Koi Good News?

by Zarreen Khan

  ‘About me and Shashi?’

  ‘Yes, that you’re … not married. And I just want you to know that it must be very hard to be pregnant without being married.’

  I noticed she’d stopped eating and was looking at me with a bit of a frown. She shrugged.

  ‘Yeah, I wondered why you introduced me as his wife to your family. I always thought you were worried they would be, well, orthodox in their ways and judge us.’

  What? Was she calling my family orthodox?

  I cleared my throat. ‘Um, no. I just thought because … I mean you wear a wedding ring.’

  Laila looked at her hand. ‘Oh this? No, it’s not a wedding ring. Just something I picked up from Tiffany’s many years ago. Anyway, I know in India people do judge. But who cares about them?’ She went back to her cake. ‘I assumed you knew, most of our friends do. The domestic staff here talks the most about these things,’ she snorted. ‘They don’t seem to get the whole living-in idea.’ Was she comparing me to her domestic staff?

  Then she smiled at me patronizingly. ‘I know, it’s a little odd in India to understand this, but it is okay, really. Shashi has had a bad experience with marriage, and well, it’s all right by me too. I so cannot see myself being someone’s wife!’

  I couldn’t believe it! Here I was, trying to be helpful about the situation she was in, and she was saying this was out of choice! She was taking pride in the fact that she was having a baby out of wedlock!

  ‘Anyway, marriage is such an overrated institution. And ya, I got knocked up.’ She laughed. ‘But so be it. It’s only a baby. You know, right, it’s very common abroad.’ She was making me sound like some desi … some ancient … orthodox … some narrow-minded … like Mrs Kapoor from the park! Like I was too uncool to understand their ‘foreign’ ways.

  ‘Besides, I’m not a single mom, in that sense. Shashi and I are together. We don’t really care what the “legal” status is. We’re so much happier than so many married couples.’ I swear she looked at me pointedly.

  I wanted to snap back at her and tell her that her best friend Tina Tej Mushran has been bad-mouthing her in that case and been saying that Shashi is not really happy about the situation. She should be more careful about the friends she chooses, because which best friend goes around town revealing their friend’s private lives to complete strangers? But I’d had enough. I made some excuse and took off.

  And now I’m hopping mad.

  Ramit

  Mona called. She shouted at me for making her look like a fool in front of Laila. I told her to calm down, that Laila didn’t mean anything and was perhaps just taken aback, to which Mona slammed the phone down on me after telling me that I, like her mother and her sister and like everyone else, am always taking Laila’s side.

  I’m so glad for cellphones. You can’t slam them the way you would a landline.

  Mona

  Of course a baby must be born to two parents who are married to each other, rather than having to answer so many questions later in life! Especially when most children’s parents are married.

  I hope for the sake of the Sachdev-Haider child, that they move abroad with more ‘like-minded’ people than staying with ‘narrow-minded’ people like me.

  I put my hand on my belly and had a word with my child. I hope he knows how lucky he is to have happily married parents.

  Or she. It could be a she. With a big foot.

  And then just as I was about to draw the curtains of the living room, I saw Laila puking out all the caramel cake I’d spent the morning baking for her.

  I’m totally done with the bloody neighbours.

  Week 28

  Many women start getting heartburn and indigestion as the baby grows

  Mona

  Bruce Lee is at it again. He’s been kicking and jumping and bringing up all the acid my liver has ever produced right to my mouth. I nudged Ramit as he slept.

  ‘Baby is jumping,’ I informed him.

  He turned the other way and promptly slept off again.

  I nudged him harder and told him again. He turned towards me and slept off again.

  Then I kicked him and he woke up.

  I took his hand and placed it on my stomach.

  Ramit

  I had to let the crazy pregnant woman let me sleep so I made all sorts of appropriate noises about how the baby was moving and I could feel it and slept off with my hand on her stomach.

  Mona

  I’ve married the biggest liar in the world! The baby had totally stopped moving by then!

  Ramit

  So drowsy. Had to sit up most of the night rubbing Mona’s back because she had acidity. I feel a bit sorry for her.

