The Pregnancy Scare

Damn you Fridays. I am supposed to be off work already. How can there possibly be another dozen mails to reply to. Friggin' IT.

*phone rings*

Great, of course it's going to be some guy from NY office wanting help on something. 

'Hello, Amar here'

'Hi, Priya speaking'

'Hey, doll. How you doing?'

'I'm good, are you busy?'

Of course not, a dude never says he is busy, when it is a girl asking. 

Amar replies, 'Nah, usual stuff. Go on, wassup.'

'No, if you are busy we can talk later.' She trails off.

That gets our hero's attention. 'No I am not, kiddo. Um, gimme a minute.'

He locks up his machine and goes over to one of the empty conference rooms and closes the door behind him. 'Yup, now tell me what's happening.'

'I am just a little nervous. It is a girlie thing. I am not sure what to do, and there is nobody else I can talk about this right now.'

'Yeah, sure Priya. But tell me what exactly the problem is.'

She barely whispered her question. 'What do you know about iPill?'

As any guy in this situation, Amar gets a little defensive right about now. Even though he definitely knows he hasn't been around this girl, in that way. 'The contraceptive pill? Yeah I know a bit about those. Is anything the matter, Priya?'

As any girl in this situation, Priya starts weeping. Not the frequent sob-and-sniffle girlie cry, but the wholehearted my-favorite-Twilight-character-has-died weep. Amar looks around to be sure nobody's overhearing this conversation and even reduces the volume of his phone for good measure.

She somehow finds gets around to reducing her weep to an occasional blurting of 'I am so stupid'. Eventually becomes more or less clearheaded to say, 'You remember VJ, I introduced him to you when we met last time?'

'Yeah, the law school guy? Dude, you're kidding me. That guy?'

Amar could feel her going red on her face now. 'Yes, that guy. Well we went to Lavasa for a weekend and things happened.'

'Of course things did, Priya. A guy and a girl shacked up in a hotel room in a hill station. What else did you think would happen?' Typical jerk move.

'Why are you scolding me?' She again goes on a cry spree. Typical girl move.

Amar takes a breath. Realizes this was probably the reason she called him instead of her other guy friends. He was supposed to be the practical one. 'I am sorry, hun. That reaction was just reflex. Just stop crying now, calm down a bit and tell me what is happening with you.'

Priya stops sobbing, clears her throat a couple times, takes another moment just to gather herself and tells how things lay right then.

Apparently, she and this Vijay dude went on a weekend 'getaway' to Lavasa, a quaint hillside resort place out of town. They had planned to stay just one night in the hotel, and spend the rest of the time roaming around sightseeing, discover places and stuff. In all honesty they did do a lot of sightseeing and discovering, just not the touristy places kind. They practically stayed indoors the whole time they were there. And that was two weeks ago. She was supposed to have her Red Wedding this week. And she isn't having her pains yet, making her scared shitless.

Amar was never completely comfortable with this aspect of the female biology. As most guys generally do, for the sake of convenience, he put away all thoughts of the female cycle from his mind for now. And only asked Priya when was she due and did they take the necessary precautions during their tryst.

'We did. But I am scared now. I am due today. But I don't feel anything now. I am just really worried. I had taken the U72 pill instead of iPill. Is that good enough? Is there a way to know if the rubber broke?'

'Now? I don't think anybody keeps them stored up for future research, kiddo. And don't worry I am sure things would be normal tomorrow. Maybe you're just a bit late. That does happen sometimes, don't it?'

She is almost normal now, 'I guess so. You really think everything is fine?'

'I do. And in any case there is really not much we can do now is there. You say you had taken the necessary precautions, and all we can do now is trust in science to do its shit. If anything did go wrong. We'll.. think about it then. You remember Tina?'

'Akash's girl from Pune?'

'Yup, she is studying OBGYN. I will send you her number, I'll tell her you will be calling her. She can help you more on the medical angle. But as far as I can tell, things seem to be safe now.'

She smiles a bit now. 'Thank you, ji'

Amar sighs a bit at this. She is back being normal again. 'I don't want to be preaching you on these things, but dude, you need to be extra careful with these stuff. This thing is no joking matter. Imagine how bad you'd have mess things up.

She unsurprisingly doesn't weep this time. She comfortably lashed out at Amar, as was usual. 'Don't you preach about this to me. Weren't you the one asking me and Asha to come out of our comfort zone and live a little. You were the one who introduced Asha to her boyfriend remember? Do you think they don't do it? Who do you think I got my pills from?'

Asha was Amar's first cousin.

'Asha. Pills. What??'

'See that's the thing about you boys. You want your girlfriends to be all loose and cosy with you, but when you know that the same is being expected of your sisters and women close to you. You immediately go on a rage.'

'Dude, what are you talking about? Is Asha messing around with Vicky?'

Priya holds her tongue now, 'I am not talking any more about it. I have spoken to much already. You will have to ask her yourself.'

Amar didn't talk much of anything after that. They said their goodbyes and he reminded her to call the OBGYN friend whose number he'd shared. And as for her, she asked him to not tell Asha that she was the one who spilled about her and Vicky. He said yes, he would have said yes to anything at that point. He was already on auto-pilot.

Amar wasn't sure how he felt about all this. Nor was he sure how he should handle this. Should he speak with Asha directly, or let her elder brother know about this. He didn't like to think what her brother would act like, probably go bash Vicky's head in. He was psycho like that. And he wasn't exactly close with Asha all that much to get her to openly talk about this with him. He was sure had to do something to help her.

