Seven Shades of Grey

by Vivek Mehra

  Each family asserted their right to purity of lineage without being ‘polluted’ by the other. Fathers were furious, mothers dejected, ‘grandees’ disbelieving that they actually had to ‘see this in their old age.’ At first each family tried to dissuade their ward from the marriage. When that failed they went to the extended family gathering support from aunts, uncles, cousins, friends and every Tom, Dick and Harry’s uncle, trying desperately to drill some sense into their ward. And nothing worked because it was destined not to work.

  India for all its traditional values and beliefs was awakening to realities of the twentieth century. The right to choose a mate was fundamental. The new generation was not going to listen. The Internet was merely accelerating the change. For all the forward thinking and wisdom I possessed, this sort of liaison just did not make sense to me.

  How could one get married to another when they had not seen each other in the flesh? To me the satisfaction of my primary senses was of utmost importance. I had this need to see, to touch, to smell (maybe) and to hear before I firmly believed. On the Internet there was nothing more than an exchange of words and pictures. And yet here were two individuals defying all my beliefs. Their commitment gave me insight and for the first time demonstrated the power of words. It made me understand that we humans as a race need to believe more than we need to satisfy our primary senses. It authenticated that there is a force, more powerful than the one that we see in daily life, that could sweep people off their feet, touch the core of their hearts and make them act without conforming to age-old forms of rationality.

  *

  Today, I salute the spirit of these two adventurers, for they are married now. Their determination and commitment was stronger than that of early African explorers. The only glory they brought was to the love that each possessed. I have informed them too about the impending miracle in my life. Unfortunately both of them are out of the city and will not be able to share this blessing in person. Their wishes are with us, however, and today will be the day The Miracle would be brought to life. This reminds me that my pregnant ox-like companion has made some progress, so I must find out how much my wife has made.

  4. The Beginning of Change

  I haul my royal and now quite sore behind and make my way to the door of the waiting room, my temporary prison. Behind that lies a corridor, most probably inhabited by white uniformed angels of good news. Across this, behind another door, lies my wife. My eyes search for these angels and I don’t see any. I take hesitant steps to the door labeled ‘Labor Room’ for therein lies the sunshine of my life. I gently push at the door, quite like I did whenever I was summoned to my school principal’s office. My heart is running the 100-meter race, sprinting to the finish line, determined to win gold. As I peek inside, I see the comfortable bed on which is sprawled the large bloated frame of my wife. There is an angel by her side, checking her pulse and blood pressure. She senses the door open for she has not seen it open and turns towards it. She smiles an angelic smile and poetry flows from her lips. ‘Don’t worry Mr. Singhal, the baby is yet to arrive. Everything is normal.’

  Normal? My heart exclaimed!

  If only you knew that nothing in my life was ever normal.

  ‘The contractions are still very far apart and this will take some time. We want nature to take its own course and hence do not want to intervene at this point.’ Another smile punctuates her poetry. ‘I shall personally come and inform you as soon as I think it’s time.’

  That was my clue to remove myself from the room. I linger to catch a glimpse of my sunshine. I need to know she is all right. The angel reads my mind and moves away. I see my sunshine, a little pale, and smiling. She raises her right hand and her two fingers form the letter ‘V’. ‘V’ for victory, ‘V’ for Vikram and ‘V’ for very soon, or so I hope. That gesture makes my heart leap. I want to rush forward and give her a giant hug, but I have been warned of stepping in the room and contaminating it. I make the same sign to her and blow her a kiss. Her tired eyes smile the smile. I slowly shut the door and head back to the cool confines of my temporary prison.

  The barbers’ refuse still glares back at me as I make my way to the chair. I notice the unusual crater that I have made and how lovingly the chair continues to hold on to it. I choose another one, a sibling probably, closer to the reliable air-conditioner. It’s going to be a long vigil. My mind wanders back to all the changes the presence of my friends brought about. I never really knew that I had begun to change because change just crept up on me.

  *

  I had read somewhere that humans use a very small fraction of their brainpower. If memory serves me correctly, it was about 8% or thereabouts. Einstein the great scientist was thought to use close to twice that amount. This meant just one thing: the vast expanse of the brain must be like Africa of yore, unknown, uncharted and never understood. Spiritualists, scientists and all breeds of rationalists tried to fit the rest of the brain into a mold that they believed in. Who was to say who or what was correct and who or what was wrong?

  I clearly recall that with the advent of Internet chatting and the arrival of strangers in my life the aura around me changed. A large part of this change was brought about by the encouraging or, as some would put it, complacent attitude of my wife. I really don’t know why she never fought with me over my chatting with strange women or why it never affected her adversely. It is very possible that she saw a change in my general behavior. My anxiety levels were down, my concentration had increased and for some strange reason the bedroom antics had changed for the better too. It could also be that for once we had a topic to discuss that was neutral.

  I remember the first night I mentioned meeting an Indian woman in chat, we laughed a lot, and made love a lot. Dolly loved to call me a flirt, loved to point out that I needed to be around women - it being ‘good’ for my ego. And yet never was a word spoken in anger or fear or laced with sarcasm.

