6. OS 20. The Temperamental Tyrant (Part 6)

Part 6

HP looked anxiously at the clock.

“Kya hua, Hariprakashji?” Khushi asked, arranging jalebis on the silver tray in an attractive circle.

“It is almost nine,” HP muttered. “Almost time for Arnav bhaiyya to return home.” He leaned to look at the living room. “And these ladies are determined not to go home.”

Khushi frowned. “They came for the pooja, didn’t they, Hariprakashji? Why should they leave early?” she asked.

HP sighed. “Arnav bhaiyya doesn’t like guests at home,” he clarified. “Especially cronies of naniji and mamiji. Anjali bitiya normally warns him when she holds a pooja here and he manages to stay away till the ladies are gone. But today, she forgot to tell him.”

Khushi chuckled, “Then it will be great fun to see his face when he sees the ladies here.”

HP’s lips quirked.

The doorbell rang.

“I will see to it,” Khushi said, still laughing. She ran with the plate of jalebis, placed it on the table in the midst of chattering ladies who sounded noisier than a flock of chirping birds and ran to the door.

“Who is that girl?” Mrs. Sinha asked nani.

“Khussi,” nani replied with a smile. “Our new maid. She is from Lucknow.”

“She is very pretty,” Mrs. Sinha said, leaning backwards to take a last look at Khushi.

“And sanskaari too,” nani complimented her. “We don’t have to worry about her trying to lure our grandsons to their doom.” Her eyes fell and stayed on mami who was showing off her yellow and green Benarsi saree to her kitty party friends.

Mrs. Sinha, who knew of Manorama and Manohar’s scandalous past, shook with laughter.

                                                                   ***

Khushi threw open the door to see Arnav’s disgruntled face.

“Why is the driveway blocked?” he fumed.

Khushi cupped her mouth with her hand to hide her amusement.

Suspicious brown eyes locked on her dancing eyes.

Khushi quickly grabbed his bag from him lest he run away and then said, “Arnavji, I am sure you will be very happy today.”

He stood still for a moment, her use of his name feeling very sweet to his ears. Then he asked, “Why?”

“The house is filled with women who want to meet you,” she said, her eyes twinkling, her arms hugging his bag close to her chest.

His eyes widened in horror as realisation struck. “Pooja?” he asked, dread in his voice. “But di didn’t tell me!”

“Naniji decided on it today morning,” Khushi explained, enjoying his panic. “Her friends were asking after you. Won’t you come in?”

“No,” he said firmly, turning to make his escape.

KHushi caught hold of his coat sleeve. “Mat jayiye, mat jayiye. I will bring black tea with lemon to your room in a moment,” she tempted him.

He looked at her slender fingers clutching his sleeve.

Her eyes followed his gaze and locked on her hold on his arm.

She dropped his hand like a hot potato, realising that she had been forward.

 Very forward.

Who was she to hold his hand? His sister? His wife?

But it was still a shame that he had to run away from his own house and that too after a full day at the office.

“Aap please mat jayiye,” she requested, hiding her guilty hand at her back.

Arnav held out his hand.

He was leaving? She relinquished his bag reluctantly, her face dropping in disappointment.

He walked past her and hastily climbed the steps to his room, successfully evading detection.

Khushi beamed and almost danced all the way to the kitchen, humming dilbar dil se pyaare, dilbar dil ki sunta jaare, saari duniya hari humse, hum tujhpe dil hare.....

                                                          ***

“Bitiya, Arnav bhaiyya won’t be going to office today,” HP said with a smile.

“Kya hua, Hariprakasji?” Khushi asked anxiously. “Is his tabeeyath fine?”

“He is fine. He will work from home today,” HP said. “Bitiya, we need to add karela to today’s lunch menu. He loves it so.”

Khushi’s stared at him slack-jawed. “He loves karela?” she asked. “Karela? Who can love karela? It is so bitter!”

HP smiled.

