Chapter 12 #2
Kedar placed his mug by his hand, looking worried. “Please have it.”
“Thanks, Kedar,” Nilay smiled. And his assistant’s face paled. Nilay sipped his tea, unable to kill his smile.
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Done with work, freshly showered, changed into his simplest round neck white T-shirt and jeans, he rung her bell.
In their short time together, Nilay had discovered that she liked him better in his everyday look.
She was not in awe of NiP. In fact, she borderline detested him.
She liked Nilay. And for her, after years, he wanted to be Nilay.
“Good evening,” she opened the door, making a mockery of his message this morning. He shut his mouth before it dropped open at how good she looked. But wait!
“Are you going out?” He asked, stepping inside and closing the door with his shoulder, his arms full of sunflowers.
“No.” She glanced down at herself. In a fancy peplum top and curvy black pants, she looked like she was on her way out to dinner. “I don’t have many good clothes here… I just carried home-stuff because…” she shrugged. “I wasn’t expecting to go out much when I came to Mumbai.”
A soft feeling unfurled inside his chest. Nilay smiled, holding out the sunflowers to her. Her eyes widened. “These are for me?”
“You saw me carry them inside, didn’t you?”
“I thought somebody had given them to you.” She reached for them with tentative hands.
Nilay stared as she accepted them with both hands, her face alight, mouth open in awe.
Was that how happy he could make her with a dozen sunflowers?
He had never bought flowers for his girlfriends.
The orders came readymade and were elaborate arrangements with chocolates and cards.
These, he had picked up from a roadside vendor outside her building without even any cling or tissue to roll them in.
They were just a bunch, held together by a makeshift green twig.
“Thank you.” She beamed, finally looking up at him from the flowers.
He beamed back, stepping close to her. She did not step back, or stiffen, or look like she did not want him to come close.
He reached out and cupped her jaw, the creamy skin beneath his thumb warm.
She had no makeup on except some colour on her lips.
He wanted to kiss it away. Give them the colour that she so naturally carried when kissed.
But until they built back to that place, his hands were tied.
After hearing her last afternoon, more so.
Nilay bent to her and kissed her cheek. She inhaled. The sunflowers were dewy between their chests, pushing into his as she unconsciously pushed up on her tiptoes. He took his hand to the back of her head and trailed his mouth to her jaw, pressing another kiss there.
A beep tore through the air.
She pulled back. The startle burst the bubble but didn’t dissipate its effect. Her round cheeks were red, her innocent eyes shy. She was hugging the flowers to her chest now and he couldn’t help it. Nilay kissed her cheek again and let her go.
“What’s that sound?” He took off his shoes, mindful of their position this time. He pushed them underneath the shoe cabinet until they were hidden out of sight.
“Good call,” Ritu chuckled at his preempt. “Microwave.” She marched to the kitchen and he followed.
“What are you making?”
“A salad with a garlic-basil vinaigrette, aglio-oglio tossed in olive oil and…” She glanced up at him. “You don’t like it?”
“Of course I do.”
“You are making that face again.”
“What face?”
“That face. You don’t like it.” She set the flowers down on the counter between them.
“I like it, Ritu…”
She narrowed her eyes at him, resuming her chopping of cucumbers. She was chopping them like she was a neanderthal and they were living in prehistoric times.
“Are you planning to churn them?” He asked.
“No.”
“Then why take the trouble? We would rather eat them whole.” He picked up a thick slice between his thumb and forefinger.
Her teeth snarled at him — “That’s how I cut cucumbers. Come show me if you can do any better.”
“Mmm?” He reached for the clasp on his watch, taking it off. “Challenging me, Doctor?”
“Don’t hurt yourself holding the knife, NiP. We don’t have assistants here to throw the cucumber on your knife.”
He rounded the counter, took the knife from her, set the cucumber down, and began slicing it. Perfect, crisp, thin slices. He didn’t even need to look down, his eyes on hers as her mouth dropped open.
“Look down!” She panicked. He had finished slicing the entire piece and grabbed the next peeled cucumber.
“Tell me, Doctor, why are you making this sad salad?”
“You just said you like it!”
He smirked. She sighed in frustration — “That’s the only fancy dinner I know that has lots of veggies and healthy oils for you. Everything else, I need store-bought material. Sauces, gravies, dressings…”
Nilay adored that downturned mouth, that begrudging admission. He adored even more that she had wanted to cook something fancy for him with his dietary restrictions.
“Let’s do this,” he proposed. “I will cook dinner.”
“No! I invited you, you worked all day. I was sitting at home watching movies…”
“Do you like khichdi?”
“Khichdi?”
“Masala khichdi,” he clarified, finishing the tomato and looking around. There was a bulb of garlic but no onion. He would need a few things to cook.
“You know how to cook?”
“Evidently,” he began to peel the garlic. He knew it, and knew it so well that she was about to be extremely impressed. His mother had taught him well. All things life. From cooking to sewing.
“What do you do every day after 6?” She asked. Was she implying that they have dinner together every day?
“I can be available if you want.”
“Will you come and cook for me?” She managed. “World-class salary and perks will…” she sputtered. “be included,” she burst out laughing.
“How much?” He asked, completely serious. If he got to meet her every evening by being her personal chef, he would do it.
“500 per month.”
“Done. But 500 dollars is a lot for just dinner, Doctor.”
“I meant rupees.”
“What?”
She nodded, completely solemn.
“Which era have you been imported from?”
She shrugged.
“Kanjoos.”
“How dare you!”
“Maya said that,” he defended.
“When?”
Now it was his turn to laugh.
“When?”
“When I came to her place for Saal Mubarak lunch. Really? 101 rupees?”
She rolled her eyes — “Fine, I am careful with spending.”
