Satranj Ke Khiladi

When I left the colonel's house, I was elated. I now had 3200 rupees. I could finally buy my beloved summer dress. I decided to go to Bandra right away, in case someone else bought the dress before me. As I got ready to go to Bandra, I paused awhile. There was going to be a rematch. And what if I lost? Maybe I should wait till the next week, I thought. But then horned and tailed little me on my shoulder reminded me that the boutique might sell the dress. So I could not delay buying it by even a minute.

Two hours later, I was back home, wearing my new dress and admiring myself in the mirror. The dress really suited my body well. And I thought it to be poetic justice that my chess earnings bought me the dress. Here's why. Growing up, I always was a bit of an ugly duckling. I was always tall for my age, but was very late filling out. My height also meant that I was very awkward, and everyone teased me about looking like a boy. To make matters worse, my mother always made me cut my hair short, to save money on frequent trips to the hair salon. And I got glasses at an early age, and given how clumsy I was, my parents got me thick plastic rims that I would not accidentally smash.

By the time I was 15, while other girls in my school started blossoming, filling out, and getting attention from boys, I was 5 ft 9, with short hair, thick glasses and an almost flat chest. My nickname was "giraffe", and no boys ever passed me any notes in class. I found solace in chess. The other girls were better at me in everything else, but no one could beat me in chess. I started taking chess really seriously, started practising for hours, and became the proverbial "chess nerd". My nerdiness and chess love fed into each other spirally. I was picked on by girls and ignored by guys even more at school. To the extent that I stopped even trying to look good. I was happy with my loose shirts and loose-fit jeans or salwar kameez.

College is when my metamorphosis started. I had started filling out late and filled out substantially by the time I was 18. Not many guys in my school realized it, but under my loose shirts and kameezes, were now hidden 38C knockers. And the rest of my body had also shaped up pretty well, I thought. Before college started, I finally pestered my parents into buying me contact lens. I put my foot down and refused to have my hair cut short. And I saved up my allowance to buy well fitting but cheap stylish clothes from the street side Linking Road.

And sure enough, in college, I turned many heads. I am not supermodel material by any stretch of the imagination, but I do look good enough to take a second and even a third look. My tops and dresses now accentuated my big boobs. The jeans, capris or dresses I wore fit well enough to highlight what a great ass I had. And my height, far from acting as an inhibitor, now actually started helping my looks. When the students council wanted to put on a fashion show to raise funds, they asked me to take part. I started getting hit on by all sorts of guys. The ugly duckling was no more. Coincidentally, chess was also no more. So in my head, I always thought of my chess-phase as my ugly phase, and my post-chess phase as my pretty phase. And now, I could have it both.

After preening in front of the mirror for a couple of hours, I changed into my usual jeans and started preparing for dinner. I was on top of the world today. A relatively hard chess win, followed by buying an expensive dress. What more could a girl want? Even Dhruv's bickering couldn't bring me down today.

The week rolled by slowly, and things between Dhruv and me actually seemed to be improving. We didn't fight too much, and he actually started keeping his stuff in the right place. He still worked late, but was at least not surly when he got home. The ceasefire might also have had to do with the fact that I was in a much better mood. I put on the dress everyday for a little while when I was home, and started making plans for spending the next 3200 rupees. Shoes, I told myself. Definitely shoes.

On Monday, an odd thing happened. I was sitting in the living room reading the paper when Ratna got done with her work. She walked to the door, put on her chappals, and then just stood for a while. I noticed her standing there and saw that she seemed nervous fidgeting with her sari in her fingers and looking down.

"What's the matter, Ratna?" I asked in hindi.

"Memsaab....." she started and trailed off.

"Yes, what is it?" I asked.

"Memsaab...I don't know how to say it...." she seemed uncomfortable.

"What is it? Do you need an advance on your pay or something?" I said, unable to think of anything else that she might want.

"No..it is just that...colonel saab..."

"Colonel saab?" I asked, puzzled.

"Memsaab, just stay away from him." she said, and started opening the door to leave.

"What!??" I said, surprised. "Wait!" I said and sprinted to the door. "What do you mean by stay away from him?"

"Memsaab, I think you are very nice. So I am telling you. Don't get involved with him." she said.... actually the exact words she used were - uske lafde mein mat pado. Now "lafda" could mean many things. It could mean mess, situation, issue, and very often, affair. I assumed she was implying I was having an affair with the colonel.

