Chapter 6 Vedveer - Delhi Darbar
Vedveer
Delhi Darbar
It is eighteen minutes since I pulled back the curtains and let the early-afternoon light flood Father’s study. Gaurav Rathore Singh huffs behind his glasses, which Rajkumar, the butler in attendance, swiftly procured from the other end of the room.
Father hasn’t mentioned Aaditha in the interim. That’s a relief.
He shifts his position, turning away from the window.
‘It feels like I’m sunbathing in Mykonos in August,’ he mutters. ‘Too much light, wattage, heat!’
I chuckle.
In general, Rathores prefer curtains closed; we don’t like to be seen, except on occasion. ‘We are not on public display’ is father’s common retort whenever the drapes are drawn apart. This afternoon, he is holding back. It is twenty minutes now, and his cheeks are cooked to a piquant pink.
I’m an exception to that Rathore rule. I drift organically towards natural light.
I had come up with something to distract Father, and the sun became my abettor. He tosses Aaditha and marriage at me every three minutes.
‘She’s a lovely girl,’ Father says again. It didn’t take him long to snap back – three minutes short of thirty.
It has been ten days, and that rich, redolent scent of jasmine still swirls around me in circles.
Her hair! I exhale like it’s the only thing I know how to do. That hypnotic cascade of black silk spilling around her shoulders.
I shut my eyes. I can still taste her, feel the echo of her mouth on mine. That kiss, it is the first thought that drags me out of sleep every damn morning. And yet she acts like it never happened. Like it didn’t shake the ground.
She teases, brushing my lips with hers, stokes me awake and steps back to view the havoc she has wrecked. Her smile, sweet, unholy perfection.
‘You must think about this, Veer.’ Father’s words interrupt my thoughts.
‘They are a respectable family. Prathap Gowda is a senior politician…’
‘Why does Prathap Gowda want this proposal to work so badly? What’s in it for him?’
The extremes I swing between – the pull, and the question that nags.
Father stares at me like I’ve lost my mind. ‘Are you seriously asking why any father would want his daughter to marry the crown prince?’
That also.
He scoffs, shaking his head. ‘Good god, Veer. We’re the Rathores. And they, they’re a fine family. Decent, dignified. A good match for us. The young lady runs a successful business. What more do you want?’
I nod, but the unease doesn’t leave me. Still, I let it go, for now.
Instead, I pick up my teacup. ‘So successful that she cannot see beyond her cappuccinos,’ I say.
Aaditha hadn’t picked up that I sipped my beverage from a teacup when there were extra coffee cups on the trolley at her home.
Father laughs. ‘That’s a nice way to put it.’
I shrug.
My gaze rests on the window that overlooks our eastern garden, which changes with the seasons with flower beds of the ornamental variety.
I have spent a part of my childhood in this room. It is where my grandfather, Maharaj Rawal Rathore Singh, retired to at the end of a day when he was in Delhi.
Grandfather looks down at us from an oil painting just above the grand fireplace.
The only source of natural light for the room is the large, rectangular window, which at the moment is causing great distress to his son.
This is where Grandfather drank his morning coffee when he was in Delhi.
He was the only coffee drinker in our family until Father married.
Mother and Navya have taken it to a whole different level.
What would Grandfather have made of the Aaditha Prathap situation?
How do we end it? she asked.
‘What are you looking for in a matrimonial match, Veer?’ Father is on a mission. ‘What qualities does young Aaditha lack that you’re looking for in a wife?’
What now, a shopping list?
If I could just go back in time and leave that kiss behind in that Kempe Crown corridor, I would be fine. I could move on as easily as she has.
‘Marriage is not a conversation I want to be having right now.’
‘Why not? It’s about time we have that conversation.’
‘We’ve let our lands waste away for too long!’ I say, holding Father’s gaze. He is across the room from me.
We are looking to upscale our considerable acreage into 100 per cent organic ground. The Green Dream is Rawal Rathore Singh’s vision. Grandfather was before his time.
I’ve been immersed in our holdings since returning from Bengaluru.
We have records dating back to the early 1600s.
The plan is to survey the palace property first so that we have an estimate of what is required to transfigure our lands.
