Chapter 16
Aaditha
My Baby!
It is my second successive night at Ranibagh; that is one too many nights already!
I don’t need to read the TittleTattle piece – the link for which Lavanya sent me – to feel like I have been tossed into a spin cycle.
The first thing I do as soon as I wake up is to shoot Lavanya a message about my anxiety, which has skyrocketed.
I don’t explain why I’m on the edge, assuming she’ll connect the dots.
The situation at the café, and also that I have no way of working off my anxiety here at Ranibagh.
No one in this township of a thousand rooms I’m living in knows where the gym is. Working out helps me keep calm.
Lavanya unknowingly rubbishes TittleTattle, thinking the rag is the reason for my anxiety.
Lovey: Please don’t even bother with that. TT is too ridiculous!
TittleTattle delights in highlighting my inadequacies, and I have a few. I haven’t gone on social media the last couple of days, and I don’t know what stories they are spreading.
I make the mistake of asking which piece.
Lavanya sends me the link.
I click on it instinctively.
The slander these people pass as journalism. Shocking. Outside of the fact that ‘Simi with-the-coffee-skills’ had swooned at the sight of Vedveer, there is not a word of truth in it.
I visited her at home last evening. She told me that seeing the prince in real life for the first time unnerved her.
‘I’m a big fan of the royal family, ma’am,’ she said, pointing at a framed photograph of the Rathores on the rear wall.
It is a relatively recent photograph, maybe from two or three years ago.
‘I have only seen Yuvrajji on television. I was already feeling a little dizzy, and then I saw him walk through the door. He was so close, main paagal ho rahi thi.’
She was still gasping!
Simi had dropped by the store to click photographs and make videos of her first workplace before the rest of the crew arrived.
‘We know you are engaged to Yuvrajji, and you are our rajkumari, but I wasn’t expecting to see him at the shop,’ she continued breathlessly.
It was a relief to see Simi up and about.
I’m genuinely thankful for how quickly Vedveer reacted to the medical situation. Then again, handling swooning women might be second nature to him by now.
The patriarchy scored again when Vedveer walked into my still-under-construction store. Just like that, I was the helpless heroine, and he was the gallant saviour, conveniently recast as my underwriter.
The TittleTattle reporter must’ve walked into the café after we had left, asking questions and coming to conclusions.
The good news is that Mohit, with his unique brand of magic, is arriving in a few hours, but why let solid facts come in the way of good gossip?
Like, who are your sources? These people are obviously smoking something really good; they are flying on a freaking twig.
Vedveer’s words play in my head.
I’m not offering you a room; you can have a whole wing. There’s nothing to worry.
A wing without a gym!
I asked the chambermaid (whom I forbid from touching my overnight case – I can’t get over someone packing and unpacking your stuff) if there is a gym on the floor, and she didn’t know what on earth I was talking about.
Kalari in the room is an option, but why give folks reason to institutionalize you?
Reema, who had been doing nothing but trailing me around, also didn’t know the location of the gym on these grounds.
‘For whom?’ she asked and didn’t wait for an answer. ‘I think the ranisa works out regularly, Yuvrajji, too; he works so hard, and he runs every day. Shaayad unke paas neeche gym ho.’
I nod.
The palace gardens stretch for miles; there are peacocks wandering around marigold-lined paths. Beyond the sandstone arches, the city wears a bright morning glow, its rooftops reflecting a rosy hue.
I consider a walk in the garden, but I’m not sure what is okay and what is not on these grounds.
Yesterday, I had breakfast in my room – orange juice, coffee and two slices of toast.
This morning, Vedveer (who must’ve seen the TittleTattle piece but makes no mention of it) announces a breakfast meeting on chat.
VRS: Aaditha, Mother would like to have breakfast with you at the Breakfast Room at about 8 o’clock? I would like to join you too, if you’re ok with having company.
Like I have a choice! I want to be on my own for a bit. I don’t need company, but I have no option but to oblige. What can I say? I’m going to the market to buy… coffee powder?
Me: Ok. I was about to send a one-word message but quickly add: See you soon.
VRS: Reema will meet you at your door at 8 and bring you across. See you there!
Me: See you!
Just as well! I need help to navigate the path to this breakfast room.
It’s not like I step out of this suite, in which I’m likely to get lost on the way to the shower, and fall into this breakfast room. (I refuse to capitalize the ‘b’ and ‘r’, like in his text; it’s just a room where people eat breakfast, not a museum!)