  Every time I brought home news about my chat friends Dolly listened with attention analyzed the situation and put forth her own point of view with clinical precision and clinical detachment. It was I who was at times nervous telling her about strangers I toyed with.

  With all of this came a sense of relief. I distinctly remember that one positive fallout of this was that doctors, conception procedures and programmed sex were all systematically filed away in the recesses of our minds. From watching her menstrual cycles, Dolly went on to ignore them, at least in front of me. Doctors had earlier reduced our sex life to watching calendar dates determining abstinence and consequently determining fertile dates. We sometimes had to do it at night, when both of us were tired or just plain weary and sometimes in the morning because the doctor said so. It was akin to what animals did, no passion, no warmth, hardly any love. I wondered then, if humans were also nothing but animals! In my life I sure was made to feel like one. And then this strange creature called the Internet and its form of communicating had changed everything for us.

  From researching procedures to try to conceive she jumped headlong into knowing more about my Internet friends. The discussion of strangers and their lives brought a new level of intimacy back into the marriage. From programmed sex, we went to impulsive, racy and passionate lovemaking.

  While talking about the day’s events, Dolly would make little gestures that really turned me on. At one time she sat in my lap and asked me to tell her all about the Internet and its sexual content. At another time she held my hands in hers, her eyes looking deep inside mine when I happened to mention Aviva’s problems. These subtle changes made a big difference in our life especially when we finally landed in bed, retiring for the night.

  We would snuggle up to each other, talk about how wonderful life had been for us and how the friends in cyberspace were as human as we were. Each one of them had shared intimate problems with me at some stage of our relationship and I had shared each one of them with Dolly – each was as distinct as the other, a quiet reflection of differences in environment, society
and culture.

  Marilyn was very concerned about the fact that her husband was away a lot from her. Sometimes he was gone for weeks on end. It was the nature of his job and there was little that she could do about it. She confessed to me that she missed his physical presence more than anything else. He was like a giant panda bear, very cuddly and passionate.

  She was tormented about the fact that she had to switch on to become a perfect wife, a passionate lover, the moment her husband walked through the door, back from a few weeks of living away, to stay for a measly few days before out the door he trudged, back to his job, back to traveling, turning the switch off, leaving behind a caring mother hovering over the brood. And the Internet provided relief, a forum to vent her thoughts and get her mind away from the daily grind. And Dolly knew all of this too.

  Reshma had dissimilar problems. She had a perfect marriage aptly supported by a perfect husband who earned a lot of money. Their problems were not that severe to the outside world but to them it was a cause of significant concern.

  They had to be discreet in their lovemaking - no public display of love or passion since they had two teenaged sons sharing the same roof. There could be no discussion of the birds and the bees, not unless it was done in a very clinical sort of way. Both were tech-savvy and loved the anonymity the Internet provided in making friends. She had unlimited access from her office and he would log on mostly from home. Their problems crept in thanks to their foray into Cyberspace.

  She felt that he spent more time on the Net than in her arms; he claimed that he was just occupying his mind with other things, similar to the way she did from her office. Not much of a problem to some, a balloon gently inflated with hydrogen, on its way to explode soon. And one day it did.

  Aviva’s problems were obviously severest of the lot. And yet I never discriminated or discounted any of them.

  With these sessions of input-output the scene definitely became more comfortable with Dolly and me. With the heightened passion that we discovered in our lovemaking came about a more subtle change. A change that baffled me and a change that was more than welcome.

  With power comes responsibility and the more the brain is worked the more the chances of short-circuiting it. I was to experience all this and more and sooner than I thought.

  *

  5. The Bombay Babe

  A long wait, the angel had predicted.

  Since I staunchly refuse to savor the barbers’ refuse I might as well do something else. A cup of coffee would be nice; a cigarette would be even better, but smoking was prohibited inside the hospital. I reminded myself that there was no way I was going to give in to a habit I had quit ten months ago. No vending machine in the waiting room, which means I have to walk down to the cafeteria. My tired legs and my sore rear- end could sure use the exercise.

  Soon I am out of the comfort of the air-conditioned room and in the balmy Bombay-air lovingly embracing the stairs winding their way down to the ground floor, to a small cafeteria. From stony silence that greets me in the waiting room I am suddenly exposed to a staircase cluttered with people, some ascending, some descending, all in a hurry. It reminds me of an ant farm I once saw. We do look like ants groping, making our way through life, rarely knowing what lies around the next bend. But this time I do know.

  I am at the last bend, the one that ends on a flat landing, in front of huge, twin, white- plaster doors, enclosing a zillion cups of my favorite brew. As I push one half of the hinged doors the other one is pushed from the inside. Each door opens in the opposite direction, so I don’t know who just passed me by. I don’t think he or she noticed me either, two ships on the ocean. And then I am amidst a sea of people, jostling for space, trying to dive at the first available chair, standing in line for a glass of water, a quick snack perhaps, doing what a sea of humanity does in a balmy cafeteria. I spy a coffee vending machine in the far corner of the room. It is not completely automatic; someone mans it. I join the sea of humanity swimming my way to the shore of choice.