"What? How dare you? I am not having any "lafda" with the colonel. Who told you that?" I said angrily.

"Memsaab, you misunderstand. I didn't mean it like...." she started apologizing.

"I know what you mean. Okay, I go to his place to play chess some times. But come on, he is old enough to be my father. What nonsense is all this about a lafda?" I asked.

"Sorry memsaab, forget I said anything." she said, pulled door and almost ran out.

I was annoyed at Ratna. And I wondered....people in buildings like these have nothing better to do than spread false rumors and gossip. Maybe someone had seen me visit the colonel, and decided I was having an affair. And Ratna heard of it. Small minded people and their small minded mentality, I fumed. The next day when Ratna came to work, she stayed tactfully silent and I didn't bring up the topic either.

Finally, it was thursday. The day of my big match with the colonel. The day when I would get another 3200 rupees to splurge. I got up, took a shower and wore my designer dress. I decided that the chess match was a good occasion to wear the dress bought from the winnings of a previous match. I wore an apron while cooking breakfast to make sure nothing splattered on the dress. If Ratna, who was doing the dishes next to me, noticed my new dress, she did not seem to indicate it. I almost always wore t-shirts and jeans or sweatpants at home. Wearing such a pretty dress in the morning at home was rare. I was on cloud nine, wearing my new dress, and anticipating another big cash win. I was so excited that I didn't realize that my mind wasn't entirely on cooking.

I laid out the breakfast on the table and called Dhruv to join me. He walked to the table, and took no note of the new dress at all. He was always bad at these things, and I knew he would not notice it. He had some printouts in his hand, and a busy look on his face as he read them. Without saying anything to me, he sat down, cut off a piece of the omelette and put it on his mouth.

"Thoo!!!" he said as he spat it out. "What the fuck!!!"

"What happened?" I asked, worried.

"There is no salt in this omelette. It is completely tasteless." Dhruv said, in an annoyed voice. He then picked up the cup of tea, took a sip and made a face. "And there is no sugar in the tea!"

"Oh shit! I am so sorry, Dhruv. I was distracted." I said, running to the kitchen to get sugar and salt.

"Distracted? Hahh!" Dhruv said derisively raising his voice. "What the hell do you have to be distracted by? You sit at home all day doing nothing. And you can't even do simple things like adding salt and sugar where they belong."

"Shut up Dhruv!" I shot back, struggling to not cry in front of Ratna. "Don't make a mountain out of a molehill."

"Hmpff..mountains...molehills..." he mumbled as I walked out with the salt and sugar. "Let it be. I am leaving. I'll get breakfast on the way."

"Come on, Dhruv. I made it for you. Don't walk away from food."

"You're saying you made it for me as if it is some gourmet delicacy. It's fucking omelette, Prerna. Even kids can get it right, but you can't." he said, putting his shoes on.

"Fine, you don't want to eat? Don't eat!" I screamed. Ratna, who was standing at the kitchen door, looked surprised, and rushed back inside the kitchen.

"There comes another tantrum. I can't deal with this stupidity right now." Dhruv said, picked up his bag and started walking out. I got so peeved at his calling me stupid, I picked up the plate with his uneaten omelette and threw it at him. But he had already closed the door behind him and the plate hit the door with a loud clang.

As I saw the mess that I made on the floor, I sat on the chair and started crying, not caring that Ratna could see it. Ratna gingerly walked out of the kitchen after a while and went to the door. Although cleaning was not part of her job, she started picking up the omelette and toast pieces from the floor and put them on the plate. She then got a rag from the kitchen and wiped the floor. By then I had stopped crying.

"It happens, memsaab. This is what marriage is." she feebly said. I stayed silent.

"My husband also acts like this. And so I have made mistakes." she continued. "But you are intelligent, educated. You should not make mistakes."

"Mistakes?" I said. "What the hell are you talking about?"

"Any mistakes. Just because our husbands act badly at times, we should not do something wrong." she said.

"Ratna." I said, pressing my forehead. "I am really not in the mood for this mumbo jumbo. Don't you have clothes to wash?"

"Yes. Okay." she went to the bathroom to wash the clothes.

The End.