About 60 per cent of our agricultural assets have been wasting for decades, since Grandfather’s health deteriorated.
That we haven’t already owned and serviced the land that is ours is a crying shame.
‘Why are you resisting, Yuvraj?’ Father asks. ‘This is the right age, and we are fortunate to have found a suitable match.’
He is toying with a colourful crown-shaped paperweight that is part of the palace memorabilia collection. He is trying not to make eye contact.
Father is so caught up in his own dance – books and whisky – that he wouldn’t know a mall rat from a tree hugger, never mind if Aaditha and I are suited for each other or not.
Gaurav Rathore Singh worships at the altar of indulgence. He’s not a collector of the uber-luxe; no, he lives it. Wheels, wings and whisky, especially if it’s rare, refined and ruinously expensive. But he’s not curating a museum; he’s savouring an experience.
His dopamine rush hits the moment his back sinks into the buttery Italian leather of his sofa or when a Yamazaki single malt glides down his throat.
Father won’t put a name to it. Won’t call it excess, or even desire. Because to define it would be to limit it, and to rein it in would mean denying himself the one thing he truly loved.
It wasn’t just a taste for the finer things. It was an affair. A full-throttle, all-consuming one.
He heaves himself up from the chair and steps away from the desk. He is preparing for the next question – you can tell by the intensity of the activity. He continues standing, hands crossed over his chest.
The door to the study opens, and Holiday and Hope stroll in. They try to settle against their lounging pillows by the divan before finding spots at the feet of the two humans in the room.
‘Aaditha is a very smart young woman,’ he is saying, ‘to have come up with this idea of a café chain and make such a roaring success of it.’
Prathap Gowda had burnished Aaditha’s abilities to such a fine shine that it reflects in Father’s eyes. There’s no other way he’d know anything about her. There’s nothing much on her anywhere; I have looked.
As far as I can tell, it is the same set of three photographs of Aaditha that are doing the rounds on social media.
They are old shots. One is an airport picture, the second one also looks like an airport image, but it could’ve been at a restaurant or hotel, and the third is definitely at a Bengaluru restaurant.
They aren’t complimentary shots, but she has done nothing to change the image.
That is the only content on her. COFFEE Before Books you’ll look good together,’ she says, waving her index finger at me.
‘What picture?’ Father asks. He’s surprised.
Mother promptly opens her phone and passes it to her husband, who she is seated next to. Her eyes are on me.
‘Charming!’ Father says, looking pointedly in my direction. ‘You are protesting after taking the lady out to dinner?’
‘Protesting?’ Mother asks.
‘We didn’t go out for dinner. We bumped into each other in the hotel lobby, and we spoke.’ I’ve had years of practice at being strait-laced. It comes easy now.
‘This photo doesn’t look like two people who have just bumped into each other.’
I shrug. Father has read too much fiction.
‘And who is this fellow she’s having coffee with at her café?’
‘What fellow?’ My tone is even, but the question breaks out before I have time to consider what I’m saying.
‘There’s a picture of them in the gossip pages your mother reads.’ Father huffs.
‘That’s the last time you’re getting any intel from me.’ Mother looks at her husband adoringly.
‘It seems,’ Father drawls, looking at his wife, ‘our son knows nothing about his fiancée’s other meeting!’
‘Are we playing snakes and ladders here?’ Mother is all smiles.
I’m wading through social media, looking for TittleTattle.
Who is this guy she’s having coffee with in the open while I’m shoved deep into a bunker-like space she calls an office? I read the piece and learn that the same bloke sent her the roses.
Why did Aaditha pretend like she didn’t know who the flowers were from? There were lilies and verdant fronds, but there were red roses, too. She even asked if I had sent them to her.
‘He’s a good-looking chap,’ Father is saying. ‘Maybe Vedveer is losing his charm!’
‘No way!’ Mother says and ambles across the room to throw her arms around me.
‘Do you like her?’ Father prods.
‘We are very different people.’
‘Opposites attract, right?’ That is Mother sounding like a giddy sixteen-year-old on a night out. ‘I like her, her coffee is great, the family is lovely, even though their house is so bare. Didn’t you think?’