I Didn't Expect to be Expecting (Ravinder Singh Presents)

by Richa S Mukherjee

  ‘Sagar is Ahmed’s friend. He is a GP. He has sweetly offered to take a look at you,’ Abhi explained, noticing my quizzical look. Dr Sagar sat down next to me and started checking my pulse; he even took my blood pressure. He then looked down at my hand, which was resting on my stomach. I caught his eye.

  ‘I’m pregnant,’ I whispered to him. He stared at me for a second and then whispered back, ‘Okay. By the way, your husband told me. Keeping it a secret is fine, but then it’s probably best to not try and relive your teenage years during this time.’

  ‘But I didn’t have any alcohol!’ I protested. Abhi cleared his throat and broke up the whispering.

  Dr Sagar turned around and announced, ‘I think she’s absolutely fine. She tells me she hadn’t eaten since evening, and the lack of air and smokiness possibly added to everything.’

  Mira took a sharp, audible breath, looking relieved. Mani and Shoma smiled as well. Dr Sagar then got up, said his goodbyes and turned to me. With a wink and a half-smile, he was out the door. Within seconds, Ahmed burst into the room.

  ‘I have a bad feeling about this. Tell me. What is it? What has happened to Tara? What did Sagar say? How many days does she have left?’

  Ah, the Grim Reaper’s head of operations on earth was here.

  Dham Dhaam. 8:30 a.m.

  I felt as if I was being interrogated at a prison

  ‘You know, what you did last night was irresponsible.’ Abhi said, softly but in his stern voice. ‘The smoke and crowd was something you couldn’t control, but you should have told us if you were feeling even slightly unwell.’

  ‘It was that damn skirt that started it. I couldn’t breathe in it,’ I confessed sheepishly.

  ‘I knew it!’ chirped Mira.

  ‘You didn’t eat either.’ Abhi complained.

  ‘It all happened very quickly. My skirt was already a bit tight and as soon as I had the juice, it became more uncomfortable, and I didn’t want to be a nuisance, so…’

  Mira threw up her arms. ‘Tadi! You’re pregnant, for God’s sake! You need to be shameless about being a nuisance for the next seven months. Who cares! Poor RJ.’

  I nodded meekly.

  My arm sat protectively over my stomach. Sorry, baby. I didn’t mean to be silly. I’m assuming I’ll keep making mistakes, but you’ll have to work with with me, okay?

  Richard & Davis Advertising Agency. 12:30 p.m.

  I was yawning and doodling a matchstick girl with a cow next to it on a job status report. My exciting Sunday night had destroyed my Monday morning productivity.

  Suddenly, Sania barged in and began shouting at me. ‘B####! I almost had a heart attack when I heard about your fainting spell! I was going to land up at your place in the morning but then Abhi messaged me saying that you were better. Are you feeling absolutely okay now?’

  ‘I am. Really,’ I assured her. ‘It was just one of those evenings when everything comes together to mess with you. I think it all started with that bloody skirt. You know that maroon one? One of my favourites? I can’t believe I’m already getting fat. It was just so damn tight on the stomach.’

  Sania looked at me with a raised eyebrow. ‘Tara, you’re almost in your third month of pregnancy.’ She waved three fingers around my face. ‘Of course things will start getting tighter and smaller. Duh!’

  ‘I guess,’ I conceded, now sketching out my maroon skirt on the cow.

  Sania perched on the edge of my desk. ‘Okay now tell me, what Playstation game do you recommend I buy for Kabir?’

  I looked at her, baffled. ‘How on earth would I know that?’ I replied.

  ‘Well, can you casually check with Abhi?’ asked Sania eagerly.

  ‘Sure. And Kabir will then find out over some casual conversation with Abhi. Hmm. How about that flesh-eating one where the girlfriend hunts the boyfriend down?’ I asked.

  25

  Dham Dhaam. 22 April. 8 a.m.

  ‘Beta, are you really feeling fine? I’m very upset that neither of you told us about what happened on Sunday.’ I was getting an earful from my mother about the fiasco at Ahmed’s house.

  ‘Trust me, Mom, I’m fine. Now tell me, what else is happening?’

  ‘Mukkeshwar Baba from Ujjain is coming over for lunch at our home! Everything has to be perfect!’

  ‘Mukkeshwar? What a name!’ I exclaimed.

