Seven Shades of Grey

by Vivek Mehra

  The woman that I now knew as Bindu’s sister-in-law came out of the center with three children tagging along, four strangers in the sea of humanity that inhabited Bombay, with their identities now revealed. I looked up and Bindu too saw them.

  ‘I must leave now,’ she said.

  ‘Why don’t you all join us for a cup of tea?’ Dolly said.

  ‘Maybe next time, Dolly. I have my sister-in-law with me and I don’t know what I would say to her,’ said Bindu.

  ‘It’s OK, we will invite her too,’ Dolly chipped in.

  ‘I think we will leave it for the next time. I really must go now. It was really nice to meet you both.’

  ‘Same here, Bindu,’ I said.

  ‘Yes it was really nice, although very short,’ said Dolly.

  ‘Bye, guys,’ replied Bindu and left to join her family.

  The drummers were still there pounding away, but the butterflies decided to rest their weary wings. This was mind-boggling. Dolly had a big smile on her face, bigger than the one Columbus must have had when he discovered the New Land! I could tell she was very happy about the meeting, especially because she had played a pivotal role in executing it. The chaperone had become the focus of attention, the prom night having lost its importance.

  ‘This is a lovely way to make friends, fatso,’ she said.

  ‘It’s all thanks to you. I was ready to go home. You made sure this happened.’

  ‘What was there to be so scared about? At best she would have said that she did not want to meet us. She was not going to bite your head off.’ A matter-of-fact statement, set to the music of a beaming smile, plain Jane at her simplistic best.

  ‘It’s true, but still, it’s one thing to chat on the Net and a whole new thing to meet the actual person.’ A matter-of-fact statement accompanied by a deadpan face concealing drummers who never tired. And there was still more wisdom to follow. Insanity was actually practical and sane; I just did not have the eyes to see it then.

  ‘I am sure. Look at it this way. If you move into a new neighborhood, how do you meet new people? Someone has to take the initiative and take the first step. If everyone waits for the other person to make the first move then everyone would be sitting in their respective houses waiting.’ More evidence of Insanity’s sanity.

  ‘I understand you. Now let’s go home, shall we?’

  ‘OK, I do have to go home and cook.’ The cheetah turned domestic help turned to caring wife, ready to cook to feed the man of the house turned chicken shit.

  On the short walk back home we talked little, and I am sure Dolly was replaying the whole incident in her mind just as I was. She went to the kitchen and I went to watch some TV. The drummers left me a while ago making room for a whirlwind of thoughts to occupy my mind. What had happened was incredible; there was no doubt about it. I had actually met a person who was nothing but a series of letters and numbers on the computer just hours ago. That part was easy to understand, the role my wife played was not.

  I had been ready to quit and go back to the security of my home, then the computer screen the next day. But she had decided not to quit, the result being a friend moving out of the sheltered anonymous and secure bits of the computer and into the world of flesh and bones. This was despite the fact that I ‘spoke’ to this woman on the computer and for all practical purposes the conversation was between the woman and me. Nobody else knew exactly what we discussed.

  It was true that I came back and told my wife all about it, but even then it was different from being part of the conversation. Now to take this secret liaison one step further and being instrumental in getting the two of us to meet took a lot of courage. Insanity that was actually sane, bold, rational, loving and as confusing as the New Rules for the New World. I could not explain why she had been excited at meeting a woman chat friend but I could seek an explanation for something else.

  My mind went back to the statement made by her. Why had she asked me to close my eyes and visualize a woman and how had the woman that appeared to me? Why had my mind focused only on the one that would eventually lead me to Bindu? Why, why why…

  ‘Could you come here for a moment?’ I yelled, she busy in the kitchen, me comfortable in my bed.

  ‘Just a second,’ came the reply, and I waited impatiently.

  It was about two minutes later that Dolly appeared before me.

  ‘What’s up?’ she inquired.

  ‘Why did you ask me to close my eyes and visualize a woman?’ The drummers starting a soft roll, the whirlwind narrowing down its focus.

  She sat down on the bed in front of me and did not answer me. Her head was tilted to her right, and she was looking away from me. I waited, impatiently, drummers still on a soft roll. She finally looked me in the eye and spoke.

  ‘I have been married to you for about eight years now,’ she said in her soft voice.

  ‘That’s true,’ I replied.

  ‘In the years I have noticed that you have a gift, if you could call it that,’ she continued.

  A gift?

  ‘What gift?’ drummers picking up the tempo but not one that would overwhelm me or scare me, nothing like the beats they pounded earlier that day.

  ‘Don’t interrupt me, please. It’s difficult as it is to put this into words.’

  ‘OK, go on, I shall listen.’ And listen I did, enthralled, like a mother listening to the first words of her first born.

  ‘I have noticed that whenever the chips are down or when I don’t know what to do in a given situation, you have come up with a solution or a suggestion that works. I don’t know how to explain it, but I trust your judgment. This evening when I saw you flustered and lacking direction I merely suggested that you calm down and think the matter through.’ She paused for breath and I did not interrupt her. The drumbeats remained consistent, not too fast nor too slow, comfortable.

