As told by Tulasi

CHAPTER 7 - Cravings

As days passed, I've gotten immune to my husband's sad looks every time we passed each other. I know he's coming to the main block for me but I pretended not to care.

I am ready to bear his mother for him but she won't let me unless I brought her tons of money.

He has to either convince her to accept me back without money or he needs to move out of the house.

There is no other possibility for our life together. And that thought dreaded me because neither of the options seemed remotely possible.

Adding to that, my pregnancy hormones aren't letting me to live peacefully. I get very emotional and sit crying for hours when I have sudden cravings as no one's there to fulfill my wishes.

What should have been an exciting journey of motherhood indeed turned worse bringing the worst out of me. There was never a day without me sobbing, thinking about not being able to eat something that I craved very badly.

Yes, I stay with my parents but what good will it do when they sleep peacefully in their room while I feel like eating something in the middle of the night or in the class room. Adding to that, we live in the outskirts, almost village like part of Vizag where we don't find popular fast food chains.

The person who ought to take care of me wasn't worried about any of this.

My life couldn't have been worse. Sometimes, I get this crazy idea to run back to Karthik and Sindhu who'd take care of my every need. But, I can't. I don't want to cause any more problems for them.

"Do you have hot chocolate?" I asked the guy behind the counter, in the cafeteria.

I know it's impossible to find it here but I wanted to try. I suddenly wanted to taste it, remembering the hot chocolate from Café Coffee Day (CCD) when I worked in Hyderabad.

I got the reply I expected and strolled away, walking out of the open door with empty hands.

I wanted a simple thing and I couldn't get that; just like everything else I wanted.

My eyes watered and in spite of trying to be strong, I teared up. Walking under the shade of a tree, I removed the hand kerchief from my bag and dabbed my eyes with it, while sniffling trying not to think about the taste of hot chocolate on my lips.

"What happened?" Prof. Parvathi's voice came from behind me.

Why does she find me in most vulnerable situations? It's sad that what happened to her daughter was horrible. Now, she will feel sad about me too.

I tried convincing her that it was nothing but she didn't listen to me and I had to finally talk about my cravings as we walked towards the main block.

"Prof. Vinay" she called out, who was coming out of our staff room, probably searching for me.

"Yes mam" he said politely before glancing at me.

"Can you send someone to get--"

"We can't find it here" I told her patiently.

"I know." She replied to me, turning her attention back to him "Send someone to 'More' or 'Reliance' super market and get Cadbury Hot Chocolate powder for me"

I gaped at her in surprise when she took out two hundred rupee notes and gave it to him.

"Now?" he asked, looking surprisingly at the notes.

When she said 'Yes', he handed the money back to her and left us, giving me a sympathetic look.

He came back 45 minutes later and we made our way back to the mess. She went to the Tea counter, where milk was boiled at one end of the stove and made me a steaming cup of hot chocolate.