Chapter 22
Aaditha
Silk, Sequins and a Stubborn Silence
I’m seated on a divan placed at one end of a hall with a grand name – Sahitya Sabha. Gilded arches mark the entryways, one of which opens into the anteroom. I look carefully at the door and memorize it. I will need to escape this space at regular intervals.
Some of the finest designers in the country – along with their ever-present entourages – are swarming this part of the palace, a space usually reserved for literary events.
Rolling racks of skirts and blouses, swathes of brocade in varying shades of gold and tangles of flimsy fabric are propped up in every corner of the room.
According to Reema Barmer, the intern, hired for the sole purpose of adding chaos to my life, we’ll be trying on clothes all day for the ‘crown prince’s seven-day wedding celebration’, which is set to take place in just about sixty days.
Amma and I arrived at Ranibagh late last evening because I insisted I would not leave Bengaluru until I completed the tasks I scheduled for the day. There wasn’t much to be done, but I was determined I’d have a say, even if what time we left was the only choice I had.
‘We don’t have much time,’ Reema says, speaking quickly.
‘Ranisa was with the designers all day yesterday; she narrowed down options to make things easier for you. She knows you’re busy; that’s why she’s helping. You are really lucky her taste is flawless,’ she says, bending over me and adjusting my hair.
Gauri Elena called Amma two weeks ago to tell her that the palace had summoned top design houses for a three-day showcase so we could admire fabric swatches and pretend to make difficult choices for the seven days of wedding celebrations.
She insisted we come to Ranibagh for at least a couple of days so the bride’s outfits could be finalized.
‘What do you do when I’m not around?’ I ask Reema. I’m genuinely curious.
‘I don’t know, Rajkumari,’ she says. She is breathing hard. ‘I try to help Yuvrajji. I check with him all the time to see if he needs anything, but he’s too busy.’
‘Doing what?’
Reema breaks into peals of laughter. Her blush is bold, a new colour in the palette.
Maybe I should suggest to the Rathores that Reema could help at the coffee store just outside their palace gates, the same one they ‘funded’. That’ll inspire TittleTattle to run another piece on south Indian stingy. This one will be earned at least.
Thrift like the Gowdas.
How Aaditha uses a palace employee (who basically does nothing, outside of triggering my anxiety levels) to cut back CB3’s expenses.
I’m in Ranibagh only because I couldn’t escape (credit to my family for that). Ever since I told my parents I wanted out, they’ve been pouring emotional persuasion over every conversation like it’s gravy.
They coax, they plead, blow hot, blow cold and absolutely refuse to take no for an answer.
Appa roped in Alia for Team Prathap, and she was sticky with persistence, never confrontational, just endlessly gushing about Vedveer.
‘He’s a good person,’ my older sister by a decade simpered two nights ago while driving to work in a different time zone.
She paused for a response, and when she didn’t get one, she stepped on the accelerator.
‘Vedveer is perfect for you,’ Alia said. ‘He’s everything a girl could ever want – kind, funny, thoughtful. I don’t understand why you are having second thoughts. And the way he looks at you... it’s like you’re the only person in the world.’
‘Err… and when exactly did you see that?’
‘At the polo game, Aadi! When he was talking to you, it was like nobody else mattered! It is so sweet, really!’
‘I’m not so sure… He looks at a lot of girls like that.’
Appa called for a late-evening meeting with the security team at No. 5 MG Road to make an announcement, shortly after he caught wind of the TittleTattle story. A week after the Lakshmi Bar piece hit the stands.
‘Effective from this evening, we keep separate logs for entry and exit – full names, addresses, whom they’re meeting and the reason for their visit.
We’re fortunate that this incident,’ Appa says, leaving out details deliberately, ‘didn’t result in a serious breach.
But let this be a wake-up call for everyone.
It is someone outside of not just this group but beyond these walls who noticed the disguise before any of you. ’
A dozen nods and not a single response (according to Raju).
‘Every two–three weeks, a veshabhusana (costume) walked out of these gates, but that vesha hadn’t walked in. Didn’t it occur to you to question?’ he asked.
