The queer family chronicles
You see, when it comes down to it, each of us really has only one story to tell.
That’s what Mambro said, anyway, on his last visit. We were at the Coffee Plantations and having the chat. Yeah, THE CHAT. I’d just told him everything, no filter, and he’d handed me his manuscript. Then Mambro rested his head against the wall, looked up at the ceiling, took a deep breath and I knew he wanted a smoke. Man, I know the guy so well even though I hardly see him!
He turned to me. What would you name your story?
Love at first tap, I replied. It came out so quick, as if I’d given it a lot of thought beforehand, but swear to god I hadn’t! Mambro laughed in my face. I acted offended. What? Isn’t it smart? At least it’ll sell!
Well, you should write it then, he said.
I was like, for real? Now I knew he wasn’t joking.
Yes, he said, you should tell your story yourself as it happens. Otherwise, you will have to reconstruct your own life from scraps of memory later. Or worse, someone else will tell it on your behalf. They might even make loads of money from it!
So here I am, doing just that. I’m going the old-school way, voice notes on my phone. Honestly, I could’ve just got ChatGPT to do it, my classmates do everything on ChatGPT, essays, slides, even programming! I could’ve given it talking points – it was love at first tap, then fun things happened, then dark things happened, then shit hit the fan and it all got real bizarre, now there, write it for me. But urgh, no thank you! No AI for me, especially after . . .
But but but, back up Vivaan! You’re getting waayyyyyy ahead of yourself. Try to find a beginning to this story. Let’s see, how about intros?
Right, okay, so, I’m Vivaan. I live in the Silicon Plateau, India’s home of visionary tech and billion-dollar unicorns, not the animal, ha! Look it up if you don’t know what it is. This is the twenty-first century, people, get with the programme! This place used to be the Garden City, but that was like, super long ago.
According to my birth certificate, I am seventeen years old. Of course, on the hook-up apps, I’m well over eighteen. On the dating apps, I can pass for twenty-one. And on the internet, I’m timeless. In this country, there is no Right to be Forgotten.
Turns out some of us don’t even have the right to be remembered! But that’s the whole point of this story, so stay with me.
As I said, it was love at first tap. About a year and a half ago, Zee tapped my profile on Grindr, I tapped him back, and we knew something had started right there. Love is nothing but unpredictable chemical attacks to further fuck up the already fucked-up human brain. You’re thinking, cynical much? Hey, but it’s true, pure satya-vachan.
We didn’t even chat for long. Zee was a no-time-waster, not like most guys on the apps who’re like, hi hello, can I see more of you, and I’m like, you’re fucking seeing my face bro, but they’re like, oh I mean your dick, your ass, your right nipple, whatever, then you’re sending them pics of parts of your body like you’re a cadaver for a medical trainee, but they’ll just go AWOL and you know they’re chatting up other men, and when they’ve been rejected by the A-listers, they’ll come back to you. By then, you’ve done your round of A-listers and got rejected yourself, so if they suggest sex, you’ll be like, okay yeah I’m horny, let’s get it done with.
But Zee! Now see, that man had class. I say MAN but he was actually only a year older than me, still is, I guess, unless he’s dead in a ditch somewhere and I didn’t get the memo.
Zee started with: You have nice eyes, when can I see them in person?
I was all gooey inside, no one had ever spoken to me like that. But I tried to hold my ground. I was like, Ooo do you only like the eyes, what about the rest of me?
Zee typed, I’d like to see the other parts too, but one by one, until I can stand back and see the whole of you.
I know all this seems really tacky right now, but if you’ve been on those apps and know how people talk, you’ll know that someone bothering to type out full sentences without grammatical errors is enough to make you fall in love with them.
Anyway, so I invited Zee over then and there. I’m not supposed to invite strangers home. That’s a rule. Mom and I had agreed it a while ago. She’d said, Listen, Vivaan, I know you’re growing up and all that, so two things. One, always use protection. Two, never bring strangers home, only friends. I’d wanted to say, But Mom, who wants to have sex with friends? In any case, I’m not big on friends, never had any close ones, always kinda fish out of water, Mom says I’m an old soul in a young body. But I’d kept quiet. From then on, we had a don’t-ask-don’t-tell policy. She has this unshakable trust in me, which is cute but I totally took advantage of it. I was sixteen for fuck’s sake!
