Aryaman Kakkar's Archive

Its such a big jump between dad and daddy. Kisses turn different, breathing promises of different kinds. Hugs mean so much more, more promises, more need. I come from a very typical Punjabi family which should tell you everything you need to know. The men are always afraid of affection, the machismo being buried deep in their unsure open arms and unflinching fists. It’s no wonder at all that I dream of belonging with a man who gifts me with every embrace, every salt-pearl that collects in the threads of his jacket that smells like comfort. Worn down to the point of feeling like soft kisses on my cheek.  I’ve learnt to call my men beautiful. Men are in fact beautiful. Hearing that word attributed to them makes them blush like shy schoolchildren, embarrassed at such atrocities. Who is this beautiful? Call them sweetheart immediately after, especially those men who tower and terrify you. Watch their eyes. See it fill with that softness of letting go, dreaming of letting go, they’ve be...

I don’t want to fall in love. I need it, I'd love it, I don’t want to. How can I fall in love, walk into it with binoculars around my neck and a microscope in my trembling hands, knowing that someday it will end? Not by cheating. What, you think each gay guy has a gallery of Grindr guys just hanging on to his word so pathetically, like the umbrella you carry to work just in case. Always hanging on to his arm with each sway and crowded metro trip, falling each time he steps wrong and coming back anyway. No, not that kind of carousel love, not when you’re the one watching the lovebirds sitting on the unicorn under edison bulbs and movie-theatre soundtracks.  I can’t willingly love knowing that someday I will be holding his ashes in an urn, running my thumbs across the surface everytime I remember the empty crooks in my body that I was left with in return for the years of memories. We have to love our friends, our families, there’s no two ways about it. But the kind of storybook, whit...