I had that first encounter and many subsequent encounters in mind as I rummaged through my wardrobe to find the right clothes to wear for my run on that beautiful day six months after we had moved to the tiny cow belt town. I finally chose a loose t-shirt and long, not a figure hugging one. The t-shirt was long enough to go down to mid-thigh and cover my butt. And I chose loose full length track pants instead of the shorts I would wear in Bombay. I also chose my most secure and heavily built sports bra. Being a woman with big boobs, wearing a sports bra is a must while running. It minimized the swinging and jiggling and made things easier on my back. But I knew that being as well-stacked as I was, gravity would still do its bit.
As I slipped off my regular bra to change into the sports bra, I looked at my big swaying boobs in the mirror. I had always had a complicated love-hate relationship with my big boobs. Having developed them earlier than my peers, initially I liked the attention I got from boys in my school. But when I started getting attention from creepy men on the street, I started hating them. Very soon in school, I became known as the one with the biggest boobs, and it seemed like no matter how hard I studied, how good I did in exams, and whatever I did in the sports and extracurricular domain, I was always considered the big boobed one first before anything else. Being taller than average at 5 ft 8, I was also very active in sports (I ran long distance, played basketball and volleyball), and the big boobs also started causing occasional back ache. I started actively hating my boobs and envying girls who had small or normal boobs.
As I graduated school and moved to engineering college, I grew up emotionally as well. I read feminist literature, interacted with open-minded folks and generally experienced a broadening of horizons. I also started exploring my sexuality in college, dating guys, and relishing how smitten they seemed with these big blobs of fat hanging from my chest. I still remember that when I lost my virginity to the age of 19 to a 4th year student, he kept biting my nipples the entire time he was fucking me. That dalliance didn't last long. I dated another guy. At this point, my big boobs, in addition to my active dating life, gave me a reputation as a slut in the college. But I didn't care. I did well in academics, and had a good career lined up.
My parents were never super-conservative, but nor were they super-liberal. They gave me enough space during my college years, and were polite to a couple of my boyfriends. But at the age of 25, when I had been working in IT for 3 years after college and had gone through 4 serious boyfriends, each relationship ending in a messy break-up, my dad got upset. He sat me down one day in our balcony overlooking the Worli sea-face and said to me,
"Sheetal, I love you and I have never treated you any differently than your brother. You are intelligent, ambitious, accomplished, and have a great future ahead of you."
"Thanks dad." I said, knowing that there would be more.
"But...what is happening with your personal life? You know I am not some old fuddy-duddy who wants you to have an arranged marriage within our caste. I know we live in the 21st century. If you find a guy on your own, I will be happy to bless the union. And I have been very nice to all your boyfriends, haven't I?" he thundered.
"Yes, dad." I meekly responded.
"You just keep picking.....forgive my language....one asshole after another!"
"I am sorry dad." I said, tearing up. Dad was a complicated creature. He usually left us alone but when he spoke up, it was with this kind of irresistible intensity.
"So Sheetal...you are 25. You have a good job. Great prospects. Do you want to keep trying to date guys like you have so far? Or do you want to find the right guy and settle down?" he softened his voice a little bit. "You are my darling girl, Sheetal. If you want to play the field for a while longer, go ahead."
"No dad." I said, sticking to the practical values he had imposed in me. "I want to find the right guy and settle down."
And I was serious. It had never been my intention to be some sex-crazy harlot sleeping around. With each relationship, I had hoped to end up with Mr Right. It just had not gone well.
"Hmmm..." dad said, nodding. "You remember Vinay?"
"Yes." I said. I had known Vinay since childhood. He was the son of a family friend from Kanpur, about 5 years older than me. A very nice guy, very smart, accomplished. Had studied accountancy, done an MBA, and now worked in the banking sector. In my teen years, I even had a bit of a crush on him, but he was 5 years older and lived in Kanpur, so nothing could really happen.
"He also went through a bad break-up recently. His parents are also looking to find someone for him. And his dad asked me about you."
"Oh." I said, suddenly finding myself in the unfamiliar arranged marriage scenario.