So Zee came home. This must’ve been within half-an-hour of said taps. I’m usually home alone for a few hours after school. Not until last year though. During the pandemic, Mom and Dad were at home the whole frikkin time, being passive-aggressive in formal language on their phones and lap tops. So when the CEOs of their companies forced employees to return to the office four days a week and began throwing free food and Thursday drinks in their faces, I was the happiest, I wanted to go to the OG Silicon Valley and kiss them, even if they’re straight.
I have to say at this point that Zee isn’t his name. On the app, it was Z. But when he said it while introducing himself, he said Zee and I had to reorient myself because in my head, I’d said Zed. I guess Zee was going for the American way. We’re all half-American anyway, their accents, their TV shows, their politics, the amount of time we spend talking about America when they don’t give a rat’s ass about the rest of the world. My English teacher would be very disappointed though, she tries her best to teach us the Queen’s English, even though by Queen she means Victoria and not Elizabeth II, who has also now died by the way. Yeah, that’s how far back in history Miss Gibson is stuck.
Zee was really unassuming. I’d expected him to be the suave kind, you know the type, how some men can have their heads deep in their own asses. But Zee was confident without being overbearing. He was wearing jeans and T-shirt, and walked in quietly and sat on the sofa in the living room, like he was a guest and Mom was going to bring him sharbat or something. Most men just look for the bedroom the moment they enter.
Excerpted with permission from deviants: TheQueer Family Chronicles, authored by Santanu Bhattacharya, Tranquebar- Westland Books.
Author: Santanu Bhattacharya grew up in India, and studied at the University of Oxford and the National University of Singapore. He won the Desmond Elliott Prize Residency in 2023, and the Mo Siewcharran and Life Writing Prizes in 2021. His first novel, One Small Voice, was an Observer best debut novel of 2023, and was shortlisted for the Authors’ Club Best First Novel Award and the Society of Authors’ Gordon Bowker Volcano Prize. He now lives in London.
Publisher: Westland Books
Pages: 285
Price: 799
You see, when it comes down to it, each of us really has only one story to tell.
That’s what Mambro said, anyway, on his last visit. We were at the Coffee Plantations and having the chat. Yeah, THE CHAT. I’d just told him everything, no filter, and he’d handed me his manuscript. Then Mambro rested his head against the wall, looked up at the ceiling, took a deep breath and I knew he wanted a smoke. Man, I know the guy so well even though I hardly see him!
He turned to me. What would you name your story?
Love at first tap, I replied. It came out so quick, as if I’d given it a lot of thought beforehand, but swear to god I hadn’t! Mambro laughed in my face. I acted offended. What? Isn’t it smart? At least it’ll sell!
Well, you should write it then, he said.
I was like, for real? Now I knew he wasn’t joking.
Yes, he said, you should tell your story yourself as it happens. Otherwise, you will have to reconstruct your own life from scraps of memory later. Or worse, someone else will tell it on your behalf. They might even make loads of money from it!
So here I am, doing just that. I’m going the old-school way, voice notes on my phone. Honestly, I could’ve just got ChatGPT to do it, my classmates do everything on ChatGPT, essays, slides, even programming! I could’ve given it talking points – it was love at first tap, then fun things happened, then dark things happened, then shit hit the fan and it all got real bizarre, now there, write it for me. But urgh, no thank you! No AI for me, especially after . . .
But but but, back up Vivaan! You’re getting waayyyyyy ahead of yourself. Try to find a beginning to this story. Let’s see, how about intros?
Right, okay, so, I’m Vivaan. I live in the Silicon Plateau, India’s home of visionary tech and billion-dollar unicorns, not the animal, ha! Look it up if you don’t know what it is. This is the twenty-first century, people, get with the programme! This place used to be the Garden City, but that was like, super long ago.
According to my birth certificate, I am seventeen years old. Of course, on the hook-up apps, I’m well over eighteen. On the dating apps, I can pass for twenty-one. And on the internet, I’m timeless. In this country, there is no Right to be Forgotten.
Turns out some of us don’t even have the right to be remembered! But that’s the whole point of this story, so stay with me.
