First Lesson

The streets of Chennai welcomed the springtime along with its scorching weather. It was that time for the celebration of Holi and hence  I did not let the hot weather bother me. As a south Indian brahmin girl, I was not accustomed to the Holi festival until I met the love of my life who was a north Indian. I know right? Although south Indians do not prefer North Indians around them and vice-versa, I do see a lot of love interest that transcends state and culture. Love does that to you. You start to believe in things that are uncommon. What I thought was a bizarre festival started to grow on me and now I wait every year for March.

I had a blast on Holi filling everyone’s heart with colours of love and happiness. The day ended with a liquor party at my friend’s house where my girlfriend tagged along. I wore a low-cut black kurta with grey faded jeans, Bali jhumka earring, black bindhi and a baby pink lipstick while my girl wore an orange and black English-checks shirt in which she looks super cute, a nose ring, hair tied to a high ponytail, black choker necklace and blue jeans. Jyoti initially did not wear the shirt but I nagged her until she gave in. Though, by the end of the day be it kurta or shirt, the colour of the dress did not matter as both of us look like rainbow models. This year’s holi was more exciting as we hired a DJ for the house party. The day was almost perfect except for the inappropriate touch during the celebration by one of my friends. We were not sure if he did it by accident as he was super drunk or he just went for it. He is a decent guy and never touched me inappropriately before. How strange, liquor makes you do things I guess. 

Since we knew we would be drunk till our throat that night, we did not take the vehicle and decided to walk our way home. Our home was a one-bedroom apartment  I and my girl rented after our parents kicked us out of their house for having the desire to marry a person of the same gender. I do love my parents but I think that was a shitty move and it tells how backward their thought is. What did they expect me to become? A virgin heterosexual engineering graduate preparing for IIT? I love it when I break stereotypes. Would they do the same if they had a boy and he turned out to be gay? I don’t think so. Our country did come forward for things such as LGBTQ+ rights, transgender rights, equality etc. However, bias based on male-female is still seen across the states. 

We held hands and walked along the footpath of the road on one of the most surprising chilly nights of the year with one scarf warming both of our necks. When we were a few metres away from our home three men came out of nowhere and stopped us. They started to tease us and tried to touch us. We felt bad, not for us but for the society that tells women to dress properly when they can’t tell their men to behave properly.

“Parvathy, you have it?”, asked my girlfriend.

“Yes, hon”, I replied as I reached in my purse and held out a pocket knife in one hand and a pepper spray in the other ready to engage with the bastards. 

The men started to mock me. I am very slim built yes, but I guess they are stupid if they come forward knowing I have pepper spray in my possession. And even if they are fast enough to disarm me, they have no chance against my behemoth girlfriend. Her legs would start to glide in the air with super-heavy taekwondo kicks which would knock out any normal person in an instant. One of the idiots leaned forward to touch me. The moment his hands were on my hips her knees rammed his head like the express train. The other two scaredy cats ran off when they saw their fellow man down in one shot. 

“We leave them now, tomorrow they will try the same against another girl who can’t defend herself”, said Jyoti.

“You want to finish them off here and now?”, I asked

“Yes, there is a police station in the direction those fools ran”

“Let’s get them”

We ran in their direction to teach them a lesson but unfortunately, those bastards were stopped by the police for questioning. We went and filed a complaint against them after which the policemen verified the situation and sent the bastards straight to jail after which we filed an FIR. We were on the way back and finally reached home when suddenly Jyoti sat on the pavement and said she started to feel dizzy.

“You okay?”

“I am not sure hon”

“Let’s take you to the doctor”

I shit my panties when I saw Jyoti fall to the ground. She is the most powerful girl I know mentally and physically. I was impatiently waiting outside the clinic aggressively smoking in distress. I was called by the sister who told me the good news. She was dizzy because our baby started to develop in her uterus. 

“So, the pregnancy is confirmed?”, I asked while my eyes welled with tears. 

Jyoti and I decided to have a baby a few months back through artificial insemination. After many failed attempts it finally happened. We got to know it was a baby boy after a few months. Although we initially wanted a girl, we were still happy and we both knew the first lesson we were going to teach our baby boy.