"Sheetal, you know I am not old-fashioned. I am just saying.....met him for coffee....think of it as a date. If you don't like him, you don't like him. If you like him, just.....think about it."
"Okay, dad." I nodded.
Well, you obviously know that I ended up marrying Vinay. He ticked all the required boxes. He was charming. He was stable. He was smart. He was caring. Things proceeded really fast and we were married within 4 months of our first arranged date.
He worked with a multinational bank. I worked in IT. After we got married, our parents pooled together funds to buy us a 3 bedroom flat on the Worli Seaface. And our married life started. It was mostly pleasant and nice. Vinay was at his core a nice guy. But it always sort of bothered me that he had never really swept me off my feet.
A couple of years into our marriage, things were going well. Vinay and I were building our lives together in our nice Worli flat. We were both in very demanding jobs so we didn't get to spend too much time together, even on weekends. But we were generally happy with each other. And eventually fell in love. We had a good life together. We ate at great restaurants, watched nice movies, hung out with a lot of friends. I had taken up long distance running to stay in shape while he played squash. It was a great privileged South Bombay life.
The sex was not bad. At least for me. Vinay didn't quite match up to some of my virile and aggressive past lovers, but he knew his way around a female body. He did all the right things, and did them well, including cunnilingus, and I was mostly satisfied. But he wasn't very imaginative or aggressive. In a way, it was nice and showed how much he respected my tastes. He never pushed me out of my comfort zone. But at the same time, maybe I always had a submissive side that was starved during that marriage. And that's what led to all those complications later on.
Anyway, things at Vinay's company took a turn for the worse. They got caught up in a regulatory scandal and the bank's global bosses announced that they would be shutting down their India operations. Although Vinay wasn't personally involved in the mess, just having that company on his resume was a problem. Once his company shut down, he started looking for jobs. There were many interviews that ended with no offer.
Finally when he did get an offer, it was from an Indian bank. It wanted him as a manager. But it first wanted him to spend some time building up one of its "upcountry" branches. Which meant that he would have to spend 1-2 years in some tiny town proving himself as a branch manager before he could be promoted to a position in Bombay.
And that, is why we were in that tiny cow belt town. Vinay was a branch manager setting up and expanding the bank's operations in that region. Given the taint of his former company, he did not have a choice. And given that I loved my husband and wanted to be with him, I did not have a choice but to move with him to the boondocks.
So I gave up my lifelong South Bombay lifestyle, took a sabbatical from my company with the understanding that I could still do some work remotely, and we moved to this tiny and bizarre cowbelt town which seemed straight out of a Prakash Jha movie.
I stopped fondling my own tits and finally pulled the sports bra over my neck and fit it over my ample bosom. I wore the loose long t-shirt over it. And then slipped on the trackpants. Then I put on my running shoes, and with the keys inside my socks, I stepped out of the house for my first outdoor run since moving out of Bombay.
I really hoped I wouldn't run into Sarita again. Over the last few months, her perpetual presence outside had gone from endearing to infuriating. Luckily, she wasn't there. I stepped out the door and locked it, placed the key under a flower pot, and then took a few long strides to the gate. I was dressed in a loose t-shirt and track-pants, intending to run on trails in the countryside along our neighborhood.
I held my phone tightly in my hands and started walking. I knew that when I passed the nukkad guys, they would have something or the other to say about me. They had become quite a nuisance by themselves since that first time I walked past them six months ago. They had also become, in my own mind, a source of some quasi-sadistic entertainment, I was a little too sure of my position in the society of that little town. I was the wife of the guy who was the manager of the biggest bank setting up a a branch in the town. What he was doing was crucial to the economic future of the town. Which I thought indicated that my well-being was crucial to the economic future of the town.
I convinced myself that as long as I dressed demurely enough, they would not dare cross the line. And I was dressed as demurely as possible, in a loose long t-shirt and track pants. Yes, I was going running by myself, something no "decent" women in the town ever did. But still, I had worn enough signals to indicate that the guys should leave me alone. I was not wearing a cleavage-exposing tank top and thigh-revealing shorts like I would in Bombay. I was dressed in a garb that would cover most of my skin.
