On a rainy night: a Tamil gay sex story!

Where are you going?

    To the Rockfort Temple.

Great. I will tell you where to get down.

    Thanks :)

So where are you from?

    Pune.

Hmm. You must also see the Shri Ranganathswamy Temple Gopuram...it's the tallest in Asia.

    Yes I already saw that. It's great...

Already?

    Yes I am staying in Srirangam and saw it in the morning.

Great! Even I live there. Where are you staying?

    Yatri Nivas.

Ah! I know that place...its a new one I think.

    Yes its quite new and good. Since you are from Srirangam, can you recommend me some different places to see. Some interesting things to do apart from the temples? I have already seen many temples there...

(The bus stops and it's time to get down for me)

    See you later :)

Oh ok. Bye...

(I start my walk to the temple and while I am mid-way I get a call on my phone)

Hi...this is Mahesh (name changed)! We just met in the bus. Since we couldn't finish our conversation in the bus, I called up Yatri Nivas and requested them to give me your name and number. I told them my friend is a good friend of this guy who has a pony tail and carries a backpack. After initial hesitation, they finally gave me you number.

    Really?

Yes! I convinced them. I am actually a classical dancer and singer. I hope you don't mind that I called. Since you said you wanted to do something interesting, I thought I would call you.

     Hey great! Thanks man...

So what do you think?

    Huh?

Since you are from Pune, I think you know what I mean.

    (I think for a second)

    You want to smoke up?

No.

    Oh. Then what?

Do you want to have some fun?

    (silence from my side)

What do you think?

    What do you mean?

I think you know what I mean?

    No.

Hmmm.

     (silence from my side)

Do you want to have gay sex with me?

    (silence from my side, I was a quite surprised and didn't at all know how to even respond to this)

Do you?

    Sorry Mahesh. I think you got me wrong. I don't want that.

But you said you wanted to do something interesting.

    Oh. I didn't mean man at all!! No no no...Let me call you back they are checking my ticket (I had no intention of doing that).

(Once I was on top of the rock the view as simply stunning and I sat down on the steps. I thought again about what just happened. It had never happened to me before and I guess I handled it pretty badly. Also, I thought it might actually be interesting to interview a male classical dancer in Srirangam. He also spoke good English, which was rare. I called him back.)

     Hey.

Ah! So you changed your mind?

    No I didn't. I don't want that but I would like to interview you for a project (and I tell him in detail about #TellMeYourDream2015).

Ok. Let's meet right now somewhere and discuss this.

    Let's meet tomorrow as the light would be better (I was apprehensive about meeting his after dark - the judgmental me)

Hmmm. But are you sure you don't want to try something with me? Since you are a traveler it would also relax your a lot. It's also a part of Yoga. People in Kerala do it all the time with massage.

    Oh! Really?

Yes. You must try it out with me. It will be good.

    No I don't want.

Are you sure? Really?

    (I was getting pissed now. This was going nowhere and I had even lost interest in interviewing him by now)

    Bye Mahesh. Gotta go now. Your take care.

So you don't want to meet me and have some fun?

    Nope. I do not want. I respect your preferences, please respect mine.

It's no big deal man.

    I have to go now. Bye.

(I was royally pissed now, more so with the hotel for giving my name and number. I have anyways been a fan of talking to strangers and should have been prepared for such things as well, but I realised I wasn't. In any case, it was raining heavily now and so I decided to stay back in the city and have a cup of coffee and take some more pictures.

It was getting dark and I walked in rain to the Chatram bus stand in Trichy. Around 8pm I got down at Srirangam near the temple. It was still raining so I decided to walk into a small cafe to escape the rain and enjoy my favorite drink. As I sat down after ordering and looked at my phone, I heard someone call out to me.)

Ah! I see you here again...destiny wanted us to meet once more :)

    Oh..it's you Mahesh!

Yes, I just saw you get down from the bus and enter this cafe so thought of coming here to say hello.

    Well, hello then.

Can I join you?

    Ok. What would you like to have?

Milk.

    (I order milk for him)

See Siddhartha, I really wanted to meet and tell you about how amazing you were. And what a great job you are doing with your project and interviews. You are such a nice man.

    Hmmm.

I didn't want to disturb you but then thought of meeting you one last time. 

(He followed by telling me his long life story and about the challenges he faced over the next 30 minutes. He even told me about how he got confused when I said 'I want to do something interesting' - to him it meant only one thing. Apart from that he also believed that it was all quite common in Pune. I was quite bugged by this ambush so hardly asked him any questions, which the wannabe journalist in me regretted later.

He actually paid the bill quickly and while I argued with the cafe owner, he disappeared. 

