Chapter 13
— NILAY —
Nilay parked his car in his designated spot and cut the engine.
He turned to her, her face tilted to glean the signage over his store.
She looked heavenly. In a white oversized shirt over black leggings, hair still damp from her shower, eyes big, mouth round.
When she had gotten into his car early this morning after he had waited a sum total of twenty minutes under her apartment, he had wanted nothing more than to haul her to himself and kiss her.
But then she had read him the riot act on being before time and making her the bad guy.
Then she had pulled out two newspaper-wrapped sandwiches from her bag, which, she had confessed, she had made on sourdough, with no butter, with homemade chutney and a ‘ton’ of salad.
He hadn’t been able to dredge up any other topic then except her awful cooking skills, all the while stuffing his face full of her version of Bombay sandwich.
“You have investors or the brand is all yours?” She asked.
“Unable to believe this grand brand can be run by me and me alone, Doctor?”
She got out, slicing him a look. Nilay smirked, balling the newspapers and getting out too, looking for a dustbin. He ought to know where a dustbin was in his own premises.
“NiP, hi, good morning!” Kedar came running out of the back of the store, his iPad and white mug in hand. His eyes whirled to Ritu and widened, but he was smart enough to keep his mouth shut and smile big. “Your green tea in white mug, the inside is also white.”
Nilay accepted the mug, thrusting the newspaper wrappers in his hand — “Where is the dustbin in this building?”
“Right there,” he pointed to the corner behind him. Nilay huffed.
“Give me, I’ll throw it,” Ritu began to reach for the wrappers but he was faster. Nilay grabbed them — “I’ll throw it.” Idiot Kedar tugged them back — “No, no, I’ll throw it, NiP.”
“Leave it,” Nilay glared.
“I’ll do it…” He tugged hard and the papers tore — one tatter in each of their hands.
Nilay gaped at the trash in his hand and then at Kedar, looking petrified, rightly so.
But it was the tinkling laughter beside him that made his glare die down.
He glanced at Ritu. Her head was thrown back, her hand covering her mouth as she gave him a look.
That look that she had given him before leaving his car.
The you are obnoxious but you make me laugh look.
Nilay gave up. He handed the remaining tatter to Kedar — “Throw it, please, thank you.”
Kedar looked at him like he had grown horns.
“What would you like to drink?” He offered her his cup. “Decaf green tea ok?”
She accepted his cup and took a sip, making Kedar look at her like she was an alien.
“You can go Kedar, we will find our way upstairs,” Nilay nodded. And he retreated. Nilay saw him step away quietly. Then the moment he hit the store verandah and thought he was out of sight, Nilay saw him break into a run.
“You still asking me what I think about you running this grand brand alone?” Ritu smirked, her mouth closed, eyes raised over his cup.
“It’s a daily thing.” He pressed a hand to her lower back. “Come.”
“What are you showing me? Your cave?”
“I am a couturier. You realise that, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Then do not call this a cave,” he pointed at the exquisite signage in gold and black, the heritage wall hangings leading them down the entrance and into the store that looked like a museum with pieces displayed like they were collectibles. They were. Some of them.
“You are so easy to offend.”
The elevator opened for them and he led her in, noticing how she was not even a little impressed by all the finery around her.
She didn’t look twice at the mannequins laden with some of his best work.
She hadn’t even stopped to run her hand through the velvet saree collection that no woman in the history of this store had been able to resist. Nilay crossed his arms across his chest and leaned back on the elevator wall, looking at her face. It turned red.
“Why are you red, Doctor?”
“Am I?” She was nonchalant. “Heat maybe.”
“In 18 degrees Mumbai? It’s fallen even further after last night’s rain.”
She kept staring ahead, reddening at a certain memory. He held back his smirk, digging into his biceps to keep himself from reaching for her waist. This time, we will earn it, Doctor.
The door pinged open and he led her down the workshop, deserted at this early hour.
“Do you come to work this early every day?”
“Ever since you gave me your list of lifestyle changes, yes.” He IDed his handprint and opened the door to his office. “Before that, I would walk in any time between 9 and 12. Now it’s 8.”
“Good to know,” she entered his space, this time her eyes roving everything all at once.
Nilay closed the door, pushing his hands inside his pockets as she went around exploring.
He gaped. It was surreal how the store downstairs with all its finery had not caught her eye but his half-finished pieces of work did.