  Made some joke about Aunty Acidity, that character whose jokes do the round on Whatsapp? Bad idea.

  I don’t know everything these hormones have done to my wife but they’ve definitely washed off any sense of humour she had.

  Then she told me how acidity is a good thing. Apparently, the more the acidity, the more hair the baby’s supposed to have.

  So what, we’re having a … gorilla? Thank god I didn’t say that one out loud.

  Mona

  Feeling highly cheated now that I read up on the final trimester online. This is supposed to be the ‘golden trimester’, but here I am, suffering heartburn.

  Ramit

  Her tongue’s turned quite acidic too. Laughed at that one too. To myself.

  Mona

  Good God! Ramit is simply rolling with laughter and refusing to tell me why. I debated whether to send him off to the couch or something, but then he finally fell asleep snickering.

  Now I’m trying to think of foods that don’t give me acidity but I can’t think of anything.

  When I told Mom about it, she promptly told me to get a giant bottle of Gelusil. I told her to be a little more original. She says I’m as rude as Shania. Big insult that is!

  Mummy, on the other hand, has sent me a massive bottle of smelly heeng to put in my food. If this is what they’ve been giving Mohini, I finally understand why she’s been puking her guts out.

  Ramit

  Just don’t get it. How can she be hungry with all this miserable heartburn?

  Waiting for her to finish with her breakfast so that we can get to Dr Mehak’s. I really have an urgent meeting but if I push this, Mona will crib about it non-stop.

  Mona

  So guess who surprised us! Ramit’s Mummy. She turned up unannounced at our doorstep, saying she was so worried about my acidity she took the first flight in. Now she’s pleased she can come with us to the doctor and discuss this acidity thing with her.

  And guess who has a death wish. Ramit. He says he can now safely go for an urgent meeting and Mummy can take me to the doctor’s.

  So here we are now, being ushered into the doctor’s room and all I can think about is if Dr Mehak is going to tell Mummy I’d asked her if it’s safe to have sex during pregnancy. I’m so nervous. I could kill Ramit!

  But Mummy’s jaw has dropped open at the sight of Dr Mehak. She does look more like a college student in her red frames, red trinkets and her red-and-white dress.

  When Dr Mehak asks me to come across to the examination table, Mummy stands up to accompany us.

  ‘Oh, you can keep sitting, aunty,’ Dr Mehak says politely. Mummy looks offended, perhaps at being called aunty or at being told what to do, don’t know; but she shoots the doctor a stern look before taking a seat reluctantly. But it seems like Dr Mehak is immune to Mummy’s crushing looks. Suddenly I respect my doctor a hundred times more.

  Dr Mehak checks my abdomen and barks off some numbers about height of the uterus, etc. before putting on the Doppler. Every time I hear the baby’s heartbeat, mine leaps about too.

  Ramit

  Mummy gave me an unsolicited character report of Dr Mehak when I got back from work.

  ‘She’s very young,’ she told me as Mona slept on the couch. ‘I went to Dr Bindra and she had thirty-four years’ experience
.’

  ‘Dr Mehak is very well known and while she may look young, she is in her mid-forties.’

  ‘That’s too young,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘In doctory, you need to be well experienced.’

  ‘In medicine.’

  ‘Also in doctory.’

  ‘There’s no such thing as doctory, Mummy. It’s medicine.’

  Mummy looked at me like she was going to give me another earful about having the audacity to correct her, a school principal, but then sighed loudly. ‘I can’t believe it. I’ve forgotten my English. I have to find another job.’

  I reached out and squeezed her hand sympathetically.

  ‘Anyway,’ she continued professionally, ‘Dr Mehak wears too much jewellery. She has to take off those rings and necklaces when Mona goes into labour!’

  ‘I’m sure she’ll be careful not to hurt her, Mumma.’

  ‘Hurt her? I meant it shouldn’t fall in when she opens her up.’

  ‘She’s not opening her up. It’s not an operation, you know. She just has to pull the kid out of the … You’re just being paranoid!’

  I thought Mummy would go on a tirade on how I almost said the V-word but she ended up ranting away about how I called her paranoid.

