An Excerpt from the short story - Needles

It was his little secret. He loved dressing up in feminine attire. 

At these moments he felt most at ease, as if some invisible shackles had been lifted off him. How he hated those dull shirts, tees and jeans he was expected to wear all the time as a teenage boy. 

Why couldn’t he just flaunt some beautiful odhnas or twirl in flowing skirts instead?

He carefully kept this quirk of his hidden from his parents - who pretended to be very modern, but had mindsets of the last century. They couldn’t tolerate any aberration in conventional behaviour - Akhil was quite aware of this. The way they reacted on hearing about inter-caste marriages and live-in relationships revealed their narrow thinking.

And his mother! Long back, in Kanpur, when Akhil was barely seven, she had caught him practicing some moves of a Mohiniyattam dancer he had seen on TV. He was copying the danseuse, shyly practicing some of her hand and eye movements.

Mrs. Srivastava had seen red and created a massive scene of sorts. Her son, imitating a dancer, that too a Mohiniattam dancer? Wasn’t that a feminine dance form?

What a shameful thing! How could he! He was a male after all, a coveted male child she had after aborting three pregnancies.

She brought the house down, warned Akhil and started keeping her son under close vigil. Every move of his was monitored by her, and like a hawk she observed whether he was repeating his earlier behaviour.

To ensure he didn’t, she kept him busy with riding classes, cricket practice, swimming, etc. At school, his teacher was told to not encourage his participation in any creative activities like singing or dancing. Painting was fine, but not beyond that.

It took a few years for Akhil to realize that his mother was behind his being excluded from performing arts events at school, particularly in inter-departmental dance and dance-drama competitions.

Akhil’s closest friends were Ritu, Shelly and Bhawna who knew of his preferences. They shared their girlie talk with him, and made him feel one of them. He could be himself, share his aspirations of becoming a dancer with his gang of girl-friends. They didn’t judge him for his fascination for girlie clothes, his experiments with his mother’s make-up products, or his desire to trim his brows and wax his arms. In fact, they also shared make-up tips with him!

How he loved these girls. He carefully put away his mother’s saris and make-up before the party was over. Sneaking back to his room, he put on loud music and had the burger and pizza they had ordered for him.

One afternoon however, all hell broke loose in the Srivastava household. 

Read the whole story in my book -  Fragrance of Dried Flowers

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