  ‘What I asked you to do is what you taught me a long time ago. You told me that whenever I had a problem I was to leave it to my subconscious mind to give me an answer. I merely asked you to do the same. I know you read a lot on subjects related to this, and I’ve grown to trust you on this. You proved correct even today.’ She stopped again, and I thought about what she had said.

  ‘You have it in you, fatso,’ she went on. ‘I don’t know what it is, but I have seen it work over and over again. I have noticed that you can address an issue by getting detached from it. I don’t know how you do it, but my heart knows and believes that you can. I guess that is why I trust you and love you so much.’ I responded by giving her a hug. I felt close to her like I had never felt before. I could hear her heart pounding and feel her body tremble in my arms.

  Strange! Insanity was so sane; it was I who forgot to look at her with innocent eyes, with the eyes of a child looking at a parent, the way she had looked at me. The teacher became the taught that day, for the first time, but certainly not the last.

  ‘I must finish making dinner,’ she said and left for the kitchen.

  I sat stunned, whirlwinds picking up speed in my mind, confusion flirting with me, insanity turned to sanity leaving me blinded with her wisdom.

  It was true I had read about intuition, sixth sense or whatever else one chose to call it. I was as detached about it as any average reader or curious mind about the occult would be. But to see it work in real life and that too with me being the instrument, making things happen, was unnatural… or was it?

  For the first time in years my thoughts turned to a miracle worker who had been a part of my life till he passed on. He was a simple human being with extraordinary powers bestowed or cultivated, a mystery that he had taken to his grave, seven years ago. In life he had been a friend to me, more than a sage or a soothsayer as perceived by the world. I met him in my teens through an acquaintance of mine. The world knew him as a palmist with exceptional talent and god-gifted insight into the future, deciphered by studying myriad lines on a human palm.

  My deep-rooted belief in science made me cynical when I fir
st heard him speak. Predictions revealing the date of my marriage, the first letter of my wife-to-be’s name, when I was just sixteen years old were all part of a distant future then. When the future became the present and things turned out to be as he predicted, cynicism turned to respect. It was not important to understand how he had done it; all that mattered was that he did it. What was important was that I believe what had happened in my life, just as the events of this day had unfolded before my very eyes. These events had inadvertently triggered memories of my friend, my guru, the humble palmist.

  His humility gave credit to the Lord, to Mother Nature, to his prayers and never to his ego. In various sittings he had peeled off layers of my life, slowly and gently. He had informed me as he did my parents that I had been born under a very strong confluence of stars, one that was reserved for those with exemplary karma in a previous life. I would still be subject to all the trials and tribulations that an average human experiences and yet never would I sink, always float, hanging on by the hair of my whiskers if you will, to a force that was very strong inside me.

  This force would trigger events, gore things to work for me in a manner that I may never understand, just experience first hand, a mute spectator to the drama of life unfolding before me. The events of today were a small way of reminding me of the burden I carried, of all the forces that existed, that I was destined to tap into and use for what, I know not.

  In trying times, alone, helpless and far away from him, in my stint in the States I experienced the roller coaster of life taking me from exuberance at academic achievement to despair at the lack of money to survive, all in a land that was strange to me. My rationality showed me a deep well that my life threatened to sink into, and only my faith refused to let me take the plunge. Such faith made mysterious strangers come to my rescue with offers of assistance, and every tear of mine had been gently wiped away by the soft caress of time. Such faith in the Lord gave me access to a force (or forces) that engulfed me, and today I was reminded of them in a startling and profound manner.

  Now that he was gone from this world I still searched for him, longed to hear wisdom pour forth from his lips, feel his benevolent eyes shine on me, invigorating and propelling me on to higher achievements.

  I said a silent prayer asking him to ensure that I did not lose myself on this path to find him. I also hoped against hope that if I had triggered the force it could only mean that he was close by. The day’s events pointed out another of importance, I had to trust the trust that Dolly had in me.

  That night Dolly snuggled closer to me as we slept. It was one fantastic day, one mysterious event, one exhilarating meeting, one thrilling discovery of what lay inside, even if I could not understand most of it. All these were merely a calm before a storm, one that was waiting to happen, one that I never believed would ever arrive, one that did not even give me a hint of its impending arrival.

  6. Solitary Man

  The next day Dolly was away, on her annual journey to far off Allahabad, to fulfill her duties of being an only daughter, an only child. The last minute hugs at the airport always made her sad, more than they made me. She was caught in a bind; her love for me made her sad when she left me, and her love for her parents made her happy with just the thought of seeing them. I was amazed at how she managed to keep us both happy, never letting one feel that he or she was more or less important than the other.

  The departure was a mixture too, a heady concoction of freedom and loss, Confusion my girlfriend firmly holding my hand, smooching me on occasion. I loved the solitude but missed her company, loved to have more time to read but missed all the time we spent talking to each other, loved getting to cook (I did love cooking) but missed the special touch she added to every meal.

  The first day after she was gone was a Sunday; nothing happens in my life on any Sunday. It’s the day that God rested after creating the world and I rest after the week’s roller coaster rides; then again God did not have a wife. That Sunday was different because no one brought me my morning tea, no one asked me to haul my ass out of bed so that the room could be cleaned and no one asked me to take her for a movie.

