{"id":302,"date":"2016-04-11T22:08:01","date_gmt":"2016-04-11T22:08:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/13.201.39.237\/?p=302"},"modified":"2016-04-11T22:08:01","modified_gmt":"2016-04-11T22:08:01","slug":"how-the-middle-class-makes-love","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/13.207.105.184\/?p=302","title":{"rendered":"How The Middle-Class Makes Love"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I\u2019<\/span><\/p><\/div>

m standing in the buffet line at the wedding of a friend\u2019s brother, waiting for the chance to show Rogan Josh who\u2019s boss, while simultaneously trying not to die because of the 1,000-yard stare from the server attached to the spoon. My Oliver Twist-esque plea, \u201cboss aur ek piece dena\u201d, is met with a sharp glare and a piece of mutton the size of a baby\u2019s pinky begrudgingly shovelled into my plate. Behind me, four of the groom\u2019s friends, who had been drinking whisky-Pepsi out of a 600 ml PET bottle, and doing a piss poor job of hiding the fact, talk in hushed tones, while looking at the chicken tikka masala as if it were displaying some wanton, attention-grabbing cleavage.\n\nTonight\u2019s topic for debate on \u201cFour Buzzed Guys at a Buffet\u201d is the impending consummation of tonight\u2019s marriage, with bonus commentary about the groom\u2019s sexual proclivities. Friend number one starts off with a monologue about how sex is the only good thing that comes out of marriage; friend number two chips in with sage advice about love and sex; number three, the most verbose of the quartet, makes an observation about the heights of the bride and the groom, and goes on to pitch in about the logistics of the act.\n\nWhat I do pay rapt attention to, though, is number four, and his speech about how passions are extinguished when you live in a 10×12 pigeonhole with five other people. The very thought that bumping uglies with your spouse is sure to be heard by everyone, including your neighbours, is enough to send your libido on a one way trip to Nevereverland. Number four\u2019s got a point; the walls of a chawl are as thin as paper and the idea of parents sniggering to a mid-coital chorus of \u201cah\u201d, \u201coh\u201d and \u201cjust like that\u201d, is enough to put you off sex forever.\n\nWith half of Maharashtra now officially living in one-room homes (that\u2019s over 9.5 million humping and heaving bodies), life in a cramped 100 sq ft space with up to 7 other people squished up against each other has been fairly well documented. But the question few have asked is, \u201cHow does this burgeoning middle-class make love?\u201d\n

***<\/p>\nThe middle-class is a confusing one. The very mention of the word \u201csex\u201d is treated with contempt, yet here we all are. How? Did a stork drop us off in a rickshaw? Were we picked up from a babywallah after haggling about the cost to weight ratio of a babbling baby? No, it\u2019s because we did the dance with no pants \u2013 several times over.\n

The newlywed\u2019s family, far kinder than Mrs Middleclassaunty, spares themselves the audio entertainment and leaves you to your devices on the weekends.<\/p><\/blockquote>\nI\u2019ve lived in chawls all my life, and frankly, there\u2019s nowhere else I\u2019d rather live. There\u2019s something about the bonhomie that is born when so many bodies huddle in such close proximity. Most homes in chawls come with a loft colloquially called a \u201cmala\u201d, a sort of crawl space measuring 10 feet by 6 feet. Whenever wedding bells ring, one of the first things to happen, sometimes even before the dowry is decided and menu is planned, is that this storage space gets a makeover \u2013 a fresh coat of paint, a new mattress and the all-important curtain for added privacy. Think of it as a sort of cubbyhole where the newlyweds can gain a modicum of privacy and cum in peace, away from prying eyes.\n\nBut there\u2019s a catch. Curtains aren\u2019t always soundproof, and the wooden boards that make up the floor of the loft, often creak. The family politely pretends nothing is happening, but your neighbour, Mrs Middleclassaunty, who appears to be tuned in to her daily soaps, suddenly develops a superhuman sense of hearing. You know you have an audience but you still go ahead with all five minutes of the act. (Foreplay, just like a commode, is not a luxury you can afford.) The walk of shame after the deed is something that\u2019d make Cersei Lannister\u2019s iconic walk through Westeros look like an episode of Dora The Explorer.\n\nWhen Mrs Middleclassaunty bumps into you in the common passageway, she looks into the depths of your soul with a look that says, \u201cI know what you did. Bummer it didn\u2019t last too long. Hope you enjoyed yourself.\u201d Meanwhile your neighbour two houses down, Mr Taxidriver, shoots you a look of encouragement that says, \u201cBuck up and slow down next time.\u201d You hear his advice, keep your head down and continue walking.\n\nThe newlywed\u2019s family, far kinder than Mrs Middleclassaunty, spares themselves the audio entertainment and leaves you to your devices on the weekends. Since the husband, whose occupation is almost always listed as \u201cservice\u201d, has weekends off, the two days are respectfully reserved for couple time. The family makes itself scarce, often on the pretext of visiting relatives, to provide our newlywed jodi some relative privacy for the day. This generosity tapers off in a few months and then you wind up heading to places with names that end in \u201cshwar\u201d or \u201cala\u201d, just to experience the feel of fresh sheets on your bare ass, and blow a considerable chunk of your wad in the process, only to return home two days later to your cubbyhole within a pigeonhole. This goes on until you finally have a kid or two and then, boom, it all ends anyway.\n\nI\u2019d like to end this piece by talking about myself; I\u2019ve told you how my neighbourhood fucks, but what about me? I belong to a growing breed of middle-class millenials who\u2019ve grown up in these spaces, but grown out of the prudishness they represent. Our families will certainly not turn their ears politely away, nor will they hand over the family bed for my weekend trysts. Which is why, most of the few times I\u2019ve managed to get laid, has always been at the other person’s place. I\u2019ve ditched the \u201cyour place or mine\u201d line altogether, for the more low-key plea, \u201ccan we go back to yours\u201d. I use it so much that I\u2019m thinking of adding it to my Tinder bio.\n\nOf course I do know that one day, I will succumb to parental pressure to bring home a bahu for my maa. When that happens, what happens to me? Would I have to sound proof my home? Would I need to rent a room at a seedy hotel? None of the above, I\u2019m hoping. The future hopefully holds a proper flat with my name on it; one with a separate bedroom and thicker walls, so Mrs Middleclassaunty won\u2019t be able to hear my climactic incantations and have to die without knowing how long I last in bed.\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Over 9.5 million humping and heaving bodies officially live in one-room homes with paper-thin walls, and sniggering aunties. This makes sex pretty awkward to say the least.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":303,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[62,63,64,65,66,67,521,522,408,71,72],"class_list":["post-302","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-love-and-sex","tag-arre","tag-arre-digital-platform","tag-arre-originals","tag-arre-reads","tag-arre-text-articles","tag-arre-website","tag-making-love","tag-middle-class-india","tag-sex","tag-web-series","tag-web-shows"],"yoast_head":"\nHow The Middle-Class Makes Love<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Over 9.5 million humping and heaving bodies officially live in one-room homes with paper-thin walls, and sniggering aunties. This makes sex pretty awkward to say the least.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"http:\/\/13.201.39.237\/?p=302\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"How The Middle-Class Makes Love\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Over 9.5 million humping and heaving bodies officially live in one-room homes with paper-thin walls, and sniggering aunties. 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