{"id":17345,"date":"2019-06-15T09:30:26","date_gmt":"2019-06-15T04:00:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak?p=17345"},"modified":"2019-06-15T21:27:34","modified_gmt":"2019-06-15T15:57:34","slug":"aap-karthe-mere-saath-sex","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/aap-karthe-mere-saath-sex\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Aap Karthe Mere Saath Sex?\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"
This piece was originally published on Agents of Ishq<\/a><\/em><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
The day my research interview with a Hyderabad auto driver went off script to include sex, desire and consent<\/em><\/div>\n
\n

By Sneha<\/strong><\/p>\n

Illustrations: Debasmita Das<\/strong><\/p>\n

So, here we were. Prem and I. Subject and researcher. Man and woman. Driver and passenger. In an alleyway off the bustling main street of Prakash Nagar in my beloved city of Hyderabad. So, here we are. Prem and I. In his auto. Talking about sex, desire, and all that comes in the way of fantasies being realised. Prem, whose name is not actually Prem but the name he insisted I use, and I, a generally dazed PhD student studying road safety in Hyderabad. <\/em><\/p>\n

I came to Hyderabad in February this year to do my research on \u2018road safety\u2019 in Hyderabad and the relationship that Hyderabadi drivers have to traffic rules and regulations. As part of my research, I am interviewing auto-rickshaw drivers, app-based taxi drivers, and private citizens while also observing traffic police constables as they go about their daily jobs of regulation and rule-enforcement. In order to find auto-rickshaw drivers to interview, I establish a certain rapport with one or two auto-drivers that are waiting at any auto-stand by making small talk, explaining to them my research, and then asking them if they are willing to be interviewed by me for about an hour. The plan is to get them talking about their views on risk, safety, and pleasure while driving in Hyderabad.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

Normally, the drivers either ask me for an adequate compensation or insist that we have chai while we chat and I record the conversation. A few drivers, however, don\u2019t want anything but do insist that I sit in the auto while interviewing them and park in a street off the main road so that the ambient noise of honking does not tamper with the interview recording too much. Prem, who I encountered at an auto-stand on the perennially crowded Greenlands Road one Saturday morning in June, was one such autowala who, very enthusiastically, drove his auto into a narrow street off the ever-busy Prakash Nagar. Prem says that he loves that he is being interviewed by someone from America. I smile an awkward smile. I turn on my recorder and he looks at it for a brief moment before looking at me, a look of amusement and indulgence that I have never since seen in the eyes of my interviewees.<\/p>\n

My first question to him is fairly straightforward. Or so I think. Aap auto driver kab aur kaise banein? How did you become an \u2018auto driver\u2019? As I ask him this question, I can sense the hollowness of it. I had done about a dozen in-depth interviews by now and each one of them starts with this question, deftly followed by an answer that traces how the lack of education, alternative employment opportunities, and a sudden death or financial crunch in the family results in the birth of an autowala.<\/p>\n

Awaiting yet another story that would stir the ready-to-weep liberal heart of mine, I lock eyes with him and smile \u2013 as if to encourage him to tell me the tragedies that plague his life. Research, in all its extractive cruelty; research, in all its doubtful potential as a \u2018talking cure\u2019. Very often, the taxi and auto drivers I talk to tell me that the company they are working for \u2013 Uber or Ola, for instance \u2013 tells their drivers to not engage in \u201cunnecessary talk\u201d with the customers, especially women. Apparently, customers don\u2019t like it if they complain about their job too much.<\/p>\n

Prem smiles and starts with a well-rehearsed, \u201cwoh kab, kaise banne\u2026iska kya pata\u2026rozi roti kamaane ke liye sab ko kuch toh karna padta hai\u201d <\/em>(Well, how and why I became an auto-driver\u2026who knows\u2026everyone has to do something to earn one\u2019s daily bread). Just as I am about to prompt him to say something more specific, he sighs and says \u2013 aapko apni dil ki baat bataane ka mann kar raha hai (I want to tell you a secret, a matter of my heart). I nod and encourage him to do so. Aap bura toh nahi maanengi? <\/em>(You won\u2019t feel offended, will you?) Confused and immensely curious, I assure him that I will not take offense. Asal mein, mera mechanic ka kaam tha aur who theek hi tha lekin mere dost ne auto drivering karke ye seekha ki auto drivering karne se sex karna bahut easy ho jaata hai (In reality, I was working as a mechanic and everything was going fine but one of my friends who became an auto driver soon learned that it was very easy to have sex this way).<\/p>\n