Amar came out of the conference room, got back to his work. Hoping it would distract him from his personal crap. And as usual, it did. It was nearly close to midnight. He'd done a bit of overtime today. But at least nobody would be bothering him over the weekend. He packed up his stuff and was about to get up from his desk.

*phone vibrates*

A text message from this girl he was seeing -

"Roommate out of town. Wanna come over?"

The Women We Never See

When I used to be live in Pune, my roomie and I used to have our dinner at a small canteen run by a Gujarati family. I'd already lived with Gujju folks for a number of years so I've picked up a fair share of their language along the way. This was the first time my roommate had left his hometown in Madhya Pradesh, and barely spoke in any Indian language other than Hindi. So whenever we used to go there he used to ask me to translate bits of Gujrati from the people who ran the canteen. Mostly cause he fancied the owner's daughter. She was still in college, and spent some nights every week helping her elder brother in managing the place and her mother in her cooking. We usually saw her handing out the plates and cups during those nights. And my thirsty creep of a roommate used to give her the eye and made every excuse to get close to her, even though she was like five years younger to him and wasn't the least bit interested.

When has that ever made any difference to guys.

Anyways. It had been nearly three months of me coming to eat at that place. As was usual for me, I'd made a decent rapport with the regulars there and the people who ran it. My roommate's work timings changed so he'd stopped coming to the canteen. I had gotten into a routine of this place so I guess I stuck with it just for familiarity's sake.

One day while I was leaving the hotel after my meal, the elder brother stopped me near the exit. He was running the place that night in his father's absence. He told me that the canteen would be closed for the next three weeks or so. Apparently, the whole family was going over to their hometown in Gujarat. The daughter was to be married by the month's end. The same daughter who was just a sophomore in college was getting married in a couple of weeks. I'd just barely gotten my act together, and kids around me are already getting hitched. Some folks, are in too much of a hurry these days.

I congratulate him on the happy news and ask about the wedding. The brother informed me that the wedding would be in their own ancestral home and that the groom owned a garment store in their hometown. Thinking back now I should have just stopped there. But nah, I just had to ask the next random question that propped up in my head.

"What about her college?"

To which the brother replied, "Nah she is a girl, her place is now in her husband's home."

Then I ask, "Okay, so she would be able to complete her degree from a college close your hometown?"

He said, "I don't even think there are any colleges in our hometown where you'll find a lot of girls studying."

"So you're saying she will not study further and just be a housewife now?"

"I guess."

That was where I felt that weird pang. You see, I am the sort of guy that expects people to be naturally good at heart. And this was his younger sister after all. But the by the nonchalant way he'd submit his only sister to a life of mediocre alerted some sort of radar in me. I piqued up and dug in with more questions. Why didn't I just leave!

© K.L.Kamat/Kamat's Potpourri

I looked past all the tables and chair where people were having their meal, over to the little door at the end of the hall. There was a lady sitting just within that door on the floor making chapatis. She wore a heavy saree and had the hem of it over her head covering it. you could hardly see any of her face. This wasn't anything rare. In many of the North Indian cultures, the women-folk hide their faces with a veil of some sort. But now, I actually noticed it on this woman. Then I looked over to the counter where they hand out the steel plates, spoons and such. There sat the soon to be married daughter, reading a magazine that was spread open on her lap. She was wearing a tight white top, and faded jeans. She wore a bit of makeup by the looks of it. Truthfully, she was really rather good looking, in a nubile college girl sort of way. I tried to make myself imagine a future for her in the form of her mother present. It seemed too drastic a change from her life right now. And by what her brother was saying this future would be exactly what is in store for her.

The brother was looking at me carefully while I was looking towards his mother and sister. I turned back to him and asked, "You should at least have waited till she completes her education."

He straightens up at that, and replies haughtily, "What is the point of her going through college when all she was going to do when she is getting married was taking care of her husband. That is her place."

I had never yet met anyone of his kind. I have always been around people who had more liberal sensibilities like mine. This measure of orthodoxy was new to me.

"So what was the point of sending her to college at all?"

"She would have only gotten better grooms if she was well-educated."

More like half-educated.

"Is the groom well-educated then?"

"He has passed 10th grade, I think. But that is normal where we come from. Most women in our hometown are more educated that their men. My mother was a state topper in her BA college."

I looked over to the woman sitting on the dirty kitchen floor, covered from head to toe, sweating by the heat of the stove cooking chapatis.

"That woman there? She is a gold medalist? She has a degree in Bachelor of Arts?"

"Yes, in english."

I went silent at that and looked over to her again. I had never really thought of her in all the time I'd been coming to this place. Her making chapatis was constant sight whenever I came to eat here. I'd seen her sitting there on the floor so often now, she'd almost become invisible to me. Like the many furniture here.

I looked over to the daughter again. She was lazily turning the pages of her magazine now. She really was good looking, and seemed to be a smart girl. But then I guess so was her mother. She was smart enough to be the top student in college. Now though, she is married to a guy who runs a small daily-meals hotel in a small street corner of Pune. She didn't exactly make it big in life. By the looks of it, neither will her daughter.

I looked back to the brother, he was now busy counting the wads money in his father's till. I found that to be very repulsive for some reason. Suddenly, the whole canteen seemed like a vile place.

I looked over to the unfortunate women. Sometimes you empathize with somebody so much that you begin to feel the pain that they themselves had long forgotten or had grown blind to.

Walking away from the hotel and into the street, I soon realized this was the last time I'd ever step foot in that place.