Seven Shades of Grey (2 page)

Fifty years into the century a computer was already a reality, the first spasms of new life in labor. It was this single invention that mankind had been waiting for, one that would affect every human on this planet whether he believed it or not, whether he desired it or not. And with this birth, it was only natural that a New World, a new planet, with new societies and new rules to govern it be born. And soon.

And it did.

Sixty years into the century and a few wise men, akin to the ones who visited Bethlehem almost 2000 years ago, were fast giving shape to this new planet. In the past they had succeeded in getting voice to travel over electric lines, pictures to travel in space and now they wanted computers to talk to each other, a fantasy for some turning into reality for all.

Twenty years after this a computer was thrown out of its hallowed air-conditioned halls fast finding its way into homes and offices of all and sundry. Along with this came the birth of the Internet, and fantasy turned to reality.

What started out as a network of computers engaged in the protection of the free world swiftly became a necessity of the business world. Ninety years into the century, it became the birthright of every personal computer owner. The birth of Cyberspace was complete:
a New World, new genre of names, new identities and new rules. And yet humans changed little.

They learnt to fly faster and faster and yet could only walk as fast as their ancestors did. A plethora of gadgets was supposed to make daily life easier but ended up consuming more time than before. A man still wore his trousers one leg at a time, his shirt one sleeve at a time, continued to eat through his mouth, and fart through his rear end.

Women left home to conquer every domain that men claimed their own and yet some stayed back, snug in the comfort of their little castles they called home. Families moved from large ones to small nuclear ones. The faster humans progressed the faster they wanted to progress. The more they invented the more they wanted to invent. Someone coined the phrase that seemed to stick in my mind:
global
village.
It had a nice ring to it, almost sounding comical;
but it was fast becoming a reality that would affect everyone irrespective of the country lived in, the culture born in, and the language spoken. With the birth of something new, the death of the old was inevitable. And I was in the midst of it all.

*

My eyes travel to the clock in the waiting room. It seemed to me that I had been lost in thought for an eon and in reality had just been gone for less than five minutes. The door of the room is still closed which means that I have yet to become a father. The magazines on the table in front of me were probably picked up from the refuse of a barbers’ shop. I am the only lucky bloke whose wife was in labor, alone in an air-conditioned temporary prison strangely called ‘Waiting Room’. Unseen chains hold me here, forcing me into seclusion, making me dance with my thoughts, confronting me with those that I don’t want to be confronted with.
But dance they must, a jolting waltz, back to Marilyn, my first friend on the net, one who has become a part of my soul, although she did not start out as one.

*

I downloaded Pager and quickly learnt to use it. The first few times I logged into it, I did not see much of Marilyn online. The odd occasion that she did chat with me revealed more about her family and herself. And strangely did not actually reveal much.

She told me that her husband was a Marketing Manager with GE and refused to reveal his name. He was known as Panda and his id at yahoo chat was
RoadDog
! She had five children that included two pairs of twins and yet she refused to give me their names. She told me she lived in Canada, not too far from Ontario and yet refused to give me the exact city. I asked for a photograph and she refused to discuss it, let alone send me one.

‘New Rules for the New World’ rationality at its feeble best, welcoming confusion.

Confusion seemed to be my pet emotion, a comfortable state of mind if you may, and I sometimes wondered if I would ever feel another emotion as strongly.

It is my nature, as I guess it is of every human, to rely on old rules when I did not know the new ones. I hoped these would scare confusion away and was I ever wrong!

Marilyn insisted that life on the Net would stay securely locked in her computer and never clash with her real world, an impregnable belief defining an unknown New World. I wondered then how this duality could ever exist. Somewhere deep inside me I firmly believed then that this artificial barrier would crash someday.

And it did!

But not as soon as I hoped it would.

My early days with Marilyn were elegantly kosher. We discussed general subjects like food, the weather, the distance, the cultures and sometimes the real lives we led. Two swordsmen testing each other, evaluating weaknesses, discovering strengths and one day one of them lunged. She introduced me to her husband, another faceless, strange and quixotic ID on the Internet.

When Marilyn first suggested that I chat with her husband, I was appalled. What would I say to the husband of the woman that I hardly knew? And yet she persisted; pleading and reassuring that all was safe. And I gave in. Panda used his own id of RoadDog to chat with me. It began comfortably, chugged along merrily, and then hit a boulder when he suggested that I might be flirting with his wife. The merrily chugging train almost derailed.

It is one thing for a man to fantasize about someone’s woman, another totally alien to have the husband of the woman suggest that it could be a possibility. I rose to my own defense and staunchly denied any ‘wrong doing’. Panda merely chuckled and said it was OK even if I did flirt.

‘New Rules for the New World’ rationality feeble yet getting stronger.

Then Panda logged off and I was back to chatting with Marilyn. This time around, there was a pleasant change. Her conversation had a new spring in its stride, a new gurgle in her voice, all suggesting new levels of comfort being online with me, confusing me as never before.

How could a man suggest that a stranger was flirting with his wife, even if the physical distance covered half the globe? And why did this suggestion make the wife comfortable?

‘New Rules for the New World?’ rationality stronger than before, as confusing as ever.

I needed to understand this some more, just had to get the cobwebs out of my mind. There was just one person I could turn to assist me, my wife of nine years, Dolly.