  Solitary Man!

  Monday took my nose back to the grindstone, and I plunged even deeper into my lab. I had to get the formula working. The seduction of the Internet was very hard to ignore, and after what was a fairly productive day I logged back in. Bindu was there. I wanted to know about what happened after she left us, and was I in for a surprise!

  *

  The air conditioner rattles just a little, a smooth running car hitting a road hump; could be the change in temperature or a pigeon flitting from its grill outside. The rattle disrupts my thoughts too, enough to make me open my eyes and glance at the pregnant ox. It is still true to character, slow, agonizingly so. I have half a mind to stretch my ample frame on the seats and just catch a few winks. But no! What would a visitor to the visitor’s room say to that? My ample frame continues to remain firmly entrenched in the familiar contours it has made, settling in for the long wait. Another Solitary Man!

  *

  I had opened a private message window in Messenger, said ‘hi’ to her, told her how wonderful it was to meet her, when came her reply swift and curt.

  bind99: stop it u wimp

  VikSin: someone seems to be angry with me … lol

  bind99: I am angry n I am not laughing here …

  VikSin: what happened?

  bind99: u know what u did n I have lost all respect for u

  VikSin: back up … did I miss something here?

  My girlfriend Confusion firmly sat in my lap and began caressing me. She made my thoughts wander, my eyes light up and my pulse race. Were the drummers coming back? Bindu ‘backed up’, continued her tirade, defeating the drummers getting to me.

  She told me that she was very upset that I had put Dolly up to searching for her while I made myself comfortable sipping coffee and smoking a cancer stick. She was angry that I was such a contrast in real life. On the Net I was a go-getter, the first to start a conversation, the one with all the smart answers to innocent questions, and in real life a wimp.

  Wimp?

  I sat and watched the words appear on my screen, blinded by their glare, a mute spectator to allegations, originality pouring forth because the realms of my creative mind had not even conceived a fourth of what my eyes were beholding, venom at its lethal best spewing from words directed at me. She finished her tirade with an equally stunning question, if the real me was the one she met in the flesh, then the other one was a farce, an act to impress people on the net and one that she despised.

  Which was the real me?

  Once she had ‘spoken’ I asked her to listen to me before she jumped to any more conclusions headlong into disgusting mire of her own creation. She told me that the only reason she would listen to me was because I had a wonderful wife, and listen she did. I took her through the entire evening, spotting her car, dressing up to see her, revealing all that Dolly did to get me to the center. Then at the center told her exactly what went through my mind and how the faith that Dolly demonstrated finally made the meeting happen. She did not believe me at first but my persistence helped her change her mind, at least that is what she typed then to me.

  I asked her to think just one thought, a thought which questioned my motives for lying; what did I hope to achieve with deceit? Why make Dolly a party to this deceit, if there ever was deceit? I pointed out that for a man it would be very awkward to saunter up to a strange woman and ask her if she was so and so. A woman knowing the questioner would not be offended at the inquisition, but others surely would be.

  Somewhere in this line of thought I got through to her. She apologized for her reaction and complimented Dolly for all that she had done. She told me that I was a very lucky man to have such a wonderful, understanding and caring wife. In fact even she did not believe that her reactions would have been similar had she been in Dolly’s shoes. She would probably have bitten her husband’s hea
d off. We both laughed at that, and I glowed at the compliments paid to Dolly.

  The issue thus settled, I moved on to ask her about what happened after she left us; her sister-in-law having seen us sitting together must have sought some explanation. She told me that the sister-in-law was merely told that we were friends who had not seen each other in a long time. But to her husband she told the truth when she spoke to him later that night. He was livid that she had gone to meet a stranger, one that she had met solely on the Internet, a mere week ago. She had tried to reason with him, tell him that it was a public place, she was not alone, I was not alone, but to no avail. I was upset at this and apologized for putting her on the spot. She retorted by telling me that her husband and she would have to work this out, more so now because she had seen Dolly’s reaction. We left it at that and logged off.

  Later that evening I telephoned Dolly, as I did on alternate days whenever she was away from me, and brought her up to speed with the day’s encounter with Bindu. She had words of wisdom for me, words that were to prove prophetic one day, words that showed me how deeply she understood the institution of marriage, words that revealed the importance of the word TRUST!

  ‘I don’t like her husband.’

  ‘Why?’ I asked.

  ‘He does not trust his wife.’

  ‘Oh come on, you don’t know that for a fact.’

  ‘I know you men. If the same thing had been done by him it would have been all right, but if the wife did it, it was a no-no.’

  ‘I don’t think I agree with you.’

  ‘You may say what you want to, but I don’t like a husband who does not trust his wife. Wives, on the other hand, have to trust the husband. I don’t like this at all.’

  ‘Look, we don’t know this for a fact; you are merely making an assumption here.’

  ‘If you say so. What did Bindu do then?’

  ‘Nothing, she told me that she would handle her husband, that’s all.’

  ‘I like her will power but I am upset at the husband. Why can’t people trust their loved ones?’