  Mona

  ‘This doctor of yours,’ Mummy said, ‘is a fashion queen.’

  Ramit had warned me about this. She’s trying to persuade us to change our doctor.

  ‘You need to be better dressed around her,’ she continued, patting my hand.

  I am surrounded by the fashion police!

  Be better dressed at this weight? Boy, I can’t believe I’ve put on so much weight.

  Ramit

  I didn’t think Mona was that big, but after dinner today, she got stuck between the table and chair. I kind of wanted to laugh but then pretended I hadn’t noticed.

  Mona

  Phew! Thank God nobody saw that! How embarrassing for my ass to get stuck like that. Good thing Ramit had that coughing fit and was distracted.

  Ramit

  Mummy just told me that Mona should take her walks more seriously. Guess she saw that too.

  Week 29

  Braxton Hicks contractions start as a painless tightening that begin at the top of your uterine muscles and spread downwards

  Mona

  Started the morning with Suhani bua’s weekly call of ‘now you are in the most dangerous phase of your pregnancy, the seventh month’.

  Dismissed it instantly.

  And then…

  Ramit

  Rushed home. Got a panicked call from Mona. She was in the bathroom and said the contractions had started. And she’s only seven months along. She was bawling.

  I told Surjit Mona was unwell and got home to find Mona locked in the room. She didn’t want Mummy to know and panic so we told her we had to meet a friend for lunch and smuggled out a bag of hastily packed clothes into the car.

  Mona said she felt acute tightening of her stomach, and pain too.

  ‘Back to front. Just like I’ve read about labour.’

  I would have Googled but we had to get to Dr Mehak on time.

  Mona

  Injured. By the look Dr Mehak gave us. And by her assistant’s snicker.

  ‘Your contractions have started?’ Dr Mehak asked, eyeing me sceptically. I nodded.

  ‘At what interval?’

  I looked at her blankly.

  ‘I had one right here…’ I said, pointing to the area on the top of my stomach. I assumed that’s where my uterus must be now.

  ‘And then?’

  I blinked again.

  ‘That was it.’

  Apparently it was Braxton Hicks. False contractions. We were given a lowdown on how to identify actual labour.

  I’m so embarrassed.

  When we left, I told Ramit it was best to confess to Mummy. And so I got home and told her I had had contractions.

  ‘It must’ve been Braxton Hicks,’ Mummy said matter-of-factly.

  ‘You know about Braxton Hicks?’ Ramit asked doubtfully.

  Mummy shot him one of her murderous looks. How dare he question her knowledge!

  ‘You don’t know about Braxton Hicks?’ she bit back. ‘It’s in all the books I gave you. Have you not read them?’

  Now he’s sitting with his nose buried in the pile as if we have an exam to take.

  Which is basically all right. It is his fault we panicked today. If he had taken this pregnancy seriously enough to read up on it earlier we could have avoided this situation.

  Ramit

  Thankfully the embarrassment of this morning has been forgotten as more exciting news has reached us this evening. Mohini is in labour.

  Mummy is pacing up and down the room and regretting missing out on the chaos in Amritsar.

  My mother has bitched about cousin Mohini ever since she announced her pregnancy but is now biting her nails and is constantly on the phone for updates.

  Women!

  Mona

  Puking-her-guts-out Mohini has had a baby girl. They’ve named her Sohini. Very creative. Mohini ki Sohini. They’d thought of Mohan if it were a boy. Mohini ka Mohan. Now everyone is raving about what wonderful in-laws she has that have allowed her to rhyme the name with hers rather than her husband’s. Her husband’s name is Kulbhushan. Good luck rhyming anything with that!

  By that logic, I should have Mona ka Shona. Or Mona ka Bona.

  Ramit

  Mummy gives me gory details of Mohini’s labour and I beg her not to tell Mona.

  Apparently Mohini even puked at the labour table. I’ve told Mom she needs to see a gastroenterologist at the earliest.

