision making process and intuition. He had practiced the art of intuitive decision making, or coming to a conclusion within seconds of being exposed to new data, without spending much time reasoning. It was a fool-proof plan, he argued, combining years of research and experiments conducted in the fields of psychology, sociology, sexology, philosophy, economics, cognition, mathematics, chemistry, biology and semiotics all learned vicariously through a three hundred page book written by a freelance journalist. If there ever was a man who was prepared, if there ever was a girl who was about to be judged faster than a gay atheist, if there ever was a conclusion, foregone...

When the girl appeared, in low cut blouse and tiny golden ear-rings, he stared in the general direction of her breasts till her father cleared his throat.

Their dates had been much fun, Mr Banerjee felt. They had tried out sixteen different types of cuisines in less than four months, interspersed with family dinners and diarrhoea induced or relationship saving fasts. They decided to get married, exercising a choice of the kind unseen since a muslim woman made a choice to be made love to by a hundred crusaders. Everything had happened so quickly, it seemed like it actually had, when it only might have had, in a way.

The topic of sex had not come up in their conversations, yet. Mr Banerjee was afraid at what he may find out, and what she won’t. He wanted the first night to be special and her, to be ignorant. He had decided for, postponed and cancelled regular jogging, morning walks, visits to the gym, a breakfast consisting of raw eggs, egg white, olive oil, boiled cabbage and fruits. He didn’t see the point of preparing for an exam whose questions had been leaked, figuratively speaking.

As these thoughts ambled through his mind, he saw –from the corner of his eyes- what seemed like his wife getting restless. She looked visibly annoyed and beads of sweat had collected on her forehead. Mr Banerjee considered going to the loo, but couldn’t think of a suitable excuse. He wanted to burp, fart and cum at the same time. There was no way only one of those things could happen, since like crabs, the other two would veto. So Mr Banerjee sat there, on his bed, trying to stay as still as possible, fearing motion induced involuntary releases, watching what seemed like a very horny, massively unfucked woman at the edge of her patience.

Suddenly there was a noise. A fart. Unmistakably. You don't need to hear those twice. Mr Banerjee closed his eyes. His mind went blank, as did his stomach. He quietly visualized a lifetime of taunts and domination from a woman who, he thought, had every right to be mad. Here she was, with an excuse of a man, visibly nervous, obviously inexperienced, physically unattractive and sexually impaired on his wedding night, and to top it all, he loosened the wrong muscle. When he opened his eyes, after what seemed like an eternity spent in a butt clenching, self calming sincere buddhist posture, Mr Banerjee saw his wife in front of him, red faced, with the permanent sheepish smile of a girl who had her first period at a Wimbledon tennis match.

“Sorry”, she said.