Chapter 6
Aditi’s car pulled up right beside his in her parents’ building compound and they got out at the same instant.
While he did it like a normal, sane human being, she did it moving her shoulders to some soundless beats that could only be playing inside her thick head.
The top button of her white shirt was open, her hair let down from the ponytail, her face fresher than it had looked this morning at court.
“Daru.” She tipped her head at him.
“Doshi.” He grunted. “Want help climbing up?” He tipped his eyes to the roof of her car.
“Why?”
“There’s no table top here,” he peered pointedly at her grooving shoulders.
She smiled sweetly — “I wouldn’t want to rub it in.” Her face leaned up to his, and her bright brown eyes widened. “Yet.”
He scoffed, holding back a laugh and a harrumph.
“After you,” she held an arm out dramatically. “Or do you object to that too?”
“Stop being so giddy,” he narrowed his eyes. “Justice Deshmukh was being nice to you after the last dozen bashings he has given you.”
“Ooooh, Daru being sore and a loser.” She eyed the open dark sky dreamily. “Hey Bhagwan, what a day. WHAT A DAY.”
He knocked on her thick head. She looked at him. Zubin gently caressed her forehead.
“What?’
“Where did you hurt it?”
She slapped his hand off, shifting away. He chuckled, shifting with her and sliding his hands inside his pockets — “Doshi, appeal being dismissed is not equal to case being lost — Fourth year BLS LLB, Manju Ma’am’s lecture on Code of Civil Procedure. Remember?”
She sighed swoonily, probably too high after the micro win. “Justice Deshmukh not even listening to your pretentious fluffy objections is the win, Bubbles.”
Yeah, he had a bone to pick with the judge.
What was this new practice of not even listening to his objections completely?
What if he was making a real, valid, invaluable point?
He always made a valid point, and where Advocate Doshi was opposing, he made it one in five times.
At least. Zubin peered at her — “What the hell did you do to Justice Deshmukh?”
“Why?” She leaned closer. “Jealous that I am his favourite now?”
“I am always his favourite.”
“But you didn’t give him Aara.”
His brow cocked. “This is about that?”
She shrugged.
“I did half the work in giving that glorious child to this dim world.”
“Like pushing her through a 7-hour labour?”
“I would have done that if I could!”
“Peh. LIE! You told me yourself that even if you could, you wouldn’t do it!”
“When?”
“Just after she was born.”
“Emotions talking.”
“Then the next one is on you, come on.”
“I am forty, my birthing years are behind me. And I made perfection once, I don’t repeat it and take the magic out.”
She was shaking her head — “You are such a fluffball, Daru.”
“And you are such a teacher’s black cat. My Lord this and My Lord that. And vide? Vide the learned court? Who’s the pretentious fluffball now?”
“What happened? Only you can wax poetic in English? The rest of us are forbidden even Latin now?”
He glared at her, she glared back at him, their nostrils flaring.
“Papppppaaaa!” They looked up in unison. Aara was standing on the balcony, hands and nose sticking out of the balustrade iron bars. “Mummmmaaaaa!” She was waving both her hands.
They waved back.
“Come uuuuup!”
“Coming!” Zubin hollered, then eyed the spitfire dragon in front of him and held up his finger — “This hasn’t ended yet.”
Her mouth snapped open and she bit it. “Aaaaa!” He jerked it out — “Bloody black cat.”
She just smirked and danced off into the lobby, looking like a maximised version of their daughter — “First of many bites, Daru. Doshi Annihilation coming for you!”
Zubin was half annoyed-half amused, and completely smitten.
He smiled despite himself. He had lost the appeal and all the objections today but he had known that he would.
This case was no rocket science. All of them with black gowns in that courtroom, Aditi included, knew where this case was going.
Zubin just knew more things than they did.
But even if this day had been lost, he had gained more — the trial, multiple hearings, and the chance to see Advocate Doshi across the aisle. Oooof. He shook the sting of the bite on his finger and followed her.
————————————————————
“Mummmmmaaa!” Aara came running to them as soon as the elevator doors opened. Zubin jumped in front of Aditi, holding his arms out and catching their daughter — “I think you call me Papa!” He threw her up and into his arms, getting a sneaky punch from the Mumma in question behind him.
“Did you enjoy at Presha’s party?” Aditi’s head pushed over his shoulder and pressed her mouth to Aara’s cheek. “Yes, yes yes!” Aara leaned down, twining her arms around his and Aditi’s neck, squishing them in an embrace as if they hadn’t met in years.
“My neck!” He laughed as she squeezed. She squeezed tighter.
“Which Presha is this?” Zubin managed. “Fifth or sixth.”
Aara pulled back and held her hand up with four fingers.
“Fourth?”
She nodded. “She has the best terrace.”
“You also have a terrace.”
