are you a lesbian?

have you ever noticed that your 'foreign returned' friend has started to shy away from touching any one of the same sex? let me explain. last sunday i went to meet my friend piyush at the international airport. he was returning from london after spending 8 months cracking complex computer programmes for IBM. he came out, smiled at every one. pairi paina to mummyji papaji, aur kaisa hai chintoo to chintoo. and then he looked at me, came over and extended his right arm in my direction. i, on the other hand, was standing like shahrukh khan, my arms wide open, waiting for piyush to embrace me. he looked at me, as if to tell me, look here my man, we used to do jhappi things when we were in school, now i do this only to sharon from the accounts department, london office. i held my pose and poise. he had to relent, and when he was attached uncomfortably to my chest, i kissed him on the cheek. he tore himself away and looked to his right and left, luckily no one saw it. london had made my friend completely insecure about his own sexuality.
people in india like to touch people whom they like. it does not matter if that person is a man or a woman. if a man likes a woman, he definitely wants to touch her, trust me. and if a man likes another man, then he has to hug, backslap, high five, mock strangle, dry hump, squeeze or kiss him. that is the norm. that is how it works here, because by default, every one is perfectly straight, or at least used to be when we were growing up. it was only with the advent of cable tv, we knew about men who liked to touch other men, in a sexual way. it was funny, for a while. then, it became scary. for us, and for our parents. sleepovers began to dwindle. every one went on to do his own thing. and thankfully, no one lived in the shadow of our happy(?) days.
thankfully, because there is a very thin line between being able to touch people of the same sex and actually craving to touch people of the same sex. and this line might just fade away if you spent a lot of time with same sex friends after reaching a certain age. it is okay to be able to take a shower with navdeep and sabharwal when we were 18, but begging navdeep to undress and do a barb wire routine when he is 29 and a father, is completely different.
in 1992, something happened that opened our eyes to the whole gay/lesbian affair, sorry wrong word, issue. chhotu and siddha spent three hours exercising, spent the next two hours giving each other full body massage, next one hour was devoted to a hot water bath, together. then they slept for three hours, in the same bed, sharing a takiya and a razzaai. when they woke up, chotu's mom asked them, kya tum log lesbian ho? auntie didn't know the difference between gay and lesbian then, but she asked the right question.
chhotu and siddha are perfectly straight, married and still very close friends but they don't believe in their old routine now.