  Coffee cup in hand, I search for a seat. My eyes scan the entire room, and soon I find myself in a vacant chair not too far away from my seashore.

  The change from the waiting room is startling; Bombay is that way. Make your way here from any city in India and the change would startle the strongest and scare the bravest. Then again this city grew on you, some would concur a lot like cancer did. The streets, the sounds, the sights were different. Seated in my chair I am sure the cafeteria is different too, a lot more crowded like Bombay is, a lot dirtier like Bombay is, a lot more warmth like Bombay has.

  Its proximity to the sea and the fairly constant temperature ensures that a fairly constant humidity greets every resident of the city almost every day. It ensures as well that there will be a fairly constant amount of sweat trickling down your brow and a fairly constant amount clinging to your shirt. Generally speaking, a fairly constant kind of city, my Bombay. And this was the city in which I met my first chat friend, the first place I experienced these changes that had crept up on me. And it is in this balmy cafeteria room, secure in the sea of humanity, that I seek refuge away from the glaring barbers’ refuse, sipping the hot brew.

  *

  The situation on the Net that day was very similar to the one I had encountered before. The only difference was that Dolly was scheduled to leave in a few days for Allahabad, the city in which her parents lived, the city where she was born. Not one ID listed on my Yahoo Pager Friend’s List was online, so not a moment did I lose logging into an Indian Room at Yahoo Chat!

  In the months since the Regional Rooms were first introduced subtle changes had been made in the list of rooms. Yahoo now displayed local rooms for Bombay, Delhi, Calcutta and Madras, the four major metros of India. I found myself entering one in Bombay more often than I did the others. That day had not been any different when it began.

  A few minutes spent cruising through five or six lifeless, private-message locked rooms in this category and I finally found myself in one where people were actually chatting in the main room. I joined in and I honed in on two IDs deep in conversation. I cannot recall one of them; the other is imprinted in my memory: bind99.

  In minutes the three of us were exchanging notes on the lovely city whose name adorned the chat room and to my excitement bind99 confirmed that she was also a resident of the city, my Bombay. I checked the profiles of both and found that bind99 was a woman, married, and loved chatting. I had hit pay dirt! The other was a male, with no startling revelations about himself listed. It was not long before the male excused himself, stating that he had to go to college or someplace else or merely to get lost in the sea of humanity that populated my Bombay, leaving a nameless, faceless, chat-loving, Bombay- based woman and I behind.

  *

  Damn! How could I be so inconsiderate? Here I am, coffee almost done, lost in my thoughts and the sea of humanity, mind and body far away from my sunshine. What if the then is now and my baby arrives? No way can I miss the first calling. I guess first time fathers are a little edgy, more than second time or third time fathers are. I am not about to wait to find out.

  In a flash I gulp the remainder, discard the empty cup and race to join the ants in the ant farm, making my way to my sunshine. Three minutes of running up the three flights of steps and my breathless, sweaty body makes its way to the ‘Labor Room’; my soul, filled with love and concern, had always been with my sunshine.

  I am lucky there is an angel in the corridor that neatly separates the room from the waiting one. She looks familiar and shows it by flashing her familiar smile: the ‘not to worry, Mr. Singhal… this will take some time’ smile. I smile my ‘thank you’ smile and change tracks, heading for the waiting room instead.

  I am still the only lucky chap in the room, barbers’ refuse, artificial leather seats and all. I seat my sweaty and still panting body on my faithful chair, the one that affectionately continues to hold on to the crater lovingly crafted by my ample rear end. The room is cooler; the chair is to
o. I stretch out, close my eyes and try to catch my breath, the frantic-first-time-father breath. My mind with a plan of its own goes back to bind99, who had become the first chat-friend-seen-in-the-flesh.

  *

  The first day we engaged in chat we went through the motions - name, age, location, ‘add you to my pager’ - and for once both agreed that it was a first, the first time we had met someone from the same city that we both lived in. She was new at chat at yahoo, had been using other programs earlier. She had just one other friend in stark contrast to my many. The story of how she became ‘good’ friends with the guy was intriguing. I saved it in my memory bank purely for academic reasons.

  She had been one of those anonymous chatters who had decided to lead a second life on the Net. She met someone in a chat room, became a regular with him through email, telling him she was an innocent college girl making her first foray into Cyberspace. Their friendship grew and her conscience bothered her. She knew she was a married woman, long out of college, mother of two, wife of a possessive husband, living in Bombay. And he knew none of this. Then one day she sent him an email telling him the truth, apologizing for the deceit, begging for his forgiveness. She was surprised that he readily forgave her, and so started her other life on the Net, the one in which she was honest about who she was and what she was.

  I was happy that someone actually had the courage to face up to their actions. The worst that could have happened to her is that the guy could have left in disgust. The worst that could have happened to him would have been his getting totally disillusioned by the Internet, the chat rooms and all the people that he met there. I was happy that someone thought like me, believed that it was wrong to be dishonest, wrong to live two lives and wrong to disillusion people.