I am now both a bit taken aback, confused, and a bit sweatier than I was a few seconds ago. I ask him \u2013 Kya matlab hai, easy ho jaata hai? Kya easy ho jaata hai? (What do you mean, it becomes easy? What becomes easy?) Prem sighs and explains impatiently \u2013 Aap jaise hi koi single lady jo shaayad akele rehti hogi, raat bhar tadapti hai sex ke liye aur usko sex dene ke liye koi nahi hai toh woh mere jaise auto driver ko bula sakti hai aur phir sirf duss minat mein dono ka kaam ho jaayega, aisa main sochta hoon\u2026aap bura mat maaniye (A single lady like you, who probably lives by herself could be restlessly horny but has no one to satisfy her and at that time, she could call someone like me and then within ten minutes both of our work is done is what I think\u2026please don\u2019t be offended by what I am saying).<\/p>\n

I stare at him while he is talking, each word a revelation of something I had not even thought of. I look around to see that the street is completely empty, while nodding at him, and wonder about my escape routes. As someone who has grown up in the middle-class bubble where the working class male subject is demonised and feared more often that sympathised with or remotely understood, in this moment I find I can only think in stereotypes and curse myself for not being more careful with where he was parking the auto. My liberal thinking finds itself on shaky ground. What was I thinking!? Having read so many newspaper articles, editorials, tweets, Facebook statuses, WhatsApp forwards, etc. that time and again demonstrate how unsafe India is for women, what was I thinking gallivanting in the city on my own talking to the men I was told to be cautious around? I think of all the times my family and friends told me to \u201cput safety first\u201d whenever I told them I was interviewing auto-drivers; I think of how they\u2019d tell me \u201cwe told you so\u201d in case something happened. I worry, as I have been told to worry all my life, that this autowala might rape me because why else would he be saying such \u201cterrible\u201d things to a woman<\/em>? What other intention must he have but bad, evil ones? I wait for him to do something to me \u2013 touch my hand, grasp my breasts, something \u2013 <\/em>as I prep to escape, somehow.<\/p>\n

But Prem seems lost in his own confession, neither staring at my chest nor glancing at my lips \u2013 something I have noticed some of my other informants doing. He asks me if I have more questions and I realise I have not said anything to his previous answer. It has only been four minutes into my interview, but I am not sure how to proceed. My Interview Guide has five parts to it \u2013 each professionally curated to denote a certain \u2018phase\u2019 in the life-cycle of auto-rickshaw driving but none <\/em>has space for the revelation of raw desire that Prem was putting up in front of me. The Interview Guide is no good today \u2013 or any day when a subject decides not to conform to the identity fixed for them by interview guides.<\/p>\n

Logic tells me to end the interview and flee. But my gut tells me that Prem is not going to harm me. So, I probe him further \u2013 acha, toh aap sachchi mein isi wajah se auto drivering mein aaye? (Ok, so, really<\/em>, this is why you became an auto-driver?) He nods enthusiastically and tells me about Jagan, his friend, who has a \u201cmedam girlfriend\u201d now \u2013 a young, thin woman who often takes Jagan to her home where, according to Prem, she lets him lick her flower. I try not to cringe. Prem continues, unabashed, and says that he does not even have such stellar ambitions. He thinks that just his auto is enough. He can park it in a street like this and one can easily have sex in the auto. Many people do so, he insists. At that opportune moment, my eyes fall upon a used condom on the footpath next to which we are parked. I cannot help but smile. He sees me smile, spots the condom, and bursts out laughing.<\/p>\n