“Ek to shakkar ki beemari,” Khushi lamented. “Upar se karela se pyaar. What will happen to your bechara Arnav bhaiyya, Hariprakashji? No sweetness in his life!”

HP chuckled as he left the kitchen.

“No wonder he thinks the world is a bad place. How can anyone who eats karela think the world is good?” Khushi thought aloud.

Laxmi walked into the kitchen at that moment.

“Suniye, Laxmiji,” Khushi told nani’s goat who had inserted her head into a tub of cabbage leaves. “Ask your Arnav bhaiyya to sudhar jao and not eat karela. He will become more bitter.”

Laxmi paid her no mind.

Khushi humphed. “No wonder he thinks the world is cruel and selfish. Bitter black tea and karela, Hey Devi Maiyya!” she muttered as she went about her work.

                                                                 ***

“Bitiya, take Arnav bhaiyya’s lunch to his room. He is working and won’t want to come down,” HP told her quietly, his eyes on the Raizada ladies in the living room. A salesman had come from a leading jewellers and the ladies were choosing pieces from the treasure trove.

“Ji, Hariprakashji,” Khushi said, quickly setting a tray to carry upstairs.

“Saasumma, I want to gets married again,” mami exclaimed. “Naulakh ka haar and benarsi saree! I bill look more bootiphool that Aishwarya Rai!”

Anjali hid her laughter by looking down.

Nani sighed. “Sharm karo, Manorama. Your son is old enough to get married. You should be selecting jewellery for your bahu,” she said sternly.

Mami pursed her lips. “Phirst Sasumma, then bahu. Let me buy phor Manorama Raijjada phirst. And Sasumma, how can I buy phor my Akass bitwaa’s bife? Bill he marry when his bhai is a bachelorwaa?” she asked. “My poor sonwaa. He bill become a sant waiting for his bhai to chose a girl,” she lamented.

Khushi walked across the living room, tray in hand.

Nani’s eyes fell on her.

“Where are you going, Khussi?” she asked.

Khushi turned to look at the elderly lady. “Hariprakashji asked me to take Arnavji’s lunch to his room as he is working,” she said simply.

Nani studied her guileless eyes for a moment and nodded.

“Nani, look at the diamonds in this necklace,” Anjali called, excited.

Nani turned her attention to the jewellery and Khushi walked away.

                                                  ***

Khushi knocked on his door.

“Come in,” he called, preoccupied.

Khushi pushed open the door with one hand, the other holding the tray.

He looked at the beautiful girl in blue, her eyes vying with her nose pin in brightness.

“What are you doing here? How many times have I asked you not to eat my plants?” Arnav thundered.

Khushi jumped. “Eat your plants? What do you think I am? A locust?” she asked, affronted.

“Not you. That infernal goat of nani’s,” he said briefly before glaring at Laxmi who had wandered up behind Khushi.

“Laxmiji?” Khushi yelped, turning around to see the white goat munching at the fringe of her dupatta. “Chodiye hamein,” Khushi requested Laxmi, who, in a mood to oblige her, left the cloth and moved on to tastier stuff like books.

Arnav leaned back in his recliner.

“I brought your lunch,” she said.

He said nothing, just waited for her to place the tray on his table.

“Hariprakashji told me that you are working from home today,” she began.

“Yes,” he murmured.

“Shall I serve you?” she asked.

He thought for a moment and said, “Yes.”

She waited till he was eating to say, “You like karela?”

He looked at her, surprised. Then he nodded.

She looked at him and then averted her eyes. A few seconds later, her eyes came back to him.

“What is it?” he asked directly.

“The things...the things you said the other day...,” she paused.

He lifted one brow.

“It is all because of the karela,” she decided.

His eyes widened.

“How can a person not be so bitter if it is karela he eats?” she asked reasonably. “And the sugarless tea. Woh bhi black, without milk.”

After a moment of acute surprise, his lips quirked.