Dolly came from a smaller town, had lived a simpler life, a plain Jane when we first met. Like most marriages in India ours was an arranged one. Our personal equation was comfortable, soon settling into bliss, and yet professional failures, the lack of a child dulled the shine. Over time our love ensured that we remained determined to fight all life’s battles hand-in-hand, shoulder-to-shoulder, united in our quest. Plain Jane also transformed into an attractive woman, the ugly duckling becoming a graceful swan. Life in the big city exposed her to the virtues and intricacies of make-up and with a little professional assistance she actually became beautiful. True beauty is never skin-deep and this was well personified by her. A simplistic lifestyle, lots of love, an open mind and open heart emitted an exuberant glow that made all and sundry attracted to her.

I had kept my life on the Net a secret from her, not because I did not want to tell her but more because I did not know
what
to tell her.

What would I call Marilyn?

A friend that I have never met?

A stranger that I often chatted with?

A strange ID on the Internet?

My relationship with her was tense, thanks to her desire for a baby and my desire for professional success. I did not want to add to the darkness that seemed ever present around us. But the ease with which Marilyn took her husband into confidence about me suggested that I might try the same with my spouse too.

My marriage with Dolly stood firmly on Honesty. I had had a long list of girlfriends none that I married. I flirted, bedded and even lived in with some of them all during my stay in the States. But things had not worked out and I had returned a bachelor, to India. I had been blunt about my past when I first met Dolly. She had no desire to know the details then and yet in the last eight years I had revealed all to her. There was no reason for me not to tell her about my life on the Internet. And that day, I did.

Her reaction was startling. She was curious about how the Net worked and how chatting took place rather
than irate at the fact that I was clandestinely chatting mostly with strange women. I explained the working to her and then revealed that I had made a friend residing in Canada, not just a woman whom I had chatted with once but one who had become a chat partner of sorts. I remember I was nervous when I blurted this out and also remember that I was relieved at my confession, as much as an aching and full bladder relieving itself.

‘My cousin Sanjay lives in Canada too,’ she exclaimed. ‘I think he lives in Toronto. Where does Marilyn live?’

‘Near Ontario,’ I replied. My voice almost quivered with a mixture of anxiety, nervousness and relief.

‘You must ask her to look up Sanjay; he has become a dentist now.’

‘I don’t think she would,’ I blurted.

‘Now what does that mean?’ she inquired.

And I went into a tirade, explaining ‘New Rules for the New World’.

She listened patiently like a mother listens to the first words of her child. I started from the beginning and brought her up to speed. I explained about the rule of not sending pictures or revealing last names and then told her about how her husband also chatted with me. When I had finished I noticed that she was quiet for a bit and then spoke in her soft voice. Her expressions did not betray her thoughts or at least I could not tell what she was thinking. But her insight was startling.

‘I believe Marilyn and Panda share a very deep rooted bond, one based on mutual trust,’ she said.

‘The fact that a stranger was chatting with his wife did not affect the trust. It could be the fact that they take adequate precautionary measures to keep their privacy intact and the physical distance might be playing some part. I believe that for a couple to believe in each other and trust each other is what makes marriages work. There is always the danger of one or the other slipping, the same danger present everywhere, real life included. The degree might vary or even be higher on the Net but that does not change the situation much. No one can actually understand your brand of honesty, the one you wear as a monogram on your breastplate. Everyone is private in their own way and I believe in time they will get to know the true you.’ The beautiful swan gliding elegantly on still blue waters – smooth!

All through this monologue I sat muted with as deadpan an expression on my face as I could possibly muster. Dolly’s face too had remained passive and unchanged. And then the first signs of change appeared.

‘He has you all figured out, fatso!’ she said, a grin slowly making its way to her rose-petal lips.

‘Figured out?’ my eyebrows arched as I inquired.

‘Yes. He has figured that you are a born flirt, no woman is safe with you around’ and her face broke into a huge smile. It was like dark skies parted and the first rays of the sun lit up the whole universe.

A thousand roses blossomed, spanning the length and breadth of the earth, as I
speechlessly gawked at the wonder before me. Her eyes had a twinkle that I thought had been buried forever under the anxiety that she lived with. Stars from the heavens descended to adorn her eyes once again.

And with the smile came laughter.

It was a merry brook gurgling, as musical as a rendition of the 5
th
of Beethoven played accurately by the New York Philharmonic Orchestra; as welcome as the first sound of thunder ready to release a million gallons of rain on a hot, baked, and dry earth, after a typical Indian summer. It was a sound my tired ears had ached to hear for eternity.

Her entire persona lit up the room that day, an infectious glow that made me smile too. I could not understand how such an innocent thought could make her so happy and yet I knew that my foray into cyberspace had definitely started affecting my life.

It could be that for once there was something to talk about that did not revolve around doctor appointments, or revolve around planning sex just because the doctor ordered, or revolve around what doctor to visit next because the earlier one had been painfully and consistently unsuccessful. Plain Jane turned beautiful head-turner began to glow once again that day.

It was the first day of a long string of happy ones to come.

Where there is happiness, sorrow is always lurking somewhere close by. That day forth it did stay far away from my life long enough for me to savor those days, days when the earth blossomed with smiling roses.

*

‘The village has not yet been settled in and the crooks are already here’ so goes an ancient Indian saying. It is nature’s way of leveling things: the Yin with the Yang, day with night, good with bad. And the Internet could not be immune to this.

Hacking, cyber-stalking and virus infestation were common threats to every Internet user and yet there were more dangers, less harmful or devastating, the degree mattered little for the presence was there, as plain as daylight. The major threats were still the domain of the elite, the super breed of humans who possessed an intricate knowledge of computers and the language they spoke. The lesser threat came from individuals who lead anonymous lives on the Net. Marilyn too was an anonymous user, at least to me she was. And yet she had been honest of what she wanted and how she hoped to achieve it. She rationalized that her chatting was merely to kill time, to learn about diverse cultures and never to invade the privacy or the mind of any individual she met.