It stopped raining after a while and I took off to my Hotel - Yatri Nivas. It was about 2.5km away and still drizzling but I decided to walk after asking the cafe owner if it was safe to do so. It was a long and dark walk, and I had to use my phone light to walk though much of the distance. Generally I would not think much about it, but on this walk I looked back twice to see if Mahesh was still somewhere behind (he already knew where I lived).

Anyway, I came back and lambasted the hotel staff for giving out my name and number to a stranger and all they asked me to do was block the number. Shaking my head I went back to the room and dozed off.)

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Stories of other men stalked for gay-sex!

Once I decided to write about it, I also thought it would be great to reach out to other male solo travelers and see if they have had similar experiences and surprisingly I got many replies, though not many were willing to share their story with the world. George did agree to share his similar experiences.

I have known George Koruth aka fotobaba, as a documentary photographer for a while now, especially through is pictures as he traveled across India and Asia. This is what he had to say.

"Being a solo traveler it's always easy to make your plans and move around as you wish but it also has weird problems too.

A train journey
First was when I was traveling in train and my seats were not confirmed in the AC and it was night time when I got inside the train, the ticket checker was doing his best to help us but three of us had no options and he said we will need to wait till someone vacates the seat. But we had to sleep somewhere so one among us found a seat at lower birth and he said let's sleep together and people who understand the size of train beds know how small it is, you can very picturize if two people want to be on that they will have to hug each other and maybe sleep on top of one. This guy really insisted me on sleeping with him and he said something completely strange while we were having a normal conversion "we will have a good time together".

I had to stress my NO louder and stronger so he understands my orientation and that this was not what fun meant to me. Then came another offer from a guy who supplied bed sheets, so he sleeps in a closed chamber which is really tiny and he was insisting I sleep with him, wonder why everyone was so keen to sleep with me that day? This friendly little guy who actually looked strange and he would always touch me while talking and anyway he found another partner for the night, a tall dark man, I'm not sure what happened in the chamber the feeling of sleeping in such close proximity makes feel uncomfortable.

Jaisalmer hotel
Second Incident was while I was in Jaisalmer, I was living in this huge hotel which was once a castle. Every day morning I would wake up early and go out in search of my stories and frames, so one day I decided to ask directions from a guy who sells colorful crafts just outside my hotels entrance. After that day's conversation, this guy would try to talk to me every day and would ask me questions like if I'm married, where was my girlfriend and if I'm traveling alone.

So I was getting pissed of with him and one day early morning I hear my room bell ringing, I opened the door only to find this man standing in front of me with smile, I couldn't believe, he then asked me if need any help? I was super irritated and I wanted to kick him, but I managed to remain calm and told him NO THANK YOU and just banged the door, but I was really angry with my hotel staff, that they allowed him to come to my room, when they knew I was traveling alone. I didn't get a reasonable answer from the reception so I eventually decided not to drag this further and spoil my month long journey across India. But I have weird feeling that this hotel knows him well and they make money out of him by supplying him to the needy.

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I met Achal Mishra, a budding videographer and photographer, through Instagram and we became friends though our pictures. He also had quite a story to share!

"This happened around July last year; I had just bought a new lens for my camera, and to put it to use I decided to go and shoot at Chandni Chowk

I took a metro till there and exiting the station, was met with a swarm of rickshaw-wallas who kept shouting, “bhaiya, Lal Qila?” or “bhaiya, Jama Masjid?” I shrugged them and kept walking when I noticed that one of the guys was following me, leering at me from the corner of his eyes. I felt uncomfortable; I was just a seventeen-year old kid only months out of school. I increased my pace, and so did that guy, now walking just behind me. He seemed to be murmuring something inaudible. I finally stopped and asked him why was he following me. He simply replied that he was going his way just as I was going mine. He then continue walking, while I decided to stand there and see.

He stopped after a dozen steps and hiding himself behind a pillar, continued staring at me. I decided to ignore him and continued walking on my way, but he again came back to follow me. I stopped, turned to him and asked why was he doing this. He said that I looked ‘smart’. I sensed something wrong. He then asked me where I lived and what I did, which I, of course, didn’t tell. He then said that I shouldn’t get angry on what he asks next and went on say: “Bhaiya, apna saaman chuswao ge? Maza aayega!”  (“Do you want your stuff sucked? It will be fun!”) I was dumbfounded, and equally creeped. I turned around and started walking faster, almost running. I turned to see if he was following me, only to find him waving at me and then giving out flying kisses. Clicking pictures was the last thing on my mind; I rushed back to the metro station and back home."

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Do you also have a story to tell of such not-so-unusual offers when traveling alone? Do share!