|
|
|
|
 |
 |
  
|
1970s
1970s Armed with nothing
more lethal than a masters degree in English literature, my friend Zak and I
hit the shores of Karachi looking for jobs, a place to stay and some broads
to date. That was about the end of
the 1960s and Karachi was still rocking and rolling. Broke as we were and no
jobs in sight, we would purchase a 250ml bottle of Amsons’ chocolate milk
and share it under the big billboards of Drigh Road watching the giant jets
lift off into the night, their lights blinking. Our dream was to be on one of
them and we would sigh as flight after flight left Karachi or came into land.
Just about every airline came to Karachi, not the drought that is now our
destiny. We can’t even go to Singapore directly! Some months later, Zak
employed unhappily in a bank ran into an Italian official. She was at the
embassy in Karachi, was older in years and a very well read educated woman
who spoke English just as well as her native Latin — and one day in the
early 1970s, Zak sold all he had (not much) and boarded one of those
twinkling jets to Napoli. It was
almost a decade later that I managed to find myself on a jet to Italy. My friend was more Italian
than the Italians. Had picked up the language, started dating a girl from a
very respectable and well-off Neapolitan family which had a fabulous villa
overlooking the legendary Bay of Naples. There was beautiful marble all
around, grand staircases, old paintings and even a lift. To top it all there
was a rooftop garden with a personal open shower! Barely having arrived in
Naples I was told that in order to meet all their friends — it was a long
list, they had all decided that we meet at the beach, have a leisurely dip in
the ocean, repair for lunch and then a siesta and dinner in a vineyard up in
the hills. It sounded like a great plan but what I did not know was that the
plan had a plan within it. That the gang had been told things that I was not
privy to. A night before we were to get to the beach, we went nightclubbing
— almost eight boisterous Italians squeezed in a small car of no known
pedigree. During the evening, I was
introduced to a scintillating Naples girl, Adrianne. Vivacious, dark haired
with a great zest for life, she had just returned from an island where she
had been lured to shoot an art film which turned out to be a regular 100 per
cent porn film. So instead of ‘action’ with half a dozen randy musclemen
she had fled from the ‘set’ and taken a fast boat to Naples. That evening Neapolitan
humour flowed fast and free as did the heady potions. Our group, rowdy and
high that evening, was scheduled to meet at the beach the next day. What I
could not understand was why everyone collapsed with mirth every time the
beach was mentioned. Next day, we set out,
packed in a car with Adrianne happily climbing onto my happy lap. There was
non-stop chattering and loud laughter as jokes and anecdotes were traded. I
began to get the drift of things but only in a manner of speaking because I
was asked too often what beachwear did Pakistani girls prefer in Karachi. I was the only one who
neither spoke nor understood Italian. Only my friend and I spoke English, no
one else did and I was being asked a million questions from within the car,
all in Italian via the interpreter and my reply returning the same way except
that they all knew in advance and therefore, invariably the joke was on me
— my friend had long deserted me for the Italians naturally. So a question would be
asked in Italian and would cause immense guffaws all around with the girls
unable to stop giggling and my friend would translate that into English and I
would answer and it would go back with even louder laughter and back
slapping, all the while Adrianne jumping up and down on me! The questions were largely
indelicate. Adrianne fired the first one — would I mind sleeping with her?
As I struggled with the right answer, the car erupted with laughter at my
discomfort. “He’s blushing,” said one and “of course he wants to;
what a stupid question” or “take him to your flat and give him some
liberation,” to “I think he is sexy,” and finally from Adrianne, “if
I give him a good time in bed will he marry me?” I can look back on it and
laugh but that July day it was embarrassing. When we finally arrived at
the beach, mercifully the bantering ceased as I drank in the view. It was
breathtaking. For as long as one could
see, stretched the azure Adriatic Sea. The water sparkled like a million
diamonds were afloat and the sand was blindingly white. There were over 150
steps down to the beach and from the road, dense green foliage hid the area
where all the bathers were. As we jumped out of the car, everyone ran down
and my friend said we’d follow with the baskets. This too was part of a
plan. As we walked down, the
first thoughts of what I had been taken to began to register. Casually it was
hinted that although this was a ‘public’ beach it was more or less
occupied by friends who knew one another and converged here at every
opportunity. It was also mentioned — the beach was still nowhere in sight,
that some summers back two beauties from Rome had arrived here and proceeded
to jump into the surf au naturale. Since then, bathing and sunning here was
largely so but it was not a nudist beach, so I was advised to don some shorts
behind a cluster of bushes while my friend went ahead. I quickly changed,
took my large beach towel and walked a few paces, rounded a corner and stood
hesitatingly. There was the beach, full
of families having a great time. I stayed rooted to the sand as I realised
that except for the odd few, everyone was stark naked. As I struggled I could
hear shouts from the party, calling out my name and saying “Come on, come
on.” Finally I stepped out and
