CHECKMATE

 ROTI, KAPADA AUR SEX - Part 2

“My name is AMRITA and I’m not the one whom you were mentioning.” I know someone named Amrita and I’ve serious doubts you are mentioning about her. Would you like to meet Amrita Didi ?    I couldn’t understand what is happening? All of a sudden where did this Vendor come into picture? How the hell did she knew what I and Shilpa was talking? Was she there all the time and listening to us? I had lot of questions popping up, in my mind, but I didn’t ask her any of them, instead, I asked, where her Amrita Didi, stays. She asked me to accompany her to Charni Road to meet her. Is this a trap?  I have no idea, but I still told her to meet me at Charni Road station in 2 hrs.  I didn’t want to take Shilpa along with me, as I was not sure what was in store for me.

Shilpa came back with a smile, eating her butta and handing over one to me. I paid Amrita and let her go; signalling will meet in 2 hrs. I need to take Shilpa home and come back to meet Amrita. I don’t know what, was that, inspiring me to meet this girl. I heard about Amrita for first time, just an hour before. Till now I’ve not heard a single good thing about her, still I want to meet her.  I stopped a Cab to take Shilpa home and she reminded me, that we have not had dinner yet. I told her, to grab a burger from McD and get back home so that I can go and meet a friend of mine.  She asked whether I was going to meet a female or a male friend. I never hide anything from her, but some how today I told her, I’m going to meet a male friend.

I dropped Shilpa at home and went back to Charni Road station in the same Cab. Amrita, the Vendor was waiting for me in front of the station itself. She asked me to follow her. I didn’t know, south Mumbai had this kind of a places too. She took me through some narrow lanes and started climbing a steep wooden staircase.  I was wondering the strength of the ladder, while I was carefully climbing up. When the door was opened it was full of smoke and it nearly suffocated me. I could see Amrita on the bed with a coffee in her right hand and a burning cigarette in her left hand. She was reading something. She turned her head to look at me, keeping her right hand stable, which held the coffee mug. Her white top had a red flower embroidered over her right chest. She took a quick puff of the cigarette and invited me in. Her white top was long enough to cover her black shorts she was wearing to give an illusion; she was only wearing a top. Her room was looking like a typical boys’ hostel room, which I’m familiar with. Lot of posters were stuck over the wall. Magazines were all around.  She just rolled a heap of undergarments and tops lying on her bed under the bed sheet and made space for me to sit down.

She was behaving as if she was expecting me. I introduced myself and she told me that, Amrita had already called her up and informed about my arrival. By the time Amrita had made tea and served to us, and she went out.  She was not the most beautiful girl I’ve seen till date, but there was something, that was pulling me towards her. We very quickly developed a bond between us.  May be she was the only girl till now; I’ve developed such a bonding so quickly.  I was getting suffocated with the cigarettes she smoked one after the other; I wanted to get out and asked whether she would like to go out for a walk?  She asked me, whether I was taking her, for a date. She was laughing as if she had cracked the best joke of the millennium and went inside and changed to a jeans and     t-shirt and came back in no time. She was definitely different. Unlike all other girls I’ve dated, till now, she dressed so quickly and was not even cared to use any cosmetics. We were out of the room in less than 5 mins. I was walking alongside the marine drive again for the second time today. We talked a lot about many things. She told me, she was going out with a guy named Surender. I was not interested in knowing about him. May be she also guessed it and stopped talking about him.

We had dinner and came back to her room. She insisted me to take a cab back home and she can go back to her room herself. Being a gentleman I insisted, I’ll take her to her room, and will take a cab from there.  I always thought that, Sex and Love are two different things and you can balance both very well if you are smart enough.  I hate girls, because they mix, love and sex together.  This is the point I started liking this girl. Her body language told me, that I can go for the kill. I was always good at reading the body language, when it came to sex.  I always took advantage, of the situation, baring a few instances. There were situations where the girl was willing but wanted me to start and I held my breath, saying nothing doing till the girl says, she wants it. She was special and I wanted nothing to go wrong and I waited and waited for the signal. May be I got the signal and was influenced by some other factors. I still remember those sleepless nights, which proved that, I’m not fully a Dog, there is some humanity left in me.

Today was not such a day and I knew it was going to happen. With in few moments we were together on the bed. My hands were searching for my jeans’ pocket to get the protection before the actual action begins. She was too good and I would never have spoiled the mood by stopping in between.   Next morning I woke up early and I had to get back to my office. I kissed the sleeping beauty and bid good bye to her and went back to my home. I was somehow falling for Amrita and I always made it a point to visit her as many times I could. It was during one of such a surprise visit, I ran into Amrita’s BF, Surender.  I don’t know why, the hell on earth should, I be jealous of him. It was me who is going out with his GF and why the fuck, am I getting jealous of him?  The best thing that happened to me that day was that, he became so friendly with me and it really helped me.  I maintained the friendship and I always had clue, what his schedule was, and always made it a point to visit Amrita, when he was away.

It was one of those beautiful nights, when we were relaxing after our stress releasing exercise, she asked me that girlish question. Taking a puff of her ‘Marlboro-Lights’, she asked what I thought about marriage? A sudden fear ran across my nerves. I’ve faced this question many times in similar situation.  I still cannot find out why girls ask this question just after a good session of sex. I was never expecting this from Amrita. May be there is a girl inside every girl. I was silent, but she was speaking, like she was in a different world. She told, me how she had to surrender to one of the rich guys in her village. How she managed to send her little sister to one of the best school. “My sister still thinks, she was good enough to win the scholarship for free education.” May be she will never know what her elder sister had to go through to earn her that. If u have a drunkard father and a home-maker mom, and you are the only hope for them, then you will have to do all these things.  Her story looked like a screenplay from a B&W  Bollywood movie.  Now I can imagine how she got into the management quota of one of the most reputed institutions in Pune even after coming from a middle class family. Somehow my mind started justifying her for being in many relationships in her student life and making use of them. She knew the art of pulling out heart from body. Somehow I  felt this was happening to me also, but still I was ready to take that pain.

