Read Online Seven Shades of Grey by Vivek Mehra - Free Book Online

rooms. Yahoo now displayed local rooms for Bombay, Delhi, Calcutta and Madras, the four major metros of India. I found myself entering one in Bombay more often than I did the others. That day had not been any different when it began.
    A few minutes spent cruising through five or six lifeless, private-message locked rooms in this category and I finally found myself in one where people were actually chatting in the main room. I joined in and I honed in on two IDs deep in conversation. I cannot recall one of them; the other is imprinted in my memory: bind99 .
    In minutes the three of us were exchanging notes on the lovely city whose name adorned the chat room and to my excitement bind99 confirmed that she was also a resident of the city, my Bombay. I checked the profiles of both and found that bind99 was a woman, married, and loved chatting. I had hit pay dirt! The other was a male, with no startling revelations about himself listed. It was not long before the male excused himself, stating that he had to go to college or someplace else or merely to get lost in the sea of humanity that populated my Bombay, leaving a nameless, faceless, chat-loving, Bombay- based woman and I behind.
    *
    Damn! How could I be so inconsiderate? Here I am, coffee almost done, lost in my thoughts and the sea of humanity, mind and body far away from my sunshine. What if the then is now and my baby arrives? No way can I miss the first calling. I guess first time fathers are a little edgy, more than second time or third time fathers are. I am not about to wait to find out.
    In a flash I gulp the remainder, discard the empty cup and race to join the ants in the ant farm, making my way to my sunshine. Three minutes of running up the three flights of steps and my breathless, sweaty body makes its way to the ‘Labor Room’; my soul, filled with love and concern, had always been with my sunshine.
    I am lucky there is an angel in the corridor that neatly separates the room from the waiting one. She looks familiar and shows it by flashing her familiar smile: the ‘not to worry, Mr. Singhal… this will take some time’ smile. I smile my ‘thank you’ smile and change tracks, heading for the waiting room instead.
    I am still the only lucky chap in the room, barbers’ refuse, artificial leather seats and all. I seat my sweaty and still panting body on my faithful chair, the one that affectionately continues to hold on to the crater lovingly crafted by my ample rear end. The room is cooler; the chair is too. I stretch out, close my eyes and try to catch my breath, the frantic-first-time-father breath. My mind with a plan of its own goes back to bind99, who had become the first chat-friend-seen-in-the-flesh.
    *
    The first day we engaged in chat we went through the motions - name, age, location, ‘add you to my pager’ - and for once both agreed that it was a first, the first time we had met someone from the same city that we both lived in. She was new at chat at yahoo, had been using other programs earlier. She had just one other friend in stark contrast to my many. The story of how she became ‘good’ friends with the guy was intriguing. I saved it in my memory bank purely for academic reasons.
    She had been one of those anonymous chatters who had decided to lead a second life on the Net. She met someone in a chat room, became a regular with him through email, telling him she was an innocent college girl making her first foray into Cyberspace. Their friendship grew and her conscience bothered her. She knew she was a married woman, long out of college, mother of two, wife of a possessive husband, living in Bombay. And he knew none of this. Then one day she sent him an email telling him the truth, apologizing for the deceit, begging for his forgiveness. She was surprised that he readily forgave her, and so started her other life on the Net, the one in which she was honest about who she was and what she was.
    I was happy that someone actually had the courage