As I walked up the street, occasionally stretching my thigh muscles and my shin muscles, I soon approached the "nukkad" where the guys usually stood. I was a bit relieved to see that there weren't as many men there as usual. Usually, there would be 10 or so guys lounging around the tea stall. As I made my way up the street, I saw only 4 guys. Relieved, I exhaled loudly, thinking I had caught a big break. I slowly strolled towards them.
As I passed the tea stall, I could see that the thugs were a bit confused by my garb. For a change, there were no cat calls. At least not right away. I walked past them basking in the pleasant but unfamiliar glow of their confused looks. They were confused because I was so fully covered up.
And they were also confused because in recent months, I had not been so fully covered up. And this is where, dear reader, I must confess my partial culpability in what followed next. Here's the story.
That first time I told you about, when I walked past them dressed in what I considered a simple and decent outfit - capri pants and a t-shirt, they heckled me. I was pissed off but also a little flattered. I had been dressed in a garb that in Bombay would have elicited no responses. Sure, my shins and calves were showing and the t-shirt I was wearing was tight. But so what? It was nothing extraordinary in Bombay where occasional street louts were used to seeing women running past in way skimpier clothing. And yet here, in the cow belt, I was catcalled as if I were dressed like a whore.
That, honestly, intrigued me a little bit. In normal circumstances, I would not have given it a second thought. I would have been too busy thinking about work stuff. But in that small town, relegated to just looking after my husband, I had no work stuff to deal with, In previous years, there was always a deadline hanging over my head. Not this time. Not yet. My boss had promised to send me some stuff to work on but it had not come in yet. I tried to keep myself busy with cooking and cleaning, but those chores got done really fast. So I was literally a bored housewife trying to find ways to spend time.
Although the catcalls from that first experience had disturbed the demure self-respecting side of my personality, they had also stoked the attention-seeking side of my personality. Since my teens, I was used to being showered with attention by males. I knew I was good looking, had a nice face and a great figure, and almost expected to be propositioned. Since my marriage to Vinay however, things had changed significantly. The guys at work knew I was now married so most of them did not try to go after me. Even on the streets, maybe I exuded a sense of my married identity - maybe it was the mangalsutra I usually wore. But even the occasional catcalls and propositions in Bombay had gotten rare.
So the nukkad guys taking such interest in me fed the attention-starved side of me. It also made me feel kinda powerful. Finally, after a short break, I again had the power to make a group of guys act like cavemen. They were expressing their desire for me in the most primal way possible. I was disgusted because of who I was (a married woman) and who they were (a bunch of savages), but I was also flattered by the attention.
After that first experience, I was a little spooked. But then, as a couple of weeks rolled by, I started thinking about that experience. How they had all stared at me and made me the center of their existence. It was a bit exhilarating, thinking about all those young virile men desiring me. A part of me was disgusted by their lewd behavior. But a part of me was also intrigued. My sentiments were motivated by the fact that things between me and Vinay were tepid in the bedroom. He was so busy with his new assignment of setting up and running the new branch that he mostly worked 14 hours a day. And I, living in that tiny podunk town, had nothing much to do. I would spend the day hoping he would come home and fuck me hard, but most days, he would come home exhausted and go to bed,
Maybe that's why, a couple of weeks after we moved in, I found myself dressed in a figure-hugging t-shirt and a pleated knee-length skirt. The best part of the skirt was that it hugged my ass really snugly, accentuating it for anyone watching. And the nukkad guys were definitely watching. When I walked past them, they whistled like crazy. I felt a little belittled, but mostly, I felt delighted by the attention. Although my husband didn't get aroused himself most nights to bang me, these young guys found me attractive, It fed my ego.
I walked past them, clad in my tight t-shirt and my knee length skirt. There were about 9 of them that day. They stared at my chest and and my half-bare legs alternating. It felt nice, I will be honest. All these virile horny men gawking at my shins. It felt oddly empowering. Eventually one of them started singing,
"Tu cheez badi hai mast mast...."
(You look like an intoxicated object(