1. Dirty Nights: The Storyteller

Chapter One
The storyteller makes a party. The storyteller breaks a party. Without the storyteller, there is no bloody party.

There are all types of parties that you attend in any given year. There are club openings with orange strips around your wrist for all-night-free-booze (only Indian Made Liquor please). There are book readings followed by cheap wine with bad cheese. There are parties around festivals and the after-fashion-show parties and the let’s-get-drunk-for-no-reason parties (my place, you get the booze type). Then you have the Delhi blacks and Delhi white parties… Funny there are no Delhi browns given that research says Indian women prefer all shades of brown for their lipsticks and majority people in Delhi ARE brown.

However, MOST parties can safely be categorised into two slots: Boring and Interesting. I am not going to write about the boring parties (who cares?).

The interesting parties are the ones that have stories unfolding. Sometimes people share life stories. Some people enact the stories, facial expression, hand movements and pelvic thrusts included. Other people just tell stories. Some stories are very good. Sometimes you see a story unfolding even as another is being told…

Sometimes, the story might not be that good but you enjoy the way the chick bends forward at the Most Important Moments and all eyes – gender irrespective – go down to her breasts as the neckline plunges further. You notice that her breasts are double-shaded: tanned and hitherto untouched by the sun; tungsten and UV lights do not tan.

The other women watching the bending-story-teller will lick their lips. Men will gawk. Those with girlfriends/wives present will quickly raise their glasses for a sip and look from behind the rim. Some glasses will magnify the twin-shaded breasts; some also magnify the eyes. The said girlfriends/wives – who usually know their man is doing the sip-and-see – will use their peripheral vision to see if their man is checking out the breasts.

Most of these women will then feel very sick about the men they are dating. Some will suddenly sit straighter and surreptitiously try and pull down their dresses. Others will cross their arms right under their breasts to push their twins up. The lacks-in-subtlety ones will repeat the storyteller’s moves and lean forward, rest their elbows on their knees and look the picture of interest.

All of them will think the same thing: “The bitch is flashing her breasts.” Most will flash their own, but they are doing it to keep their man’s attention. Sure. Bring on the breasts, may the best set win.

PS: The storyteller thinks her story was a hit and repeats it at another party. Today she is not wearing her cleavage. No one fucking bothers about the story. End of story.