  Week 30

  By now you may begin to feel tired and uncomfortable

  more frequently

  Mona

  Gosh. I’m exhausted all the time! I felt like taking a nap after a shower but dreaded sending Mummy into a frenzy of concern. So I sat up and drank my juice obediently, trying to keep my eyes open as Mummy continued with her tales of the Deol family.

  ‘Nayantara is just not getting along with Daisy,’ she told me, knitting something grossly green. Like slime green. I hope to God it’s not for my child. I placed a protective hand across my belly lest the unborn child saw it. Their eyes are open inside the uterus by now, you know. Oh God. There’s a creature inside me with its eyes open. Ack!

  ‘I think Daisy is too interfering,’ Mummy went on. ‘Do you know how much she pressured Nayantara to have a third child? She wants a boy. In this day and age! We would never meddle with your private lives. You and Ramit can decide to have one, two, three or no children at all. I mean, come on, you guys didn’t want to have a family for four years and we didn’t say anything. It’s just so interfering of her! And Nishi, she’s so desperately looking for a girl for Soham. I told her to calm down. He’s only twenty-eight. We put no pressure on Ramit to get married. It was just because you both were in such a great hurry…’

  I suddenly desperately wanted to escape that conversation and announced it was time for me to sort out the baby’s clothes.

  In any case, those pregnancy books say I should be nesting by now. Which I would have liked to interpret as building myself a nest and sleeping in it forever, but actually it means I should be sorting out the baby’s wardrobe and nursery and all that jazz.

  Ramit

  Got home at seven sharp as per Mummy’s rules. The house was empty. Thought maybe Mona and Mummy had gone shopping. Which meant I would get some more time to finish some pending work. Bonus time!

  Then found a suitcase by the door. Panicked that Mummy and Mona had had a fight and Mummy was leaving. Prepared a hasty speech on how it was Mona’s pregnancy hormones and Mummy should not take it seriously and decided to throw in some fake Google research too.

  Then realized it looked like one of our suitcases. Opened it and found my clothes in it.

  Spent the next half hour wondering what I had said to Mona that she would want to chuck me out. That’s when La
ila walked in.

  ‘Oh! The hospital bags are packed already!’

  Phew! That’s what it was.

  ‘Bit early, isn’t it?’ she asked.

  Mona

  Mummy and I made a list of all the missing things and went to the market to pick up diapers, formula and some other knick-knacks.

  Received a call from Mom, who asked me my whereabouts and I told her I was shopping for the baby. She did the whole heartbroken number on me on how I could go shopping with my mother-in-law instead of her, but since I can’t really be on my feet for very long, I abruptly cut her off and switched off my phone.

  Got home to find a very leggy Laila in her tiniest shorts standing at the door and talking to Ramit. She flashed me a smile. I didn’t really want to talk to her after the horrible chat the other day, so I forced one fake smile right back at her and pushed my way through the door.

  ‘You look very nice!’ I heard her say. I studied my brown pregnancy slacks and floral knee-length shirt and wondered what she was talking about. Then I heard Mummy reply, ‘Oh thank you, darling. You look lovely yourself! Where did you get these shorts from? Are you allowed to wear them during your pregnancy?’

  ‘Yes, Aunty, maternity,’ she said, lifting her shirt, much to my horror, to show her the high waist band.

  I saw Ramit’s ears turning pink. He cleared his throat and mumbled something before walking off inside.

  I wanted to follow him in and show him all my shopping, but Laila said, ‘Hey, Mona, I came to ask if you’re free for lunch tomorrow.’

  Oh no. Not another one of her bashes. Or Tina’s. Or worse, her baby shower. That Tina must have surely planned one.

  ‘I … er…’

  ‘There’s this new place in Cyber Hub,’ she said hastily, ‘that has really nice brunches, so I thought maybe the two pregnant ladies could go make the most of their unlimited brunch offer.’ I’m not sure of it, but I think the laugh that followed was strained and nervous.

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said looking over at Mummy for help. She would say it’s not good to eat out and how I was putting on too much weight or whatever, but it backfired.

  ‘Excellent!’ Mummy said instead. ‘I told my cousin Vij that I’d come by tomorrow. So you both have lunch and then I can pick you up. Sounds good, Mona?’