By now, whatever it means, I am in this conversation about sex with Prem. As if by exhibiting a sense of curiosity, I have crossed the line of no return, committed myself. For the next half hour, Prem reveals to me how he imagines his life ought <\/em>to be \u2013 do \u2018auto-drivering\u2019 in the morning from 8 am to noon, go to \u201ckoi\u201d (some) \u201cmedam girlfriend\u201d at noon, have some biryani for lunch (wink, wink \u2013 he does not just mean food), nap for some time, do some auto-drivering till 7 pm and go home to his wife and kids. Who, in his words, are the reason he works all day. Sometimes, he fantasises, he could go back to \u2018medam girlfriend\u2019 for a second round. Maybe this time it could be longer than ten minutes. He has seen videos of men and women licking each other. He thinks it could all go on for about an hour. Beyond that, he does not think he can control himself. He will just erupt, he says. Do I want to see the videos? No, I say \u2013 politely but firmly.<\/p>\n

I cannot help wondering if he has an erection while talking about this but I dare not look.<\/p>\n

I ask him if he feels guilty about wanting \u2018baahir ka sex\u2019 (outside sex) when he has a wife? He clicks his tongue and says that daal is daal, biryani is biryani. I cringe at the oft-repeated clich\u00e9 but don\u2019t say anything to him. Suddenly, perhaps sensing where my loyalties may lie, he says that he would never leave his wife, his mother, or children for anyone. At the same time, he is not someone to treat his \u2018medam girlfriend\u2019 badly. He just wants to have two different lives. He is bored of just this one life. Do I understand him? I nod. So, he asks me with more boldness in his voice, aap karte mere saath sex? Aap jaise cute medam girlfriend mere hote toh Jagan ki futt jaayegi (So, will you have sex with me? If a cute \u2018medam girlfriend\u2019 like you became mine, Jagan will explode of envy).<\/p>\n

Finally, the moment that I have feared. Although, what, am I being asked \u2014 <\/em>if I want to have sex with someone? Not even several of my dates in the past have done me this favour of an explicit question. I sense an opportunity here \u2013 an opportunity to impart (unasked) wisdom about consent. After all, one can never understimate the power of a latent middle-class desire to reform others \u2013 it exists in the way we move about the world, always looking to educate the \u201cmasses\u201d about safety, security, consent, prosperity, decency, and so on. I bounced back with a mirthful nahi, bhaiyya, mujhe toh koi interest nahi hai inn cheezon mein lekin aapne mujhse poocha, toh ye permission waali baat mujhe achchi lagi! (No, brother, I am not interested in these things but you asked<\/em> me and I really liked the fact that you sought permission). I want to say more, but I don\u2019t, for my words make his face droop a little.<\/p>\n

We both don\u2019t speak for some time. I smile, half-apologetically, while thinking of how my friends will probably laugh when I tell them that I \u2013 who cannot generally shut up about my sexual (mis)adventures \u2013 have told someone I am not interested in anything to do with sex.<\/p>\n

Prem sighs and says that it is his bad luck but that he has never even touched a woman without permission \u2013 heck, he does not even speak to people without permission. Very often, beautiful women sit in his auto and all he can think of is having sex with them but he does not do anything. I say that his sturdy insistence on seeking permission is essential to having a good relationship with anyone, and he nods. Although do I really need to tell him something he seems fully committed to? He says that he feels like one cannot make sex good if it is not willing from both sides. I could not agree more. We talk some more \u2013 now, veering back to the Interview Guide \u2013 about traffic policing, accidents, insurance, licensing procedures, and I learn a lot more about Prem. At one point, he says that everything is fine but all he wants is someone to have sex with. As someone as single as she has ever been, I can only sympathise with him.<\/p>\n