“Matlab, I eat a lot of sweets. I can finish 1 kilo jalebi in a few minutes,” she claimed, flexing her slender arms. “That is why I am Khushi, always smiling, always happy.”

“Really?” he asked, amusement coating his voice.

“Really,” she assured him.

“Where is your home?” he asked.

“Lucknow,” she told him with a cheery smile.

“And you have your mother, father and many siblings? Loving grandparents? Fond relations living next door? All of them calling you their princess?” he asked dryly. Her sunny nature was obviously a result of having a loving family and being protected from the harsh realities of life.

Khushi smiled, not realising that he was being sardonic.

“How did you know about amma, babuji and jiji?” she asked in amazement.

His lips twisted. Unworldly. Inexperienced. A girl looking at the world through her rose-coloured glasses. She had no idea of the tragedies that life could hold, the heart-wrenching losses one could have....

“And my buaji? How did you know about her? Lekin she doesn’t live in Lucknow. She is here in Delhi, in Laxmi Nagar,” she went on happily. “Princess?” she asked, laughter gurgling from her throat. “Buaji calls me parmeswari, sanka devi, bhooleswari devi...”

His lips relaxed in a slight smile.

Her laughter died out. “But I don’t have grandparents. Matlab, my father’s mother was alive till I was fifteen, but she was not... very loving.” For a moment she stood still and frozen, her thoughts in the past. Then with a shrug and a smile, she said, “She didn’t like me very much.”

He frowned. That didn’t seem very reasonable. “Why not?” he asked bluntly. “She was your dadi, right?”

Khushi shrugged again. “She didn’t want me calling her dadiji. Only jiji was permitted to do so. I mean, it is not her fault. I wasn’t her granddaughter by blood. That was why...” Her words trailed away.

Arnav hated it when he couldn’t understand something. Like a dog after a bone, he began digging.

“Explain,” he ordered, setting aside cutlery.

Khushi sighed at his persistence and said easily, “Amma and babuji adopted me.”

His breath caught in his chest.

A moment later, he asked quietly, “From an orphanage?”

Khushi smiled. “No. My parents died when I was ten. An accident. Amma was my mother’s sister. So they adopted me,” she explained briefly.

He sat staring at her, his mind whirling with a thousand thoughts and impressions, all of them rocking his foundations.

Her equanimity was the result of having faced trouble in her life and not because she had never faced misfortune. And the tragedy she had faced had been one of the worst man could face, the loss of one’s parents.

And that too when she had been ten! At least he had been fourteen. She had been just ten years old!

His phone rang.

“Hum chalte hein,” she said. “Aap please yaad rakhiye about the karela.”

He nodded slowly, his eyes on her, the phone ignored.

                                                                 ***

“Akash bitwaa is at office,” HP told Khushi. “And the ladies have gone out to watch a movie.”

“Salman Khanji’s phillum?” Khushi asked eagerly.

HP laughed. “Pata naahi, bitiya. Suno, call Arnav bhaiya and ask him to come down for dinner.”

“Ji,” she said, literally dancing her way up to his room, humming, Yeh raat ye chandni phir kahaan, sun ja dil ki daastaan...

She knocked on the door, expecting his husky voice to call out, “Come in.”

There was no reply. Had Arnavji gone out? But she hadn’t seen him leave. Nor had Hariprakashji seen him go.

She knocked again.

No reply.

“Arnavji,” she called. “Come down for dinner, please.”

No reply.

“Suniye, this is Khushi Kumari Gupta. Please come down for dinner. The parathas are getting cold,” she warned.

No reply.

This was not like him. Khushi clutched her heart. Something was wrong.

Khushi knocked for the last time and on not receiving a response, ran to the room next door, opened the door, ran to the window facing the pool, climbed out through it and ran to the glass door from the garden to Arnavji’s room.

It was locked.

Panting heavily due to worry and helplessness, she banged on the door.

It refused to budge.

She tried to see through it, but couldn’t.

She ran to the window. It was shut but not locked.

