And Then One Day: A Memoir

by Naseeruddin Shah

My whiskers had by now sprouted fully, as had my libido; and in Class 10, now that Baba was not around any more, I grew a beard, something I had been dying to do. He had always disapproved of the idea, probably fearing it proclaimed a Muslim identity. Being able at last to see the ‘adult’ Gina Lollobrigida or Marilyn Monroe films did little to calm the raging need males of that age—or of any age—feel for female companionship. Those were the days before prudery became fashionable and much before the moral police had begun flexing their biceps in India. Playboy magazine could be found in bookstores, nestling between copies of the Illustrated Weekly of India and Woman & Home. While browsing in the only bookshop in town, Rampersad’s, located under a giant tree and wedged between two shops, one of which belonged to Girish T’s dad, I discovered a weird Scandinavian publication, Health and Efficiency, with a feast of pictures in it of nudists of all ages frolicking in their colonies. I couldn’t have enough of it, fantasizing about naked women all the time but in the dark, so to say. I had no idea what one actually DID when in the act of sex. Though ignorant of masturbation, I knowingly bandied the term about when others did; it was assumed everyone knew what was implied when ‘five finger exercise’ was discussed, which was often, and I would play along. The inevitable fallout (no pun) of this ceaseless stimulation was wet dreams, which despite being kind of delicious puzzled me no...