Everything was going very well for few months other than the complaints from, Shilpa and my room mate, that I’m spending less time with them, these days.  It was a lazy Saturday morning and I was sleeping in my apartment and my phone rang. Amrita’s voice neither sounded happy nor confident, as she used to be. I told her, I’ll be at her place in 30 mins. When I reached her place, I found her in the same position as I met her in the first time. I went near her and sat with her. She didn’t care to pull her undergarments and other stuff underneath her bed sheet today. I took her hand and kissed on her palm. Definitely, I would have not done that on a normal situation. Kissing on hands is for good guys and I’m not one.  I held her hands between mine and slowly asked her, what is wrong and she looked at me moved her lips in such a fashion which produced a sound like this. “I’m Pregnant.”

I just became speechless and didn’t know what to be done. I stood up and went out of her house and she didn’t move a bit. She didn’t say anything or tried to stop me from going out. I went out and slowly walked aimlessly and was thinking hard, what has to be done to get out of this problem. I had no idea for how much time I was walking. I felt like I'm loosing all my energy. I just walked through the birds flying away from Marine Drive aimlessly.



May be after couple of hours, I got a call from Surender. He asked me to meet me at Carter Road CCD in an hour. I reached there before time and to my surprise, he was also there before time waiting for me. I could see lot of couples having fun in such a hot afternoon. I felt sad for them. They don't know how troublesome it could be if it goes wrong. They all could be in my situation.



He told me that Amrita is Pregnant and he is really pissed off. He needs my help to get out of it. What the hell is going on? A girl is pregnant and two guys are worried, to add to it, they both are discussing how to get out of the same.  Surender told me that he has to go on an official trip for couple of weeks and need my help to get out of this situation. I told him not to worry and I’ll manage the situation. That evening when I was with Shilpa, I wanted to tell her everything. I don’t like hiding things from her, but somehow I kept it to myself.

When I got inside Amrita’s house, she was cooking her lunch. She was in a much better mood today. Her confidence had come back. That gave me something to cheer about. I asked her, whether it was a false alarm, did her cycle started today or something? She looked at me as if I’ve asked her to calculate the escape velocity of a rocket to move out of the atmosphere to the space. She doesn’t know how badly I wanted her biological cycle to happen again. She told me that, she had confirmed it and she was sure about it. When we were having our lunch, she told me, that she knew a nursing home where we can do the abortion. I felt like she took a gun and shot me on point blank.  I didn’t say anything, not because, I also wanted it to happen, but I had no better idea than that. She asked me to meet her at Charni Road Station, the next day by 10:30 in the morning.

I reached the Charni Road station by 09:45 hrs in the morning and was waiting for Amrita to come. I could have walked to her house as the proposed time was 10:30. I still was waiting for her in the station. When she came I was so confused, to be happy or sad. I was just following her instructions. When I reached the nursing home, I felt so uncomfortable; the same way I felt when I was with Shalini in her last train trip (Unfaithful). The nursing home looked like a typical government hospital I’ve seen in the movies. The nurse who came out informed us that, we can meet the doctor. The lady doctor was in her 40s and was looking at me like, I’m a fugitive on run. She asked me to sign some documents. I glance through the document provided to me. The document stated my consent for abortion to be carried out for my wife. To my surprise the document was prepared on Surender's Name. I never expected, I would be signing legal papers in a doctor's consulting room.

 I was following Amrita’s instruction like a small kid and signed every place she asked me to sign.  I was smart enough to sign as Surender and held Amrita’s hand for a moment kissed her on her forehead and moved out of the room.  When I was moving out of the room, I could hear the Lady Doctor blabbering about generation X's way of life, where they have everything to prevent these things and still they have to do an abortion. I was emotionally so tired to react back. I just went out and sat down in the waiting room.  The waiting room was filled with many pregnant women. They all looked happy and were eagerly waiting for their check-up. I didn’t want to have eye contact with any one of them. I picked up a magazine and started reading.  I had to stop reading that magazine as it was a Maternity magazine and the next magazine I took was also on similar lines.  I was feeling so suffocated by looking at the baby faces posters all over the waiting room.

May be the magazines were not enough; that is why they had those horrifying images of abortion sticked to the wall. I felt very uncomfortable looking at all these things. I felt like I was about to loose my consciousness. I was feeling like a murderer sitting in the waiting room. I never thought I would be instrumental in taking away an unborn life. I just couldn’t sit there comfortably. I was sweating inside an air-conditioned   room. I have already drunk at-least 2-3 glasses of water.  I was feeling so uncomfortable and just went out of the waiting room and was standing in the hot sun and I was not feeling any heat of it.  I just stood in the hot sun like I was lost in a new world.

When Amrita Walked out of the Nursing home, I didn’t know how to react. I took her hands in my hands and walked along with her. We took a taxi to her home.  She said Good-Bye and started walking towards her home. I suddenly stopped her and held her hands. I tried to look away from her eyes and softly asked “Was it mine?” She pulled her hands away from my grasp and asked me, “What do you think?” Before I could say or react anything she started climbing the wooden staircase.