When parents are cool about your sex life

In one scene in the newly released Piku, Deepika Padukone's character, after whom the film is named, invites her colleague Syed over for sex. This happens in her room in a house which she shares with her father, Bhaskor Banerjee, played by Amitabh Bachchan. On the night we are talking about, Bachchan gets drunk way too much and when Piku wakes up in the morning, she is confronted with the fact that her father is sinking.

Their relationship reminded me of the one between a guy and his father whom I met in Bombay when I was living in that city a few years ago. I was meeting this guy for sex, and in my experience, when I get to someone's place, they either live alone or are alone for the duration of my visit. This is what is known as "Have place?" - a ubiquitous question among homosexuals when they are preparing to hook up.

This guy's father was at home when I reached, and as I learnt subsequently, he knew I had come over for sex. He was a frail old man - the guy's mother was long dead - and incredibly, he too suffered from some bowel problems. There was a chair with a pot-shaped hole like the one Bhaskor Banerjee uses in Piku, placed in the Indian-style toilet, a contraption that made the bathroom look like some exotic place.

When I discussed his father's presence with the guy I was hooking up with, he said he was out to his dad, and his dad, like Banerjee in Piku, understood that he needed to take care of his physical needs. I found this a remarkably open-minded assertion. I, who live with my parents, cannot imagine getting someone to my room for sex. It just does not ring right to me. I am sure if my parents encouraged me to - a possibility I don't foresee discussing with them - I might think about it. But anyhow, it just seems weird, making out when they are in the other room.

I had the same issues with sleeping with the guy in Bombay and only after the father had gone to bed, did we proceed to some hush-hush lovemaking. It was a strangely exciting experience for me, as if I were doing something wrong but wanted to do it so badly. When I got up in the morning, the guy was still asleep, but the dad was up and about. I put on my clothes, drank some water, and told him I was leaving. He looked at me with a beatific smile. I could not help thinking of him as some sort of saint who had come to some grand realisation in the course of life. "Do come again," he said, and I was at a loss for words. I kept thinking back to the heat of the moment his son and I had shared the previous night.

Bhaskor Banerjee does not want Piku to get married. In one scene, he accosts a man she is talking to at a party and tells him his daughter is not a virgin. He seems entirely at home with the idea that his daughter has casual flings which satisfy her physical needs. He does not believe in marriage and thinks it is a lifetime sentence for a woman, especially. But he is not just a man of words. The fact that he sleeps in the next room as his daughter hosts the occasional sex session says much about how mature and open-minded he is.

I never met the Bombay guy again. I was in that city only for a few more months after my meeting with him and once I left Bombay I lost touch with him. In fact, I don't remember his face very well now. What I do remember clearly is his father's face - a man who looked old beyond his years. I have often wondered if his son's coming out and his wife's death were difficult events for him. I have no way of knowing, but if his smile and "Do come again" are any indication, he seems to have made peace with his life, even perhaps welcoming it for what it is.