“But she has a real toy train on her terrace. And a trampoline. And a big Barbie House where she can play. Really!”
“How spoiled is this child?” Zubin muttered to Aditi.
“Her parents are D. I. V. O R…”
“Oh.”
“Papa, can we get a trampoline for our terrace?”
“No.” Zubin walked down the lobby with her, his in-laws’ flat open.
“But why?!”
“Because it’s dangerous.”
“It’s not danger on Presha Kapoor’s terrace!” His daughter argued, tightening her arms around his neck. “A train?”
“Dangerous.”
“Barbie House.”
“Dange…” he stopped short. Zubin gaped at his daughter. She was grinning at him, her lips drawn in and her cheeks puffed, those browns glinting with victory.
“You little…”
She jumped down from his arms and ran — “Na-naaa! Papa will get me Barbie House!!!”
“My daughter.” Aditi knocked her shoulder into him while stepping through the narrow opening of the door. He knocked back, wedging her between him and the doorframe — “That is all me…”
“What are you both doing?!” His mother-in-law’s hiss made them freeze.
They looked up in unison and found her standing there, hands on her hips, a sight that had made Aditi cower all her life and now had the same effect on him.
Zubin loved his mother-in-law; she always took his side and fed him the best food, was always concerned about his eating and sleeping timings, and yet when she was angry, she was ANGRY.
He didn’t have to venture far to trace where his wife and his daughter’s attitudes came from.
“You were fighting downstairs also, no?”
“Umm…” They looked at each other.
“What will Aara learn? And she was already asking me what is divorced.” Her voice lowered, turning lethal. “What is going on?!”
“Oh no,” Aditi stepped in, wedging out of his shoulder. “No, Mummy, her friend Presha Kapoor’s parents are divorcing.”
“The girl whose birthday I picked her up from today?”
“Yes…”
Her mother looked unconvinced. And brought her eyes to him like he was her comrade. Zubin was the happiest to be her comrade. “Is that all, Zubin?”
“Of course, Mummy,” he smiled. “You think that word will ever be uttered in our house?” He eyed the back of the head of the woman he was crazy about, even when she drove him crazy, or he did.
Mummy sighed, her look sharpening. Fuck, what was this Doshi X chromosome?
“And we are fighting a divorce case,” he found words leaving his mouth just before her mouth dropped open. Aditi’s shoulders stiffened. Were they not telling people yet?
“You both are fighting a case?” Mummy asked, shocked. “Together? On the same team?”
“No,” Zubin chuckled. “Opposite teams…”
Aditi’s elbow rammed right into his stomach. “Ow… what?” He doubled over, holding it. “What’s with the domestic violence?”
“You, keep quiet.” Aditi snarled back.
“No, Zubin, you speak. Why a case? You both said you will never take a case against each other.”
This time Aditi whirled on him. “Yes, Zubin-my-favourite-son, tell your Mummy why you have taken this case.”
“Because my wife is enjoying dancing after getting my appeal dismissed,” he snarled back. She grinned. Zubin looked at his mother-in-law solemnly — “It was an old friend, I couldn’t say no, Mummy.”
“Then you should have said no.” She turned on Aditi.
“Yes, Aditi-my-non-favourite-child, tell your Mummy why you did not step back from this case?” Zubin imitated.
“Mummy, it was my partner’s friend. It’s not a very complicated case but important for me. If this man gets his divorce peacefully, I am fast-tracked for Partner…”
“You know Presha Kapoor’s Daddy?”
They all froze.
Zubin was the first to respond, turning to his daughter who was dragging her grandfather out with his mobile phone blaring some reel on loud.
“Why Presha Kapoor’s Daddy?”
“B-cause, he wants to give daivorce and then get Presha Kapoor more gifts. You know she told me he will get her a bathtub with Elsa and her Mumma promised to take her to Disneyland, the Paris one, not Hong Kong…”
“What is all this getting business?” Her grandfather picked her up and jostled her, eliciting big giggles. “Huh? We earn everything.” He kissed her temple. "You want a gift, you ask your Mumma and Papa and then work to get it.”
“Exactly.” Zubin reiterated, blinking gratefully at his father-in-law.
“Then can I give daivorce and get gifts? That is earning, no?”
“Now see this,” Mummy grunted, low.
Zubin winced.
“Aara,” Aditi went to their daughter and accepted her from her father’s arms. “Divorce is not a thing that you give to get something in return.”
“Then?”
Aditi glanced at him, and Zubin blinked. Life was messy, and as real as it came. They had to tell their daughter certain things one day. He had just wished that day would not be today.
“Divorce is when husband and wife don’t want to talk to each other or live with each other.”
“So they give gifts to their kid?”
“Umm…”
“No.” Zubin asserted. “Gifts have nothing to do with divorce. It was Presha Kapoor’s birthday party, which is why her parents got her so many gifts.”