A Gujarati Girl, My Lohana Lover, My Life, A Game

This is a true love story.

Falling in love with another human being should be a joy and a pleasure which, for most people, might and should lead to the rest of your lives being together. However finding that right person is a challenge but when achieved it is usually followed by sex, marriage, home, children, aging, retirement and ultimately death. A completed human life!

I am a human being. A white, atheist Englishman and I dared to fall in love with a beautiful Indian girl; a Gujarati of Lohana caste. I had no choice because I did. She fell in love with me. Male and female, boy and girl, what could be more natural? We lived 100 miles apart.

So just imagine that perfect person is found and, over four years, mutual bonding takes place. The future is promising but then she is diagnosed with leukaemia. As I witness her suffering the symptoms, I am refused all contact by the family. After six months I am dismissed to find a new life as she inexorably succumbs to the cancer. I would not be allowed to comfort her in her mortal illness. The end of my dreams and life. I was distraught and suffered a breakdown.

In fact, she had not had leukaemia but it had been a brilliantly acted ruse to dispose of me. She had been quite content to feign dying from cancer while, at the same time, making love and expressing eternal love for me! An act of brutal dishonesty that is hard to comprehend and which defies the concept of humanity. The very antithesis of love. Of course, I realise that broken promises are part of the reality of love and she had only to say I was not the one for her.... She didn’t! The truth is that another factor was at play.

Her chosen, arranged marriage with another Lohana from Kenya failed almost immediately and twenty three years later divorce finally became inevitable. In an act of self-indulgence and with sublime delusion of innocence, she turned to me again! Foolishly, and with renewed promises of love and honesty, I believed her. I could not resist. I gave all and lost my family and whole existence in pursuit of the love that I had for her.

Could she get it right this time? Would we, at last, be united in love? Did she now understand the real meaning of love? Would the outright prejudice and contempt of her family mellow? Could this Lohana woman really break with the utterly exclusive nature of her Lohana caste? Would Indian honour or human honour prevail? Would I once again be exploited, toyed with and just used? Would I be fodder for fun? Would I once again be just a game?

This book is a compelling and moving memoir of my relationship with her and is told exactly as it is, entirely without embellishment. I leave you, the reader, to draw your conclusions.