The disguise seemed to amuse Appa more than bother him. His only real issue with the Lakshmi Bar scene was the fact that security missed it.
I can bet my parents hadn’t laid eyes on TittleTattle until the incognito story broke.
They may have heard whispers of the kind of gossip that features on TittleTattle, especially after our association with the Rathores became a thing of national interest, but it isn’t a page they would click to read ever.
I’m almost certain Alia is the one who told my parents about the article.
I had consciously kept the Lakshmi Bar meetings from my sister because I knew she’d lose it, and sure enough, she did the moment she saw the pictures.
‘I don’t understand why you’re encouraging this rowdy behaviour,’ Amma scolded Appa.
Appa took his cue and turned on me. ‘What if a fight broke out?’ he asked. ‘What would you have done?’
Even restaurants where you pay two or three thousand bucks for a smooth cocktail have seen violence. If a fight had broken out, we would’ve left immediately; that’s the plan always.
At first, the TittleTattle piece made me angry. I was outraged; it was an invasion of privacy. That this happened in the city I call home was hard to digest, not that boundaries haven’t been violated in Bengaluru before, but this felt like a loss of ground.
Raju told me that Lakshmi Bar’s clientele had doubled and trebled since the story broke.
A neighbourhood watering hole had become a place of great curiosity, even in Bengaluru, where folks just go about their own business.
A younger demographic in general, and more women, particularly, visit Lakshmi Bar these days.
I couldn’t help thinking that to the LBDs, this hidey-hole was gone forever…
Raju did some digging and concluded that it was the watchman at the bar who may have unwittingly pointed the paps in my direction.
Apparently, there had been enquiries a few days earlier about an Aaditha Prathap, who had been frequenting Lakshmi Bar.
Since no one there knew me, let alone as the finance minister’s daughter, the answer was a firm no.
But the question was floating in the wind.
Eventually, the watchman, even if unknowingly, gave the game away by pointing at the group.
I was already mad at Vedveer before the TittleTattle piece dropped, and with good reason. But this, the uproar his presence in my life has caused, has taken it to a different level.
Stylists, designers and jewellers are reaching for me from every direction. Bangles are being replaced by armlets, somebody else is fixing anklets, I feel fingers on my earlobes and a pair of hands in my hair.
I’m nudged to a standing position, like I am a display doll. I’m half-draped in a cloud of silk, an outfit that covers one shoulder and falls to the floor in a heap. It is a lot of fabric, only some of which is on me.
I try to smile, looking for humour in a cluttered space that is steadily crushing my spirit.
Amma, whose allergy is threatening, is trying hard not to sneeze into a length of Banarasi tissue that stands next to her. She brushes her nostrils with her index finger, knuckling it, looking for relief.
There are lehengas in every shade of gold – rose gold, dusky gold, champagne gold, confused gold – and I’ve been encouraged to ‘feel the energy’ of every colour before I make a choice.
There’s a blouse on the railing that looks more like an upholstered cushion. I giggle, and Reema turns to ask if I need anything.
On my left, a slightly built man, dressed in a quilted skirt, grunts as he holds up a lehenga. I shudder; it must weigh a tonne.
‘It’s minimal by Rathore standards,’ he cajoles, turning to face me.
I was introduced to the folks who are looking to dress me up as soon as I arrived: ‘so, so and so from the House of Dadlanis,’ or ‘she, she and he from Malini when nothing else works, she leans on the rose water.
‘Ranisa said everybody will get a chance,’ she implores.
‘She should wear her heritage,’ an anglicized accent declares. The Kanjeevaram advocate?
If I were ever to get married, I would definitely wear Amma’s beloved yarn – Mysore and Kanjeevaram – for a couple of events, but I’m not going to finalize those drapes from this mix. That’s like travelling to Jaipur to eat Mysore masala dosa.
It would be cruel to drop that on them now, so if they want to believe I am going to advertise their style and workmanship, I’m happy to humour them for the time being.
Never before in my life have I been held captive in the manner I am this morning. Every time my hand is free, I use it to reach for the glass of rose water, which is placed on a sparkling silver coaster. I even pull off a few neck rotations to ease the anxiety.