“Stingy. But when it comes to MM, apparently, you got her Hermes burping clothes?”
Her face softened. “Of course I did! She deserves the best.”
“You love her.”
“She is my first niece that I have held in my arms and put to sleep in my bed.”
“Grand niece.”
She grabbed the cabbage ball sitting near the chopping board and threatened to hurl it at him. He ducked. “Hey! Stop, I’m a heart patient.”
“I’ll aim for your head.” She dribbled it in the air.
“You give that to me,” he intercepted it mid-air and took it away from her, replacing it with his mobile. “Order onions, red chilli powder, haldi… do you have jeera?”
“No.”
“Then that too. Toor dal, Surti kolam rice, hing and ghee… no, wait, olive oil. There is a guy named Umesh’s number there. Call him. Ask him if the coriander is fresh. If it is, then order a bunch too.”
“You are talking like a housewife.”
“I am a househusband.”
“Whose?”
Did he hear some heat in that question? Nilay glanced up and smirked — “Jealous, Doctor?”
“In your dreams.”
“Order,” he tipped his chin. “I have been challenged to cook. Let me prove my househusband capabilities.”
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“You are amazing…” she moaned, lounging back in her chair, holding her full stomach. “I can’t move after this.”
“Well, thank you,” he stood to his feet and began to collect their plates. Their fancy Italian meal had been transformed into a full Gujarati one — masala khichdi with veggies, a kachumbar of cabbage, tomatoes, cucumbers in lemon-chilli, and chaas.
“I’ll wash the dishes, you cooked and…”
“Keep sitting.”
He liked how that tone worked like magic on her.
Nilay had never cleaned up. He cooked, but cleanup was all his staff’s.
Tonight, though, he didn’t mind. It had been years since he had washed dishes, but now he did, enjoying every moment of it as she kept moaning and waxing poetic about how this was the best khichdi of her life. He preened.
“So what’s this new brief?” She asked.
“New brief?”
“Your song hunt.”
“Oh… yes. The new brief.” He quickly thought, trying to recollect what he had been thinking when he had texted her this excuse for meeting.
“My team, their interns and the entire world, it seems, is hellbent on sending me Spotify populars listed under keywords of rain, monsoon and tip tip barsa paani. Can you lend me your expertise?”
“Of course.” She was right behind him. When he turned, she hip-butted him. “Move, I am back, I’ll do the rest.”
He bodily resisted but she kept pushing, laughing, fighting him off until he let her bounce his hip off. Her victorious little jiggle was beyond cute and he couldn’t help it. Nilay came up behind her and banded his arms around her, clasping them at her waist. She tautened.
“Sorry, I’m sorry…” he started to pull back when she began to laugh.
“Ritu?”
“Hmm?” She was laughing, but the sound was not humorous.
“Are you ok?”
“Yes, yes…” She shook her head. “I did not want to tell you all that yesterday and have you treat me like I am broken or something.”
He stilled.
“I want you to forget what I told you yesterday.”
The hands he had loosened from her waist met again at the front of her belly, clasping together — “You stiffened when I did this. And you say I should not treat you tenderly for that?”
“I didn’t stiffen because of that.”
“Then?”
“My stomach is blown up to twice its size after that meal.”
“So?”
“So?!” She pushed her head down, embarrassed. Her hair covered it on both sides and he used both his hands to push it out of the way and turn her face over her shoulder.
“I have a few things to say about this. Can I have that one honest minute?”
She shrugged, rolling her eyes like it wouldn’t matter one way or another.
Nilay pushed her hands under the water and washed both of theirs together. Then closed the tap, took her hand and pulled her to the hall and out to the deck. The winds were cold and wet. Was it raining? He pushed one hand out and collected tiny droplets.
“Winter rains,” Ritu remarked. “I have a song for your collection. Yeh saazish hai boondon ki…” she hummed. “Wait, let me play it…”
He threw the water on her and she gasped. She began to lean out to collect her own arsenal but he tamped her hands down and turned, locking her in place between his legs as he leaned back on the balustrade.
“It might take more than a minute, so bear with me.”
“Nila…”
“Bear. With. Me.”
“Go ahead.”
“There are some beauty standards in our world. And they change every couple of years. Right now they lean towards toned women. Ten years ago they were size zero. Twenty years ago they were curvy waists.”
She blinked.
“You said you don’t have body image issues…”
“I don’t.” She cut him off.
“But you still think that I don’t find you beautiful in every form, including the one with a full belly after a dinner that I cooked you.”
“It’s not…” she fidgeted. “Ideal. For a man like you.”
“Define a man like me.”
“You… you deal with models every day. You design clothes for women half my size.”
“And they don’t get this reaction out of me,” he pulled her flush against him, showing her the reaction. Her eyes widened.
“Ritu,” his face fell into her neck. Instead of stiffening, her body loosened. And hence, Nilay laid his mouth in that fragrant crevice of her neck. “You look like winter, but you smell like the rains.”
Her arms came around him. His arms tightened around her.
“A woman half your size does not mean she is beautiful.”
She remained silent.
“I don’t see anything but you.”
She still remained silent.
“The you in all your forms.”
Her face began to pull away.
“Please don’t make me stop,” he pleaded.
Her arms came up and around his shoulders, her face hid in the crook of his neck again. And he embraced her, breathing slowly, syncing their breaths together. He had never heard his heart beat so loud, and so slow.
“What are you doing tomorrow morning, Doctor?”
“Why?”
“I want to show you something.”
“What time?’
“Whenever you wake up and are ready.”
“I have to make lunch.”
“You just hired a cook for 500 rupees a month.”
She chuckled into his shoulder, and he felt the rain on his back as well as on his chest.