When my North Kolkata upbringing met America’s sexual liberation

I'm sitting on the shore of Lake Michigan feeling sad

Well before Mukti arrived in America, certain events had begun to unfold in my life as a student in the country. Events which I must talk about if I don’t wish to burden myself with guilt.

I had written to her about it then. But now, I’m using these memoirs to tell the rest of the world.

Why tell anyone? What harm would it do not to tell? After all, nobody will know unless I write about it. But I must. Because one, the purpose of these memoirs is to let everyone back home know what life in America is truly like. As well as to provide them an insight into how a country like America has allowed its younger generations complete freedom in the matter of something like sex – which is rarely the subject of serious discussion in our country or society. The result is that our young girls and boys grow up with only very foggy ideas of sex, which makes them vulnerable to misinformation, perversions, and even illnesses. 

Somehow, I too knew that all this wasn’t for me. I don’t enjoy explicit sex. I don’t like the commodification of the female body in full public view. I never have. Growing up in the narrow bylanes of North Kolkata, I had never come across anything close to sex education, which America offered. So there was a wall within my mind.

And two, this is also to use my life as an example to show everyone how the freedom that America offers can hit us victims of antediluvian, ridiculously old fashioned upbringings like a storm, and how great the shock can be if the mind is unprepared. No education can be either imparted or accepted without preparation. The effects can be so long-term that the shock may even destroy the rest of your life.

The experience of my early days in America will also perhaps provide some perspective on the sudden storms of modernism sweeping across India and Bengal, raising aspirations and wreaking havoc. And if I wish to write openly about my experience, I must necessarily be open about such issues as nudity, kissing, and sex. 

Braden Auditorium inside the luxurious Bone Student Center

Kissing was ubiquitous. At the roadside cafeteria where I washed dishes for a little extra income, a last kiss in the hallway before a couple entered their classes, an occasional kiss lying in the sun on the green grass in front of the dorm on an August afternoon, a kiss while dancing to deafening rock music in the semi-darkness of a Saturday midnight party. Lesbian girlfriends seeking relative solitude before exchanging a kiss. 

Kissing on the mouth was distinct from a light peck on the cheek – the kind I received from some of my favourite women students as they departed after a study session, almost like a thank you handshake. The deeper kisses from women friends like Sara, Catherine, Felicia, who were looking for more intimacy. I never knew how to respond to them, because I had never learned. 

The result was a sense of great confusion. And all of this was happening during that first year in America. 

Two fierce storms hit one after another - leaving me floundering like a shipwrecked passenger. The Student Recreation Club of Illinois State University organised a couple of film screenings at the Bone Student Center, where a student ID card granted free entry. My friends at the time came from India, Sri Lanka, the Caribbean and America. Needless to add, almost all were single, with me the odd man out. 

So one Saturday, Mohan, Bharat, Edgar and the others collected me and we went off to watch ‘Emmanuelle’, a sexually explicit soft porn French film shot in Thailand, starring the beautiful, sensuous Dutch actress Sylvia Kristel, who I had never heard of. Neither had I any idea of how far nudity and free sex had progressed in the so called liberalised capitalist markets. 

Charming Dutch actress Sylvia Kristel

North Kolkata boys like me, victims of a colonial education system which did nothing to dispel the mists surrounding sexuality, had barely got rid of the hangover of an immensely complicated, confused puberty. Which is why this very ordinary event – a film screening at a university campus on a Saturday evening at the other end of the world – came as a severe jolt to me. But the jolt was invisible, its touch and feel perceived rather than felt. The modern world has wrapped and transformed all social values in its cloak of modernity. But we hadn’t realised it. So we couldn’t even fathom whether this liberated sexuality was good or bad.

But I did realise one thing.

At the house on 302 Kingsley, the house belonging to Mrs Harrison, over a Sunday breakfast of toast, strawberry jelly and boiled eggs, Edgar smiled his trademark slight smile and asked, “So Partha, how was the movie yesterday?”

I answered, “Did you notice the way Sylvia Kristel cut off her jeans from the thighs onwards? And her bare upper body near the river? Where a group of Buddhist monks were walking along the other side? Not just using a woman’s body as an object!”

Edgar: “Really? You think so?”

By now, I had spent six months in America. My American English was making rapid strides. Arranging my own breakfast of roti, dal, and egg curry, I looked at Edgar and said, “I know so.”

Edgar grinned slightly again. For him, as for the new generation of Americans, these things were routine. Not to me.

But this wasn’t all. About a month later came another shocking ‘recreation’ at the swanky student centre. Carol, our 40-something colleague at Liberta’s lab, and her boyfriend, the departmental gardener Don told me there was to be a screening of the hardcore porn film ‘Debbie Does Dallas’. Tickets were selling out fast. 

Why tell anyone? What harm would it do not to tell? After all, nobody will know unless I write about it. But I must. Because one, the purpose of these memoirs is to let everyone back home know what life in America is truly like. As well as to provide them an insight into how a country like America has allowed its younger generations complete freedom in the matter of something like sex – which is rarely the subject of serious discussion in our country or society.

As a smart alec student of Scottish Church School back home, I had heard of the term ‘XXX’ from friends. From American ‘literary’ works in black and white. But now, I was face to face with hard reality, an entire film. A lower middle class boy deprived of sex education, living alone. I did not have the mental strength to refuse to watch. 

The sharp sting of loneliness, the huge vacuum in my sex life. 

I hadn’t even imagined that this was hardcore porn. Back from the screening, my body started to tremble. As though I had committed some unforgivable sin. 

So I wrote to Mukti. Receiving my letter about 10-15 days later, she called me immediately. The educated girl from an educated family that she was, she was not in the least angry. All she told me was, “Don’t watch all this. It messes up one’s focus in life.”

With American and Indian friends at Mrs. Harrison's house.Also Ababa of Ethiopia

Somehow, I too knew that all this wasn’t for me. I don’t enjoy explicit sex. I don’t like the commodification of the female body in full public view. I never have. Growing up in the narrow bylanes of North Kolkata, I had never come across anything close to sex education, which America offered. So there was a wall within my mind. Let the rich kids like Edgar, Bharat, Mohan and Narendra do what they want. I did not enjoy such company. 

But our home at 302, Kingsley was often witness to late-night riotousness. Not just because of Bharat’s girlfriends, but also because the four or five boys would jointly rent blue film video cassettes. 

By then, Soumitra and I had obtained special permission from Mrs Harrison to put locks on our doors. 

I knew this kind of entertainment was like a terrible addiction. Once you fell victim to it, there was no escape. 

(To be continued)

Translated from Bengali by: Yajnaseni Chakraborty

We are happy to present ‘Mericamaya Satkahan’, a weekly column by renowned human rights activist Dr Partha Bandyopadhyay, every Monday on GetB