  ‘Well,’ Mom explained. ‘It comes from mukka. He thumps people on their backs while giving aashirwaad. He has cured many people and has millions of followers. I’m shocked he agreed to come for lunch.’

  I started laughing. ‘I’m shocked people willingly volunteer to get beaten up. Mom, why is it that you don’t come across one normal baba without magical powers? I thought they’d be easy to come by in India!’

  She ignored my comment and changed the topic quickly. ‘What time is everyone coming for your dinner?’

  12:00 p.m.

  Shoma and Mani were coming over for dinner and since Sania and Kabir’s long-planned Goa trip had been cancelled due to some work Kabir had to take care of, they were joining us as well. Abhi had categorically told me to order in, but I really felt like cooking.

  ‘You know they’re all coming home after such a long time. I promise I won’t exert myself. And Radha can be my sous chef,’ I had reasoned.

  ‘Fine, I won’t push you. You cook if you feel like it, but please just don’t go overboard like you usually do when people come over.’

  7:30 p.m.

  Now, looking at the spread before me, I gulped. I would need to host a neighbourhood langar to finish off this food. Abhi was right. I had a problem. And to add more food to the fire, I had ordered some fish fry from Petuk as well.

  8:45 p.m.

  ‘Abhi, she gifted me a PlayStation game, Ferocious Girls. It’s about girlfriends going nuts on some vacation and turning into flesh-eating zombies and hunting down the boyfriends and killing them. That’s messed up, even for me! Do you think she is trying to tell me something?’

  I overheard Kabir talking to Abhi in the balcony and gulped. Uh oh! Me and my stupid suggestions. Poor Sania must have gone and bought that game.

  Abhi laughed. ‘Kabir, I think you know Sania well enough by now. If she wanted to take a chunk out of your neck, she would announce it, drive up to your doorstep and sink her teeth in. There are no secrets with that one.’

  The subject matter of this gory discussion was blissfully unaware, chatting away at the other end of the hall and gulping down her third vodka and Coke.

  ‘That bloody Vohra. Telling me about dressing properly for a client meeting. What nerve!’

  Mani, the recipient of this rant, nodded sympathetically.

  9:30 p.m.

  I heard a loud ‘Mommeeee!’ right behind me.

  I turned around to find a happily high Kabir hanging his arm around an even happier Abhi.

  ‘Ssssshhhhhhhhhhh! Shoma and Mani don’t know yet. Keep your voice down.’

  Kabir started clucking like a hen and shook his head. ‘You girls and your secrets. Why make life so complicated? You don’t want to tell people you’re pregnant. Sania doesn’t want me to to look into her special box sitting atop her cupboard because it’s too personal. I mean, what the hell! Secrets are silly. So pointless. Then why live with people? Why not just live with your secrets and cherish them, marry them, have sex with them?’

  ‘Aah!’ Abhi exclaimed randomly, as if he had just arrived at a solution for the global energy crisis.

  ‘Now I get why you’ve been such a cranky old woman all evening! Listen up, Sri Sri Abhi Shankar is in the house. So what if Sania won’t let you see her personal stuff? She’s with you. Everyone has a past. Some people talk about it, some people don’t. Now I’m …’

  All of a sudden, the lights went out. I shuffled around, trying to get my bearings. ‘Dideeeeee!’ Radha came shrieking out of the kitchen, toppling something on the way. She had been helping serve the food and had also agreed to stay and help us clean up in the end.
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  ‘Calm down, Radha. Just stand in one place.’

  ‘Ooooo!’ came a ghoulish voice. Radha started crying.

  ‘Shut up, Kabir!’ Abhi scolded.

  ‘Madam, I think the AC plug is causing the trouble.’

  ‘Eh? Who are you?’ came Shoma’s voice.

  ‘Seems like Mr Ghost is the electrician,’ mumbled Kabir.

  ‘That’s the AC guy, who was working on the split unit in the service balcony,’ I explained.

  ‘Didi, I’m scared,’ muttered Radha.

  ‘Of what? Just stay calm.’

  Mani, always the hepful one, somehow found the electrician with his phone torch and led him to the fuse box.

  As if there wasn’t enough happening, the bell rang. Someone opened the door and in wafted the signature smell of the fish fry and egg curry. ‘Petuk?’ Abhi enquired.

  ‘Yes, saar. Where are you?’ Multiple phone screens suddenly came alive like we were in some concert.