it hit me square in the face. This for all purposes was a nudist beach. Along
it, children ran shouting and screaming, old women and men with paunches
padded along, starkers, young men and women, some clearly parents, went about
their business and any amount of sun-kissed beauties walked the beach, bereft
of any clothing whatsoever. It was hard to tell who were more gorgeous; the
young men or the women. As I made my way deeply
worried inside — having never been in such a situation, I thought everyone
was looking at me and that I would end up with an embarrassing situation
feasting my eyes and senses on the beautiful girls all about and showing it
too — that was my fear but I soon realised that if there was any
awkwardness it was my mind playing games with me and for just about all who
were there, I was another bather at a beach. Still given the
conservative upbringing and the utterly alien experience of being at such a
place seemed a large problem if you will forgive the crude analogy. This was
further overshadowed by another dimension of this experience. As calls for me
grew louder, I spied our group and walked slowly towards them to stop dead in
my tracks realising they were all naked. The hooting and laughter and the
mirth of my discomfort was too much for them and I finally began to see the
situation without my preconceived notions. However, there were bridges
to cross still. I had never seen my friend whom I had known for years and
shared many times together, in the buff as the Americans put it. There he was
stretched out next to his girlfriend, without a care in the world and in
answer to my look of bewilderment pointed at himself and said, “Oye Yaar,
this is it. This is me and this is reality.” I stretched my towel out and
lay down, wishing why I had forgotten to bring my dark glasses. His fiancée
in her broken English was trying to initiate a conversation with me and
finally rapidly fired a line in Italian at my friend. He translated. “She
wants to know why don’t you look at her when you talk to her?” I said,
tell her I can’t. So she fired back, “Hasn’t he ever seen a woman
without clothes? Am I an alien?” I replied, “No, but you are my
friend’s fiancée and most likely to marry soon.” Her reply was Italian.
“So what?” I gave up and decided to have a short nap but soon enough I
was pulled up. She wanted a back rub. Horrified I pleaded a sprained wrist
but to no avail. Somehow the afternoon edged on. Suddenly it was announced
that we were going to walk the length of the beach so that I could meet all
their friends. And so began a tour. Our
group devoid of any clothing — except me in my monk’s khaki shorts down
to my knees, made its way along the beach. “Ciao Marianna,” “Hullo
Paul,” “Hey Bambino” and various other greetings of affection. I was
introduced to one of the area’s leading psychologists who was one hell of a
good looking man. He was sunning himself along with his boyfriend. They were
obviously in love. Down the beach, sat a much
respected professor of international politics at the university, who was out
on the beach with his family. As we sat down, he asked me in excellent
English numerous questions about Pakistan particularly the hanging of ZAB
which was very recent. I had no difficulty talking to him except that my eyes
would every now and then, dart to his ‘family jewels’ which had been
lowered into a shallow pit scooped by the professor and was filled with cold
water from time to time. You can understand how hard it was to carry on a
polite conversation under such odd circumstances. And so the day drifted on
— cheese and bread and a bewildering choice of olives, pizzas, pastas, all
washed down with the elixir of life. It was some hours later that having
drifted off I came to and understood that, while very different to the way I
lived, this was the way these people lived and they seemed happy enough doing
it the way they were doing it. I also began to understand that our bodies on
which we place so much importance were not the focal point of their existence
— of course the young ones wanted to look stylish and avant garde but, if
there were no clothes, it was no big deal. No one could quite understand that
when we went to our solitary beach in Karachi, we wore long shirts and baggy
trousers and our idea of a dip in the Arabian Sea was to walk in till our
ankles got wet and then run back. That was the reason I had been
‘educated’ by my friends and if the joke was on me, that was just fine. Later that day, as the
evening gathered and the sun went down flaming into the water, so did we in
the promised vineyard where a long rough hewn table had been laid out under
the leaves and where a huge and delicious meal awaited with the wine and
animated conversation flowing unchecked. I was the only one who was out of it
because of the language but it really didn’t matter. These were all friends
and the odd thing was that in real life you meet people always fully clothed
and sometimes you may end up with another one without clothes but here was a
twist. At the dinner I saw all these fashionable and attractive young and
older men and women, dressed impeccably and I had seen them all earlier
without the trappings of any clothing! It was odd and quite funny too as I
matched the two pictures – one at the beach and one now in complete and
wonderful contrast. I began to relax and
started enjoying things. The language had ceased to be a barrier. I didn’t
understand a word but so what? The food was delicious, the cheese incredibly
aromatic, the handsome men and women, the ravishing Adrianne and a stunning
young doctor, our hosts’ niece completing the picture. It was divine not in
the sense of The Last Supper but in an altogether wonderful celebration of
life or as the Italians put it so nicely, ‘La Dolce Vita.’
|
|
