So thank you Shiv Sena and Bal Thackery and the whole right-wing, fascistic, cretinous gang of Hindu thugs and goondas, I gratefully acknowledge you at this point. At least you were there for me when I needed you. There was no chance that Geeta’s daddy-ji, even with all the resources and connections at his command, would ever go public with our case given the affront to Hindu culture and religion that our sexual preference and lifestyle represented to the xenophobic zealots. No chance that he would ever take the risk, personal and financial, of fighting in open court for custody, never mind that he is your own grandpa (adoptive, admittedly, but even so—behold the limits of his commitment and take heed). No chance that he would ever have allowed the sordid details to be laid out for the entire hungry population of one billion plus to gawk at and gorge upon and regurgitate in an invigorating after-dinner riot. Two women copulating, two women consecrating, two women cohabiting, two women co-parenting—explain that to the Sena boys. Such abominations do not happen in Hindustan, they never were and never have been and never will be. In no way would your grandfather have risked discharging all of these delectable family secrets into the Indian mosh pit—too much information, extremely bad for property and personal health. I pause here to note, Maya, that as soon as Geeta left us for good, I took pains to go through the official bureaucratic channels to change our company’s name to M&M Sati Trips. For you, Maya, you and me, melted together, like the candy, our two M’s conjoined forever by the stigmata of the ampersand, inseparable.

It was a bitter end. We had been together almost five years, Geeta and I, not including the extended lapses and separations, in my case for business travel and to oversee the end-of-life managed care and remains disposal of my late mother, may her memory be for a blessing, in Geeta’s case, I can now no longer afford the indulgence of deluding myself, to perpetrate her treacheries and betrayals. But there were precious moments of intense closeness, and yes commitment, especially in the early stages of our relationship, which you may not remember, of course, you were so young and oblivious, like a spirit hovering, a holy waif, before you blossomed into such a ravishing young woman and were scarred by our battles. There was even a time we were considering having a child together, as near to our own biological offspring as possible, with my fraternal twin brother Shmelke, by then butterflied into a leading rabbi and guru, serving as the donor, either in a series of personal appointments with Geeta until he succeeded in performing the mitzvah in the time-honored way, or with a rack of test tubes sloshing with his sacred sperm. Shmelke, with whom I had for nine months shared a womb of our own, was the other free radical in our sibling brood. As our mother used to say, If you ask me to count how many children the One Above blessed me with, I can only answer that there are not seven, plus the twins, Min’ke and Shmelke. Growing up, we looked disturbingly alike; apart from the strictly gender-specific clothing we wore and the hairstyles (until the age of three, his in long ringlets, mine hacked short), most people could not tell which one of us was the boy and which the girl. And in fact, the deal was almost consummated when the whole project fell apart, and with one thing and another, never taken up again—just one sorry side effect of Shmelke’s forced flight from his longtime headquarters in Jerusalem, ending up finally after long and arduous travail in Kolkata, where he could continue to pursue in a warm and accepting environment his mind-blowing spiritual teachings, offering so much healing and consolation.