  ‘850, saar,’ he announced to no one visible in particular.

  ‘I’ll get my wallet, it’s right here,’ I told Abhi but as soon as I turned, I tripped and a small scream escaped my lips. I managed to catch the sofa and steadied myself, holding my stomach protectively, but not before Sania started shrieking.

  ‘Tara, the baby, the baby! Someone save them, save the baby!’

  ‘I’m fine, Sania!’ I barked. The silence that followed was deafening. The phone lights weren’t doing much beyond highlighting legs so I couldn’t even read anyone’s expressions, especially Shoma and Mani’s.

  ‘Baby??’ they chimed together.

  ‘What happened, Didi??’ exclaimed Radha, sensing action.

  ‘Baby?’ asked the Petuk delivery boy. ‘Where is baby?’

  It was time.

  ‘The baby is with me. Well, inside me. I’m pregnant!’

  ‘What! Oh my God!’ shrieked Shoma.

  ‘This is amazing guys, wow!’ boomed Mani from the fuse box with a very silent and confused electrician next to him. Someone held my hand. I looked around to see a sheepish and slightly scary-looking Sania with the screen light illuminating her face.

  ‘I’m sorry, babe! But see, isn’t it a relief? Now they all know.’

  ‘Wait a minute!’ shouted Shoma. ‘You mean, everyone knew except us?’

  I took Sania’s phone and planted my face in the light. ‘I was going to tell you guys anytime now. And frankly, Radha, the electrician and the delivery boy aren’t exactly on my friends’ list.’

  Just when I was thanking the darkness for its curtain to hide behind, all the lights came on and it was suddenly showtime. Shoma came hurrying towards me with an incredulous expression on her face.

  ‘This is …! You’re having a baby? How far along are you?’

  ‘Thanks sweetie! Only in my third month.’ What was meant to assuage her ended up making her even more excitable and screechy.

  ‘You’re finishing your first trimester and we didn’t know? And everyone else did?’ she asked, accusingly wagging a finger in Kabir and Sania’s direction.

  ‘Hey hey,’ said Sania, raising her voice. ‘Why are you giving us those wide raccoon eyes? She told us.’

  ‘Why thank you, drunk Sania!’ Sania shrugged as my eyes bore into her.

  ‘Madam kaangraats, my bill and baksheesh?’ announced the Petuk delivery boy, sniffing a lucrative opportunity.

  ‘Madam, I fixed the AC and fuse. My fee and baksheesh?’ announced the electrician as he joined the party.

  ‘Didi, I want two sarees and mithai!’ declared Radha, without skipping a beat.

  I looked at the gathering around me and wondered how a small, casual dinner had transformed into a circus.

  26

  Madh Island. 27 April. 2 p.m.

  ‘Ac-shaaaaaaaan!’ shouted our ad film director, Anando Mukhopadhyaya, aka Potol. Which translates to some vegetable in Bengali. Poor chap. Bengali daak naams (pet names) are like a bad cold. They are sudden, they creep up on you, they seem innocuous enough but there is no way to control them from destroying your peace. You could be the president of the country or a Nobel laureate, but at the end of the day you are reduced to a … Potol. I had very often thanked Abhi’s mom and dad for sparing him and his future family from the torture of having a vegetable or flower for a husband and father. Anando, on the other hand, was doomed for life.

  ‘This is very frustrating, Deepak,’ he shouted to his assistant director.

  I was at a Yummiez ice cream shoot. There was an unusually large contingent from the team attending this one – for an obvious reason. Free ice cream.

  3:00 p.m.

  On another part of the set, a new starlet and our ad film lead, Vedika Singh, was throwing a tantrum in her vanity van, and I was discussing the shot breakdown with Potol and my creative director Shekhar Tiwari, brainstorming over how to make Vedika look even more sexy while eating ice cream. Shekhar let out a sigh.

  ‘See what the world is coming to!’ he said. ‘Dolls are made sexy, clothes have to be sexy, car has to be sexy and now even eating an ice cream has to be sexy.’

  ‘How profound!’ I said sarcastically. ‘This, coming from the guy who wrote a script about a car battery and a semi-naked girl just last month.’

  He shrugged and laughed. ‘Of course I’ve sold my soul to the devil! Doesn’t mean I can’t crib.’

  I was enjoying the usual work chaos around me. It made things feel a bit more normal, something I was sorely craving. Ever since the ‘big announcement’ dinner, there had been way too much excitement.

