8. Danish Roy

I'm beginning to think I'm quite the antithesis of the stereotypical boy or man. I'm not brave, or honourable, or intelligent, or rich, or charming; neither am I too strong, nor do I have an enviable reproductive organ. If the remains of our civilization are unearthed billions of years later and my fossilized history is used to represent homo sapiens, I should probably apologize to all you 'men' for painting our kind in a bad light.

  As a boy I harboured many wishes which I thought would make me into a man, but none of them had been granted. Just like any jobless man with limitless time on his hands, let me count the things I have been wanting to be ever since I have memories.

  I was nine years old.

  The seating arrangement of my class had been reshuffled and Manisha, a girl with golden yellow skin and a voice as sweet as candy, had been assigned the seat next to mine. It was my first brush with symptoms closely associated with a cardiac arrest. All I wanted was to be charming, and by that I mean have a tongue and enunciate words and have her smile at me. Instead, what I did reflexively was to yank out my belt during lunch breaks and fight with classmates, shouting out expletives I had just learnt. Evolution had missed me. I was marking my territory and it would have worked if she were a scratching, hairy ape looking for someone who threw hot turds at encroachers. Charm eluded me. As I grew bigger, hairier and smellier it became tougher for me to have a normal conversation with anyone from the opposite sex. It would usually start with sweaty palms and palpitations and end with me insulting the girl somehow.

  I had figured out quite early in life that being hated was always preferred to not being liked. All that hate I garnered in those few years balled up into an avalanche of bitterness that wouldn't leave me until many years later.

  I was twelve.

  My hormones had started raging mini battles, mostly around the groin area and I had finally figured out why God bothered to make women—to give young boys something to think about while they shagged in bathroom stalls. Apart from wishing shorter skirts for all the girls in my class, I really wanted to be taller. I stood at 124 cm and a lot of my classmates, including girls, towered above me. I was convinced I would never grow any more and would have to spend the rest of my life as a dwarf in a little home staring at people's chins. Because why on earth would God make someone so much shorter than others? It made no sense! And why me?

  I glugged milk and ate like a refugee on food aid and still I didn't grow; I would hang from the football post till my eyes teared up and my arms threatened to rip right off, but I still remained short. I prayed, and threatened God with dire consequences, hoping he would look into more important matters than saving the world from complete ruin and such. He didn't. Slowly, I just learned to accept my physical form.

  At fourteen I finally had a growth spurt which took me to 178 cm for which I was grateful—not that it helped me build a fulfilling friendship that lasted decades. So, yeah, I would not be attending any of my school reunions.

  But what I really wanted at fourteen was a huge cock. When I say huge I'm talking in terms of biblical proportions, something which would require special underwear, or linings in trousers to accommodate the sheer size of the thing. I wanted to walk out of changing rooms during my swimming class and be greeted by gasps from the girls of my class. I wanted my organ to be an object of fear and envy, like a weapon of vaginal destruction. I wanted to it big, veiny and monstrous, the length of an arm and the girth of a little baby, a bit godly. I would have bequeathed it to medical research teams after my death. Was wanting a museum-worthy dick too much to ask for? Seems like it was. No penis enlargement exercises worked for me and I was stuck with an average-sized dick. Did I mention my brother was embarrassingly huge? Yes, I did.

  Once I realized that no temples would be built to worship my schlong, naturally I wanted the next best thing. Big cars and money—otherwise known as penile extensions. I wanted to blind women folk with so much glitz they wouldn't know what my dick size was. Having entered the eleventh standard my parents, too, expected me to be serious about my aspirations and chalk out my future plans. How was I otherwise going to support my family and be a man of the house? I tried harder than I had ever tried before. I stayed awake all night mugging up macro and microeconomics, redoing maths sums early into the morning, and yet, all my knowledge eluded me when it came to the actual exams. No matter how hard I tried I couldn't dig myself out of the trench of my low IQ and non-existent attention span. It became clear I wasn't going to be rich or famous. Report cards don't lie. A below average college and a shady future stared back at me like Orcs from Mordor. I was destined to live a life with all my shortcomings. But I wasn't going to let go of my aspirations.

  Soon, I wanted to be a hero. Now, I wasn't a brave fellow. I'm not the one who picks up a baseball bat or a .47 Magnum and charges howling and threatening towards an intruder in the middle of the night. I'm the one who locks the door and tries climbing out of the window and begs the intruder to do his business and leave quietly. Maybe even make him a cup of coffee and write him a cheque. I would never willingly risk my life, disfigurement, or mutilation of my body. I would never be a willing hero. Though I waited for the day I would accidentally run over a terrorist, or a save a plane from crashing, and be caught on camera doing so. It happened all the time in the movies and there was no reason why it couldn't happen to me.

  However, none of the aforementioned things ever happened to me. I could vanish one day and it wouldn't matter to the world. My parents would probably wail for a few days because, after all, I am their flesh and blood and parental instinct is hardwired 

, not acquired. My brother would be crushed, but other than that no one would really miss me if I were to step in front of a train and die.