--- Notes - Please read ---
Thanks for reading this FF till now. Right now the number of readers are less than a dozen and the number is reducing by each update. I am over it now and decided to quit writing what I have been till this chapter and experiment on a subject which I have been meaning to write for a while.
Thanks for sticking by till now.
Chapter 8 (A):
"I spoke to Anjali today," his grandmother said in what she assumed to be a neutral tone.
"Is she doing alright?" He asked in a monotone.
"She wanted to talk to you but told me that it wasn't time yet," she said looking at him carefully.
"Okay," he said dropping his bag and sprawled on sofa.
"Did she send you an email?"
"She did."
"Did you respond?"
"Yes."
"What did she say?"
"Nothing in particular – just about my health and other general things she is allowed to talk." He rubbed his temple. The conversation stopped when his grandmother noted bitterness in his voice. The falling out the siblings had more than a year ago had left him more vulnerable than the time when his parents died in an accident when he was only four years old.
"Arnav…" An unknown fear gripped his grandmother's voice when she said his name. He looked to see her standing in front of him with a cup of green tea. He took the mug from her wordlessly and didn't meet her eye.
"You are generally home right after work." She started. Her voice had lost the weight it contained few minutes before. It was her way of thawing the ice that had formed around him in recent times.
"I was out," he said. His grandma sighed deeply at his short answer. He knew she meant well and he wouldn't do anything to jeopardize the peace that had settled over them. So he decided to expand his answer a little.
"I was out with a friend," he said softly.
"Really? Who was it?" She asked gleefully.
"It's Khushi. She works in our building."
"She isn't your colleague?"
"No, she isn't."
"And you spoke to her."
"Yes I did."
"How did you even meet her?"
"I crashed into her on the first day of my work," he said finally looking up. The bitterness on his face was dissolving and the aged eyes caught on that quite quickly.
"Like how it happens in movies?" Her spunk was slowly coming back.
"Very much so," he replied with a very small smile. "I wasn't looking where I was going and neither was she. We crashed grandly on lobby floor after which we rode elevator and we talked till we reached my floor."
"Are there any CCTV cameras around the lobby area?" The eagerness in her voice made him chuckle.
"Yes, there are." He watched the wan smile spread across the older woman's face. "What are you thinking?" He asked noticing the glint in her eye.
"I'll probably do something that Armaan would do," she replied.
"Who is Armaan?" He asked, puzzled. Her sigh in response was overly dramatic.
"Armaan is my favorite hero ever!" The sixty year old woman just then sounded like a thirteen year old girl gushing about a light eyed handsome male lead from a daily sitcom. He gave her a pointed look. She shrugged in sheer nonchalance.
"When can I meet her?" She asked after Arnav finished his green tea.
"Come on grandma!" He wasn't too surprised at that. He wished she had shown this kind of enthusiasm when he was dating Lavanya. Back then Anjali influenced his grandmother enough for the old woman to scrunch up her nose whenever Lavanya was around.
"What? I think it's awfully cute when two people collide and then they start meeting all over the place. After which they realize that they cannot live without each other." He wondered if there was cotton candy stuck in her head.
"That's it. I am cancelling cable." He said standing up and started to walk to his room.
There was a dramatic "no" that was yelled in a classic Nirupa Roy style. He chuckled at his grandmother's antics and waved without looking at her.
******
"Where do you disappear off to, every now and then?" Payal asked when she saw Khushi dragging her feet inside the room.
"I went for a walk. I had to clear my head." Khushi replied. The detachment in her voice alerted Payal.
"Is your head cleared now?" Payal asked. Khushi looked up to see the older girl staring at her. Payal was always the soft one but right now the roles had been reversed.
She wondered if her sister would be happily married now if the marriage did take place. She personally abhorred the dowry system but somewhere it irked her that Payal had never said otherwise. She never stood up and told their parents that she wouldn't get married to a guy who would bring her family to the streets. She wondered why.
"You are becoming more and more callous in the way you are dealing with aunt, Khushi. She is the eldest in the house and little old fashioned. Cut some slack," Payal said.
"I didn't like her implication Payal. She called me a prostitute." Fire was back in her eyes.
"You could have ignored it. You didn't have to utter shameful things in front of everyone," Payal replied, anger creeping into her voice. Khushi looked at her strangely. Payal rarely got angry and when she did, she would never go out of line. But it seemed like the driving force was something else.
"So when aunt calls me names and implies things which would hurt me, I should stand there and take it?" Khushi asked, point blank. She was too tired to beat around the bush.
"What you said today hurt my parents." Payal said.
She widened her eyes when she saw hurt that flashed across Khushi's face and realized what she had just said.
"Khushi…" Payal said, eyes watering.
Khushi slammed the bathroom door shut, too tired to deal with her sister.
And now, even tears refused to surface.
To be continued.
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