There’s a lady being fucked from behind. The lady is white and the cock is big and black. She’s made up with those Amy-Winehouse style cat eyes that everybody seems to like these days, and her silicone tits are huge, defying gravity. The man with the penis is hardly visible. Really, he’s just a cock.

This is a picture from a pornographic magazine. It’s been neatly cut out, pasted onto a piece of cardboard, and now, a smiling gentleman is holding it up to my face.

I’m still not entirely sure how we got into this mess. We were walking across Hooglie Park – a vast and dirty scrubland in the centre of Kolkata. Bodies lay everywhere, stretched out in the dusty heat. Aga and I had been playing a guessing game: ‘Dead or Sleeping?’

Somewhere along the way a polite young Indian guy had joined us. His English was pretty good and he seemed to want to practice. So far he’d been filling us in on interesting facts about India’s economy – potentially quite useful for a budding journalist such as myself. But a while ago he’d decided to shift the conversation:

“My skin is dirty,” he told me.

I didn’t really know what to say to this.  He spoke again.

“My skin is dirty and yours is clean.”

I was beginning to feel uneasy.  Aga the Photographer  had long ago fallen silent, armed as she was with a healthy dose of Polish ‘don’t give me your bullshit’ charm. But there I was, awkwardly intrenched in a conversation I didn’t want to be part of with a self-loathing Indian man. I cursed my British politeness.

“It’s’s not easy to keep clean when the air is so dusty and dry,” I said. (When in doubt, always talk about the weather. ) “Where I come from, it’s always raining.

Our companion ignored me. He changed the subject,

“We think Westerners look so cool.”

“How so?” said I.

“Because your skin is white,” he said at once. “My skin is dirty. It’s brown, like dirt.”

Again, I was almost speechless.

“Well to us, Indian people look cool,” I told him, diplomatically. “Everyone’s so exotic.”

We passed an emaciated horse. I tried to change the subject.

“Look,” I said. “A horse.”

He said nothing. We walked on in silence for a while. A crowd of flies were attacking my face and the heat was becoming a bit relentless. In the distance we saw England’s bastardising stamp on Kolkata: The Victoria Memorial.

“That’s the Victoria Memorial,” our guide told us.

“I know,” I said. “That’s where we’re going.

Silence. Then,

“There’s a very nice garden in the Victoria Memorial,”

I was actually interested this time. “Oh, really?”

“Yes. They call it Lover’s Garden,”

“Oh,”

“Yes. Do you know why they call it that?”

We’d been warned about ‘love’ in the guide book. ‘Single women – do NOT talk with strangers about intercourse. They will very quickly become excited…’

I stalled: “Because it’s lovely?”

“They call it the Lover’s Garden because young people go there to have sex.”

I said nothing.

He repeated himself.

“People go to the Lover’s Garden to have sex.”

We came to a very lonely stretch of land. I raised my voice

“Well I’m not sure our HUSBANDS would like us talking about that,” I said to him. Very pointedly, I felt.

We walked on. Silence.

Then,

“Look,” he said.

I looked. And there he was, holding the picture. It was quite large. I have no idea where it came from, or how he managed to get it out so quickly. But there it was, glaring at me from his dirty little self-loathing hands.

“Gross!” I cried. We doubled our pace. Aga and I veered away from the path and away from this stranger in a fast, anxious V. The stranger stood still for a moment longer.

“Bye,” he said. And off he went.

THE END