  Between Radha, the AC electrician and the Petuk guy, the underground network had been triggered, and my news had been well and truly spread. The next day, Deendayal, our chauffeur, had come and congratulated me, demanding mithai; the garbage guy had gone a step further and even asked me for a new shirt; the postman had asked for baksheesh. Of course, a band of hijras had also come to dance at the gate. I had sent them away with minor financial damages, claiming that the baby being celebrated was still being made. The information had mysteriously reached my workplace too. I had walked into my cabin to find eight people standing and chocolates and flowers on my table. After five minutes of drumming the table in silence, I had raised my eyebrows.

  There was an outbreak of congratulations and best wishes, followed by an uncomfortable silence. Nakul cleared his throat.

  ‘Boss! Umm. I’m sorry I mailed you late last night and disturbed you.’

  ‘Tara, we have that eyeliner research today but don’t worry, I’ll go for it and debrief you tomorrow. It’s all the way in Kandivali. Might get pretty late,’ chimed in Samaira, another girl on my team.

  ‘Boss, I’m sorry for being so foolish at yesterday’s client meeting and adding to your stress.’

  It was like having a gigantic wart on my face. No one knew exactly what to do or say, but they wanted to be polite and not make me feel conscious. I finally stood up, my hands still planted on the desk.

  ‘Hold it! Why are all of you acting like I have an extra head sticking out of my side? I’m just pregnant. That doesn’t mean I have suddenly become a delicate darling who can’t do my work! And I’m very much capable of whooping derrières if they fall out of line. Normal enough for you guys?’

  There was a collective exhalation and then smiles broke out all around.

  ‘Phew! There you are!’ Nakul was the first one to heave a sigh of relief. ‘I just didn’t know what I was supposed to do, you know, boss?’

  ‘Well,’ I quipped. ‘Whatever had to be done is done. By Abhi, that is. All you’re supposed to do is be normal and go about your business. On second thoughts, I’d be delighted if you’d stop calling me with emergencies post nine anyway!’

  Madh Island. 8:00 p.m.

  There is way too much food at shoots. Way too much. Possibly to handle all kinds of personalities and all sorts of moods. The careful eye on all the food and other demands belongs to the spot dada, everyone’s favourite go-to guy on the s
ets. He is a magician and can produce peanuts to sandwiches to sanitary napkins within seconds of a demand. Oddly enough, I found this particular set’s spot dada sitting, with his head in his hands.

  I paused next to him to ask for the location of the agency vanity van, which was our only pee stop. He pointed a finger in the right direction, but then his face drooped like a St. Bernard yet again. I couldn’t help but ask him what had led to this state of affairs. He sighed.

  ‘That Vedika madam. She is not very nice. I just can’t seem to make her happy. She keeps asking for something every ten minutes and I’m trying to keep up, but she is still angry. She even threw the food plate at me.’

  ‘What!’ I exclaimed, incensed. ‘Why didn’t you say anything to the team? She can’t behave like this.’

  ‘Well, Manager Dada did have a word with her but I don’t think it had any effect.’

  Before I could say anything, a voice came hollering from behind us, ‘Spot Dada! Vedika madam calling you.’ He shook his head, shrugged and walked away. That stupid woman. Argh! I felt like slapping her. But first I had to make my pee stop, so I hurried in the van’s direction.

  11:30 p.m.

  ‘Tara, enough. Now go back. Don’t make me go on and on and sound like a nag.’ Abhi had already called me twice from work, asking me to head home.

  ‘Darling, I’m fine. Seriously. And I have eaten enough for several people, not just for two.’

  ‘So tell me how long you’ll take there?’ He didn’t sound impressed.

  ‘I’m just wrapping up the last shot. Another twenty minutes or so?’

  ‘I’ll be baaaakh!’ he grunted as I hung up, laughing. I could hear some commotion brewing and some raised voices coming from my right. It sounded like Shekhar was in a major huff and as I came closer, visibly irritated as well. We were on our last shot and I wasn’t expecting any problems.

  ‘What’s going on, Shekhar?’ I asked as I walked towards him.

  He growled. I could tell Anando was trying to calm him down.

  ‘Who does she think she is? A princess?! She is here to act as directed, not to act difficult. What does she mean by “I won’t do this shot because I’m tired”? And then she has the audacity to tell me my two-bit opinion doesn’t count!’