As I said, it was love at first tap. About a year and a half ago, Zee tapped my profile on Grindr, I tapped him back, and we knew something had started right there. Love is nothing but unpredictable chemical attacks to further fuck up the already fucked-up human brain. You’re thinking, cynical much? Hey, but it’s true, pure satya-vachan.
We didn’t even chat for long. Zee was a no-time-waster, not like most guys on the apps who’re like, hi hello, can I see more of you, and I’m like, you’re fucking seeing my face bro, but they’re like, oh I mean your dick, your ass, your right nipple, whatever, then you’re sending them pics of parts of your body like you’re a cadaver for a medical trainee, but they’ll just go AWOL and you know they’re chatting up other men, and when they’ve been rejected by the A-listers, they’ll come back to you. By then, you’ve done your round of A-listers and got rejected yourself, so if they suggest sex, you’ll be like, okay yeah I’m horny, let’s get it done with.
But Zee! Now see, that man had class. I say MAN but he was actually only a year older than me, still is, I guess, unless he’s dead in a ditch somewhere and I didn’t get the memo.
Zee started with: You have nice eyes, when can I see them in person?
I was all gooey inside, no one had ever spoken to me like that. But I tried to hold my ground. I was like, Ooo do you only like the eyes, what about the rest of me?
Zee typed, I’d like to see the other parts too, but one by one, until I can stand back and see the whole of you.
I know all this seems really tacky right now, but if you’ve been on those apps and know how people talk, you’ll know that someone bothering to type out full sentences without grammatical errors is enough to make you fall in love with them.
Anyway, so I invited Zee over then and there. I’m not supposed to invite strangers home. That’s a rule. Mom and I had agreed it a while ago. She’d said, Listen, Vivaan, I know you’re growing up and all that, so two things. One, always use protection. Two, never bring strangers home, only friends. I’d wanted to say, But Mom, who wants to have sex with friends? In any case, I’m not big on friends, never had any close ones, always kinda fish out of water, Mom says I’m an old soul in a young body. But I’d kept quiet. From then on, we had a don’t-ask-don’t-tell policy. She has this unshakable trust in me, which is cute but I totally took advantage of it. I was sixteen for fuck’s sake!
So Zee came home. This must’ve been within half-an-hour of said taps. I’m usually home alone for a few hours after school. Not until last year though. During the pandemic, Mom and Dad were at home the whole frikkin time, being passive-aggressive in formal language on their phones and lap tops. So when the CEOs of their companies forced employees to return to the office four days a week and began throwing free food and Thursday drinks in their faces, I was the happiest, I wanted to go to the OG Silicon Valley and kiss them, even if they’re straight.
I have to say at this point that Zee isn’t his name. On the app, it was Z. But when he said it while introducing himself, he said Zee and I had to reorient myself because in my head, I’d said Zed. I guess Zee was going for the American way. We’re all half-American anyway, their accents, their TV shows, their politics, the amount of time we spend talking about America when they don’t give a rat’s ass about the rest of the world. My English teacher would be very disappointed though, she tries her best to teach us the Queen’s English, even though by Queen she means Victoria and not Elizabeth II, who has also now died by the way. Yeah, that’s how far back in history Miss Gibson is stuck.
Zee was really unassuming. I’d expected him to be the suave kind, you know the type, how some men can have their heads deep in their own asses. But Zee was confident without being overbearing. He was wearing jeans and T-shirt, and walked in quietly and sat on the sofa in the living room, like he was a guest and Mom was going to bring him sharbat or something. Most men just look for the bedroom the moment they enter.
Excerpted with permission from deviants: TheQueer Family Chronicles, authored by Santanu Bhattacharya, Tranquebar- Westland Books.
Author: Santanu Bhattacharya grew up in India, and studied at the University of Oxford and the National University of Singapore. He won the Desmond Elliott Prize Residency in 2023, and the Mo Siewcharran and Life Writing Prizes in 2021. His first novel, One Small Voice, was an Observer best debut novel of 2023, and was shortlisted for the Authors’ Club Best First Novel Award and the Society of Authors’ Gordon Bowker Volcano Prize. He now lives in London.
Publisher: Westland Books
Pages: 285
Price: 799