What initially made me fear his presence fades, for I sense that he is not going to touch me, but perhaps I would feel differently had I sensed a violence within him. The line between pleasure and danger is consent \u2013 or \u2018permission\u2019, as Prem puts it. Where he picked that term up from, I never managed to ask him. Did I ever imagine having a conversation with a stranger in an auto about how unfulfilled our sexual desires are in this City of Pearls and Paradise Biryani? Never. But do I feel threatened? Very often, as a woman doing research in a highly male-dominated space and sphere, I encounter men who help me because they feel like they are helping me and doing me a favour. And, of course, in a way they are. But, for once, here is someone who by not giving me the \u201crespect\u201d or distance I feel instinctively entitled to because of my social class, makes me feel\u2026weird. I feel a general sense of amusement, mixed with a sense of wonder at Prem\u2019s ability to speak about sex and desire so forthrightly, trusting me to not judge <\/em>him, chastise him, or call the police on him \u2013 as I have been told to do by every SHE Team (all-women police) hoarding in the city. And, in a way, this is a risk he has taken.<\/p>\n

I tell Prem that I have had a swell interview but now if he could do me the favour of dropping me home, I would be grateful and I could pay him for the ride and perhaps an extra tip for his time. He refuses the tip but drops me home, safe and sound, all the while telling me how much he wants more women auto-drivers on the roads of Hyderabad so that, perhaps, one of them would be able to fulfill his fantasy. I cannot help chuckle at how normal this seemingly bizarre conversation about sex has suddenly become with Prem, and at his single-mindedness. I feel like I am talking to one of my sex-deprived college-mates about how nobody wants to get it on with him. I offer my sympathies \u2013 a little nervously for I am still thinking about his wife and whether she approves, or even knows, of her husband\u2019s love for lust \u2013 and, before I know it, I am home. I pay Prem and am about to leave when he calls me back.<\/p>\n

He looks at me and coyly and says \u2013 aap ek baari try karte toh shaayad pasand aata. <\/em>He suggests that maybe if I tried it once, I would like it. It. Sex. I say, with utmost sincerity, that I will think about it. He says that I must keep his number, in case someday I cannot handle my lust and just need someone to stick it in me. I, nervously, take his number and tell him that I do not intend to call him but that I appreciate his concern. He points out that he did not take my number, which means that he genuinely does not mean to trouble me. He is simply being frank with me. I thank him and leave.<\/p>\n

Little did I expect that this interview would turn out like this, destroying my illusions of having a grasp on my fieldwork. My interview guide felt irrelevant, my ethnographic experience seemed unconvincing to me considering how Prem had just revealed deeper dimensions to risk, safety, pleasure and danger on the road \u2013 concepts I had almost taken for granted. While talking to women drivers and commuters, I have often had the term \u2018road safety\u2019 take on gendered connotations as safety from assault, abuse, violence and sexual danger<\/em> while being on the road. Similarly, both men and women who own their own cars and\/or bikes have discussed the role of pleasure <\/em>in driving was often communicated in terms of freedom, speed, autonomy, mobility. But, in all my interviews, none had so brazenly, freely, sexualized the mundane fact of being on the road. Perhaps abandoning the familiar road \u2013 of the interview guide, and the safety rules of how to be in the \u2018outside world\u2019 have shown me the best reason for doing ethnographic fieldwork \u2013 to make the familiar strange, and the strange familiar. To know each other better.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

You can read the original piece here<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

He sighs and says \u2013 aapko apni dil ki baat bataane ka mann kar raha hai (I want to tell you a secret, a matter of my heart). I nod and encourage him to do so. Aap bura toh nahi maanengi? (You won\u2019t feel offended, will you?) Confused and immensely curious, I assure him that I will not take offense. Asal mein, mera mechanic ka kaam tha aur who theek hi tha lekin mere dost ne auto drivering karke ye seekha ki auto drivering karne se sex karna bahut easy ho jaata hai (In reality, I was working as a mechanic and everything was going fine but one of my friends who became an auto driver soon learned that it was very easy to have sex this way).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":17346,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[85,1,1989],"tags":[686,970,68,25],"class_list":{"0":"post-17345","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-blog-roll","8":"category-categories","9":"category-class-and-sexuality","10":"tag-class","11":"tag-public-transport","12":"tag-sex","13":"tag-sexualities"},"menu_order":543,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17345","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17345"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17345\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17374,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17345\/revisions\/17374"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17346"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17345"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17345"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17345"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}