Khushi tore her nails trying to prise it open, huffing and puffing as she prayed desperately to Devi Maiyya.

The glass slid open slightly.

Heaving a sigh of relief, she exerted all her remaining strength on the glass pane and it opened enough for her to crawl in.

She fell to the ground with a heavy thud.

“Arnavji,” she called weakly as she dragged herself off the ground.

There was no sight of him on the bed or the recliner. The door to the bathroom was open.

“Arnavji, where are you?” she called, placing a hand on her heaving chest.

She caught some movement from the corner of her eye.

She ran to the other side of the bed to find him slumped on the floor.

                                                          ***

5. OS 20. The Temperamental Tyrant (Part 5)

Part 5

“Bitiya, Arnav bhaiya won’t be going to office tomorrow at his usual time,” HP informed Khushi.

She frowned. “Kya hua, Hariprakashji?” she asked.

HP sighed. “It is his and Anjali bitiya’s parents’ death anniversary,” he said softly. “The priest will come early in the morning to do the pooja.”

Khushi could only look at him in silence as her heart flooded with sympathy for the pair of orphans. A realisation made her frown. “They died on the same day?” she asked.

“Yes, bitiya,” HP replied sorrowfully.

Nani summoned HP and he left the kitchen.

“How could they die on the same day?” Khushi wondered, a frown creasing her forehead. “Maybe it was a car accident,” she concluded after thought.

A few minutes later, she slipped away to her room. She opened her wardrobe and pulled out a photo in a black frame from under the neatly folded clothes.

The photo was black and white. A handsome man stood by his gorgeous wife who was sitting in a chair. Both were dressed well and the lady was wearing jewellery. She looked shy and the man looked happy.

Khushi tried to swallow through her constricted throat.

She lifted a hand and traced the figures of the couple even as hot tears filled her eyes and trailed down her alabaster cheeks.

“Amma, babuji,” she whispered. “I thought it was just me that had to live without my parents, lekin that’s not so. Aap ko pata he, Anjaliji and her brother are orphans too.”

She sighed. “Where is justice in this world? Why should children lose their amma babuji? He Devi Maiyya, why such cruelty?”

“Khushi bitiya,” HP called.

“Haan, Hariprakashji?” she asked, hastily hiding the photo and drying her eyes.

“Bitiya, come and help me,” HP requested from the doorway. “Mamiji’s friends have dropped in and need to be served tea.”

“Aap chinta na karein. I will do it,” Khushi replied.

                                                  ***

That night, she stood by the dining table as ASR ate his dinner.

She was noticeably silent. There was no chatter about the dishes or how healthy they were or how he was eating too little or how her amma used to make these sabzi in Lucknow and the fragrance waft to neighbouring houses.

Arnav looked at her with suspicion in his wary eyes. Why was she quiet?

Khushi’s eyes were cast down. Her smile was missing from her face.

“Kya hua?” he asked gruffly.

She lifted her beautiful eyes to look at him. “Kuch nahi,” she replied listlessly.

The ASR who never pried into other people’s private lives, who refused to acknowledge that others, especially his employees, may have a private life outside of his office, asked, for the first time in his life, “Missing your family?”

Her lips trembled. He, who had lost his parents, was asking after hers? How good a man he was! Under his anger and khadoosness, lay a heart of gold.

ASR looked at her wet eyes and trembling lips and felt terrible. Maybe he should let her go home for a couple of days. But...how could he? Who would send him off to office in the morning and greet him at night with a wide smile? Who would serve him dinner and fuss over him?

 His eyes widened.

 What was he thinking? ASR shook his head to clear it. He was being ridiculous. He didn’t need her. ASR needed no one.

But...but HP needed her assistance. Yes, HP needed her.

Having found the excuse to keep her with him, he remained silent.

                                                   ***

The arrangements for the barsi were complete.

The photo of the dead couple was placed on a pedestal and garlanded. The pooja items and flowers were ready on silver plates. The priest had arrived.