There is a rap on my door at 8 a.m., and I’m escorted to the breakfast room on the seventh floor by a liveried gentleman who introduces himself as the butler. His name badge says Pranav. I wonder what happened to Reema, but I don’t ask.
I’m in gym clothes – off-white Lululemon bottoms and a crop top, with a sports bra that peeps out of the wide neck. I’m carrying my gym bag, too. I’m protesting. The iPad is in the gym bag. I will open it to the TittleTattle page and very casually place it right where Vedveer Rathore can see it.
The door to the breakfast room opens, and I wade into a sun-kissed space; the warmth is tempered by an air conditioner in full blast. Sunlight pours through the sunroof, and the blinds cast a lace-like shadow on the marble floor.
The air is rich with the scent of roses and freshly brewed beans.
I take a seat where a chair is pulled out for me. The table is set, crockery and cutlery in china and gleaming copper.
Of the three people expected at this table, I’m the first to arrive. The room is full of help, who are standing with their hands behind their backs like an assembly line of schoolboys.
They are looking away, but keep an eye on me, just in case I call… for a cask of wine instead of morning brew!
The number of people who hover around you in this place is suffocating, to say the least. Imagine having to ask for a moment’s privacy in your own home.
Gauri Elena walks into the room with her perfume, apologizing for being a couple of minutes late. She has no traffic to blame, if one discounts the lift.
‘How are you, Ahdheeeta?’ she asks, her scent filling the air around me at once.
There goes my name!
I smile and nod, not knowing what exactly to say to her. I don’t know if her son, ‘my financer’, has told her why exactly I am partaking of their overgenerous hospitality.
‘How are you doing?’ I ask, returning her question with one of my own.
‘I have been busy.’ She turns to the staff waiting on us. ‘Coffee,’ she says, looking at me.
I nod.
Gauri Elena asks for two bone-dry, double-shot cappuccinos before adding, ‘The rajkumari likes her coffee just like I have mine.’ She asks if I want orange juice. She either knows my breakfast choices or we simply have similar tastes.
‘Do you have eggs?’ she asks me.
‘Not today,’ I say. ‘Just plain toast will be good.’
‘Give us both plain toast, yeah… Yuvraj will order his own breakfast when he arrives.’
Gauri Elena turns to me. ‘I must apologize for Vedveer. He’s going to need a few more minutes. My son works too hard.’
‘Like I was telling you,’ she continues without a pause. ‘I’ve been busy. We have a few charities that I take care of, and now I’m managing Navya’s, too, as she’s been travelling a fair bit.’
My eyes are on Gauri Elena, and it looks to me like she has just worked out. She has showered and changed, of course, but her skin is without make-up, and her cheeks are flushed. She is wearing a white sleeveless linen shirt on dark blue linen bottoms. Her arms are superbly toned.
‘Do you visit Jaipur often, Ranisa?’ I ask.
‘No,’ she says. ‘I’m generally here only when my husband visits, which is a couple of times a year, maybe thrice, but of late, I’ve been coming more often because of Vedveer. Not that we get too much time together.’
Maybe the senior Rathore is also in the building.
‘Do you work out?’ I get back to the subject that is tugging my insides.
‘Religiously,’ she says, adding, ‘every day of the week. As I’ve grown older, it is something that I do for myself. I work out to keep my sanity.’
I nod.
‘When I was your age, I hadn’t seen the inside of a gym,’ she says with a laugh. ‘That had to change when the greys cropped up. I’m not a sporty person like Vedveer, so to get a routine going took a lot of effort, but both my children pushed me to it.’
Raju asked if I wanted him to travel with me.
Had I said yes, I wouldn’t have been sitting at this table…
I’d be enjoying breakfast after a full workout.
It would’ve been good to have Raju here in Jaipur; he’s a stress buster.
He had come to Kolkata with me when we were launching our café there, and we had so much fun.
He drove me around the city on a scooter!
‘What do you do?’ I ask Gauri Elena about her workout.
‘Pilates thrice a week, yoga twice, and I walk barefoot on the lawn twice a week. None of my workouts lasts over forty-five minutes, including the walks.’
‘Do you have a gym here?’ I have to ask.
Just as the words are out of my mouth, breakfast arrives. Behind the butler is the chef, carrying a third tray. As our breakfast orders are laid out before us, the chef puts down a plate that has avocado and a poached egg on a thin slice of bread.
‘Ranisa,’ the chef says, ‘I think you should try it. The thin-crust sourdough is very good, and the avocado is perfect.’
Gauri Elena wears a broad smile and nods. ‘You should ask the rajkumari, too. She eats very little at an age when one can digest stones.’