She was touching the mannequins, rubbing fabrics between her fingers, walking down the glass wardrobe full of his old archived pieces, humming.
She was not that great at singing, but her humming… Nilay smiled at the vibrations. They could soothe him from even a heart attack.
“Hmm mmm mmm… tarse dil…” she crooned. “New song alert,” Ritu smiled, eyes on an unfinished ghaghra, cut out and hanging in the wardrobe. “Saawan barse tarse dil. Listen to it, it’s moody and a little playful. But not typical tip-tip barsa paani.”
“Noted.”
She reached his workstation and ran her palm down his ancient sewing machine.
“This is rusted.” She turned to him. “You use this?”
“It was my mother’s.”
He had never told that to anyone. They all knew it meant something to him because he wasn't known to hold onto anything outdated. Nobody knew what.
“Do you work on this?” She smiled, turning the wheel one way and then the other. “Sorry, am I allowed?”
Nilay nodded — “Go all out. It won’t break. It’s the sturdiest thing in this world.”
“Your mother taught you how to sew?”
“Yes.”
“It’s clear who taught you how to sew, cook, and behave.” Ritu looked up from her exploration. “At least one out of ten times when you behave nicely.”
He smiled.
“NiP on first and second floor, Nilay here,” she observed, picking up the wide golden border left in snips on his table. She studied it, running her thumb over its textured surface.
“The fibres on that one are made of real gold, woven together by generational khinkhaab weavers from Benaras.”
“It looks rich, like a… tapestry.” She glided her fingers reverently across the glinting fibres. Then set the snippet down. “What did you want to show me?”
“Done seeing this?” He circled around them.
She ran a hand over his sewing machine. “You mean there’s more?”
“Come here, Doctor,” he held his hand out.
She frowned, but came to him. He kept his hand out, and she finally took it.
Nilay clasped it and tugged her down the main area and into the back room where his showstopper piece was housed.
Where he went to relax. Where he sat to think. Where he slept to find inspiration.
“Are we going into an actual cave now?” She needled.
He didn’t take the bait, sliding the door open and stepping inside.
Her mouth dropped open in a gasp. The wide room’s walls were adorned with paintings, hangings, pieces of ancient Indian sketches.
From Raja Ravi Varma to Kishangarh style paintings, from Picchwais to Miniatures — most of them were originals, some dupes because he hadn’t been able to find originals.
A large, oval, floor-to-ceiling gilded mirror rested on the wall in between them, his one true grounding space in a room where ideas could run wild and possibilities seem too many.
Ritu walked across that mirror and did not even glance at herself. Any woman he knew would have taken a peek before passing. Not this one. But why was he surprised? Hadn’t he known her enough by now?
“These are… are they real? I mean, original?”
“Mmm.”
She reached out and ran her fingers over the frame of a Kishangarh painting, with a line of milkmaids, wearing ghaghras in muted earthy reds and oranges, chunaris so translucent that the folds were perfectly scrawled, waists not thin but curvy.
They were all holding pots over their heads, their arms holding them up, looking full.
Beautiful. He caught Ritu’s hand and she whirled.
“Come here,” he tugged her five steps back from the wall, until she was standing in front of the mirror. He stood behind her, taking both her forearms and raising them.
“What are you doing?” She resisted.
“Do you trust me?” He asked, taking her arms up. They loosened, and he gently took them up. Up, up, up, over her head.
She didn’t say it, but her arms went stiff.
He ran his palms down the outside of them, letting her loosely rolled sleeves glide down with them until they were bunched above her elbows.
He kept going, taking his fingers down to her waist, which nipped so prettily that he always wanted to have his hands on it, tracing down to the curve of her hips.
Their gazes remained connected in the mirror.
“Now you see what I see?” He asked, taking his gaze to the paintings and sketches surrounding the mirror.
“I resemble your muses for this collection.”
His head fell on her shoulder. Nilay groaned. “How did you get your degrees, Doctor?”
She fell forward, laughing, arms falling. He caught her in time, this time his hands anchoring on her waist and pulling her back. Her breath hitched.
“This is beautiful,” he commanded, looking at her through the mirror. “Those are beautiful,” he nudged his chin at the paintings. “And now I will think you are an idiot if you still don’t get it.”
“I am an idiot?”
“You are.”