Only Arnav Singh Raizada was absent.

“Khussi,” nani called.

Khushi walked up to her.

“Call Chotey from his room,” nani instructed.

Khushi nodded and ran up the steps. She knocked on the shut door.

“Yes?” he asked.

“Your naniji wants you to come down for the pooja,” she informed him.

He threw open the door, leaving her stunned.

He was in a white kurta and pyjama, looking far younger than he usually did, shrouded in black formal clothes.

He made to step forward, but she was blocking his path.

“Khushi?” he called.

She lifted her gorgeous eyes to his.

“Move,” he said, puzzled and amused. Why was she staring at him and that too, silently?

Khushi flushed and jumped aside.

ASR walked down the steps, followed by Khushi.

                                                     

                                                            ***

The barsi was a strange event to Khushi, who spied on the family from her vantage point in the kitchen.

Anjali wept delicately during the pooja, sniffing once in a while. Nani, mami and mama had wet eyes. But HP’s Arnav bhaiya had dry eyes and didn’t even glance once at the photo of his parents. He saw them every night in his nightmares anyway.

The garland on the photo slipped on his father’s side.

ASR did nothing. He would be damned if he honoured that good-for-nothing lecher who had caused his mama’s suicide.

“Chotey,” Anjali murmured.

ASR did nothing. Akash fidgetted, sensing his brother’s rebellious mood.

“Chotey, the garland has slipped,” nani informed him.

ASR lifted his eyes to look at the photo and then looked away, doing nothing.

Akash quickly stepped in. He adjusted the garland to cover both figures in the photo.

“Can we continue this?” ASR asked the priest brusquely. “I need to get to office.”

Khushi stared slack jawed at the strange behaviour of this incomprehensible man.

Once the pooja was done, he excused himself and left for his room, not even glancing at his sister who was sobbing in nani’s arms, wailing about how much she missed her parents and what they would have said had they been alive today.

All he said was, “Akash, I will see you in office at ten.”

“Yes, bhai,” Akash replied readily, not even expecting his brother to stay at home till noon on his parents’ barsi.

‘What an odd family,’ Khushi thought.

“Bitiya,” HP called softly from behind her. “Take Arnav bhaiya’s breakfast to his room. He won’t come down to eat with the others.”

‘Not even on the barsi of his parents? He wants to eat alone today too?’ she wondered.

Khushi carried a tray with covered dishes up the steps to the Laad Governor’s room.

He looked up from the laptop.

She stood in the doorway, not stepping into the room.

He waited.

“Suniye, won’t you come down and have your breakfast with the family?” she asked.

“No,” he replied shortly and firmly.

“Today is not any other day,” she tried again. “Please come down. You can share your grief with your family,” she urged.

He stood up and walked towards her to stand mere inches away from her.

Her hands shook. Her hazel eyes were trapped by his cold, steely ones.

He hissed, “The world is a terrible place, especially for fools like you who expect all and everything to be good and kind.”

Khushi frowned. “Should I expect everyone to be evil and cruel?” she asked, genuinely puzzled.

His lips twisted in a grimace. “It is a dog-eat-dog world. All are manipulators and opportunists. Nothing matters more to people than getting their own way and that too by trampling on you on their way up,” he said coldly. “And when they bring you down, they will make sure you don’t rise again.”

Khushi’s frown deepened. “You mean, all people are selfish?” she asked. “That’s not true.”

He warned, “There is nothing called selflessness. It is nothing more than the imagination of an unworldly idiot who expects the world to give him what he desires, on a platter. That’s not happening.” He came closer to her, breathing heavily. “When you are weak and helpless and you cry for help, they will laugh at you, jeer at you. No one, absolutely no one is going to extend a helping hand.”

Khushi blinked, his nearness and his words leaving her unsettled.

“Wise up, Khushi. Or you will pay a heavy price for your flights of fancy,” he said in his husky voice, looking down into her beautiful eyes.

