Fiction: 1977. Sukumar is deeply in love with a man but forced to keep their relationship a secret

The year was 1977. Sukumar was twenty-five years old, living in the Grand Old City, when he touched love for the first time.

That first touch of love was damp clay, patted down into an even mound, drying quickly in the autumnal heat, to be used for sculpting the divine frame of the mother goddess. And the love was for the young man who’d brought him here, to the Sculptors’ Quarters. Let’s call the man X; as in all clandestine love stories, the lovers shall go unnamed.

Sukumar had first met X outside the offices of the Jugantor newspaper, across the street from Sukumar’s house. It had been a rainy afternoon, and a group from the art college stood huddled on the pavement under the eaves of the overhanging balcony, talking about volunteering with a Master Sculptor for the idols that year. Sukumar was on his way back from the tuition class where he taught schoolchildren, but slowed down. He’d never really got along with this crowd, these men who chain-smoked and slapped each other’s backs and discussed communism in sure, deep voices. He’d always known he was different, his gait, his wrists, the way he let his dark curls caress his...

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