They stood in silence for a long moment, sharing a potent eye lock.

Then Khushi said, “Hatiye aap.”

He frowned.

“Hatiye na,” she urged.

He stepped aside.

Khushi walked into his room and placed his breakfast tray on the low table by the recliner. She then flexed her aching arms.

He stood looking at her.

She turned to face him.

“We may disagree on many things, especially our views on the world. But that doesn’t mean you have to go without your breakfast. Aap khayiye. I have made paratha with your favourite, healthy olive oil. Aap ko office bhi jaana he na?” she asked.

He looked at her eyes that were totally free of malice or manipulation.

She walked towards him and with a sweet smile, slipped out through the door.

A step or two out of the door, she turned to look at him.

“I don’t think the world is such an evil place,” she said quietly.

He opened his mouth to refute her, but she continued, “Bad things happen. They happen to all of us. But good things happen too. There are bad and good people around us. So condemning the world as terrible is not right.”

He stood looking at her.

“Matlab, Mishraji used to beat me every day. If I had considered him an example of every teacher, I would never have returned to school. Chintu used to pull my hair. If I had believed that all students were bullies like him, I would have never made friends,” she explained. “I would have missed out on so much fun.”

He looked away.

She smiled at him. “Hum chalte hein. Hariprakashji will be looking for me. Aap, please, khayiyega. Don’t take your anger out on the food.”

4. OS 20. The Temperamental Tyrant (Part 4)

Part 4

Khushi stood there for a long moment, her mouth open, her wide eyes fixed on the room that looked as though a hurricane had struck it during the night.

Her wide gaze moved to the face of the sleeping man lying in an awkward posture on the recliner. He looked so...so innocent, so young, so carefree.

But he was possessed by demons, Khushi rued. Why else would he destroy his room? She looked around. There was little he had left intact.

Khushi made her way gingerly over to the low table by the recliner and placed the silver tray with its mug of black tea on it.

There was a vicious-looking splinter of glass by her feet.

She bent to pick it up, but stopped in shock as a warm, hard hand clasped her arm.

She turned startled eyes to look into his hot chocolate eyes.

“Leave it,” he said gruffly.

He freed her of his hold.

Khushi stood still, her arm extended as though he were still holding her and argued, “You will step on it.”

“Go down,” he ordered.

“You will hurt yourself,” she insisted.

His lips twisted wryly. His psyche was one big wound, with bleeding gashes and lacerations left untended. How much more could he hurt?

“You need to see Kallu baba who lives near my buaji’s house,” she said earnestly.

He frowned. Who was that?

“He will exorcise the demons that have possessed you,” she reassured him. “You will be perfectly fine after that.”

Arnav’s mouth fell open. ‘What the!’ he thought.

“He will throw holy water and ash on you and circle a coconut and a lemon around your head,” she informed him.

“What the!” he exploded, clutching his poor head.

“You don’t believe me?” she asked, affronted. “Ask anyone in our mohalla. They will tell you how Kallu baba has saved hundreds of people from bhoot-pret.”

Before he could get over his shock, she left the room, still talking, telling him to be careful as he left the recliner to use the washroom and how she would return soon to clean up the room.

                                                             ***

Khushi returned to the kitchen and grumbled, “Hariprakashji, your Arnav bhaiya has destroyed his room.”

“Again?” was HP’s only response.

“He does this regularly?” Khushi asked, amazed that the house was still standing.

“Whenever he gets very angry,” HP admitted.

Khushi rolled her eyes.

HP said with a sigh, “He is short-tempered, bitiya, hum maante hein. But I have to say this too. Some people provoke him so much that it is a miracle that he hasn’t killed them.”

Khushi gathered equipment to go cleaning.

‘What are you doing, bitiya?” HP asked.

“Going to clean Laad Governor’s room,” she said.

“Nahi, bitiya. We have an agency we use whenever Arnav bhaiya damages the furniture in his room. They will clean up. You get on with breakfast,” HP insisted.

Khushi obeyed him, but said softly, “I hope he doesn’t step on the splinters.”

                                                                 ***

Sometime later, HP told her, “Bitiya, we have three guests. Take tea for them to the living room.”

“Shall I take namkeen too?” she asked, excited that they had visitors.

HP smiled. “Theek he,” he said. “I will set the table for Arnav bhaiya’s breakfast.”

Soon, Khushi carried a laden tray from the kitchen, a smile on her face. A formally-dressed middle-aged man, his silk-clad wife and his daughter, dressed in a lehenga were sitting with the family.

As Khushi walked towards them, the tray in hand, they were joined by Arnav Singh Raizada.

“Singhaniaji, meet my grandson, Arnav Singh Raizada,” nani said, her wary eyes flitting between a beaming Singhania and her furious grandson. She should have cancelled the visit after Arnav’s angry reaction to the news of marriage, but she wanted him wed at any cost. “Chotey, this is Aditya Singhania, his wife, Sheela and their daughter, Neha.”

Mama, mami and Anjali looked at Arnav’s face with trepidation. Akash looked away, feeling terrible for his brother.

Arnav Singh Raizada stood there, still like a marble monument, immobile even as the lava of anger rose in him. His nani’s audacity shook him to the core.

He spared a look at Akash’s ashen face before turning to nod stiffly at Singhania.

Nani wasn’t done yet.

“Chotey, Singhaniaji wants a rishta with our house. He would like you to marry his daughter,” nani said, pasting a smile on her face even as her alert eyes tracked Arnav’s expression. “Why don’t you spend some time talking to her?”

Arnav clenched his jaw and his fists for fear that he would lose control over his explosive temper.

Khushi placed the tray on the table, beaming. There would be a shaadi in the family! Guests would fill the house and she could cook to her heart’s content, serving them Lucknavi delicacies and sherbet. And maybe, if she was very lucky, she would get to see a smile on that Laad Governor’s face once he got married and best of all, he would be so busy manaofying a nakrewali wife that he wouldn’t have time to break chairs and mirrors. Laddoos phooted in her heart; colourful rockets burst into a million hues, colouring her mindscape.

“Mr. Singhania,” ASR tried to say through clenched teeth.

Khushi frowned. Was this the way to address a future sasurji? Laad Governor needed a lesson in manners and sanskaar.

“I am sorry you had to come all the way to my house,” ASR bit out.

Khushi smiled as she handed out cups of tea to the guests. So Hariprakashji’s Arnav bhaiya was not totally hopeless.

Nani, mami and Anjali relaxed. Maybe this wasn’t so bad after all.

Mama watched Arnav’s face anxiously. Akash, who knew his bhai well, had his eyes shut tight.

“I don’t know how you got the idea that I am interested in marriage,” ASR continued.

His family tensed.

Khushi looked up, frowning. Was he going to refuse the one girl who had dared to come to his house, willing to marry him and his khadoosness? ‘Bekaar mein bhaav kha rahe he, Laad Governor!’, she thought. ‘He thinks girls are standing in line to marry him!’

Singhania, his wife and daughter gaped at ASR.

“I have no intention of getting married,” he made it as clear as day. “Not now. Not ever. I am sorry you had a wasted journey. Now if you will excuse me, I need to get to office.” He turned to a wide-eyed Khushi. “Get me my laptop bag,” he said mildly. “I will be in the car.”

He walked away.

Khushi abandoned tea and raced up the steps to his room. In a few moments, she was back with his bag. She ran to his car.

His window was down.

She handed over the bag.

Arnav took it from her, his eyes lingering on her beautiful eyes for a long moment. He waited for her to remonstrate with him for his rudeness.

“You are leaving without breakfast? Shall I send it to your office with Mohanji?” she asked.

He looked his fill, taking an odd comfort from the concern in her eyes.

He nodded.

The driver started the car.

Khushi stood watching the car leave.