Arranged Love (22 page)

‘Are you seriously considering marrying one of my cousins?’ I asked matter-of-factly.

‘Is there a reason I shouldn’t?’

Yes there was. The reason was that I loved him and I couldn’t see him showering his affections on any other girl. Definitely not Pinki, Dinki or Chinki. If he was going to marry one of my cousins, he might as well marry me. Taking this as my clue to follow my heart, I wrote on the chat before I lost courage again. ‘Do you think we are compatible?’

‘Compatible? For what? Friendship?’ he asked confused.

‘Of course not, we are already friends,’ I responded, moving
my ring in and out of my finger with mounting excitement and anxiety. But I gave him no more hints.

‘Did you have a change of mind?’

I wasn’t sure what change he was talking about as my mind was shunting rapidly from one side to the other like a shuttlecock in Saina Nehwal’s hand.

‘Sort of,’ I typed vaguely, drumming my artificial nails on the table in a nervous frenzy.

‘Cool. So you want to be my business partner in condomking. com now?’

Fuck! I cursed a man’s inability to get deeper into a woman’s mind.

‘How about life partner?’ I asked, restless and running out of patience.

Just then Rohan stopped by our cubicle, gave me a warm smile and told Deep that he was free to talk.

‘Umm … I have just discovered a bizarre bug in Suhaani’s code,’ spoke Deep with utmost seriousness. ‘I want to get down to the bottom of the problem and try fixing it. Can I drop by your place later in the night?’

‘Ah. I am a married man now Deep. I work elsewhere in the night shift,’ said Rohan and winked. ‘Come over tomorrow morning for breakfast and we can chat at my place. You can also come, Suhaani. Tanu makes awesome
besan cheela
s.’

‘Sure, Jiju,’ I smiled and saw him walk away from our cubicle.

‘You think my marriage proposal is a bizarre bug?’ I turned around to face Deep in shocked disbelief.

‘Well, I asked you three months ago if you saw a future for us together and you said no. Today you are asking me to marry you. That’s bizarre in a guy’s world.’

I figured Deep’s dilemma was justified. In any case, if we were to get married, he would have to know the whole truth. So I told
him about my affair with Jay. How my parents were against it. How I thought Deep was terrible to look at in the beginning and then fell in love with him over time.

‘So what do you say?’ I prompted him for a response.

‘I don’t know,’ he said blankly.

I gave him another weird look.

‘Did you sleep with Jay?’ he asked, looking concerned.

‘Would it bother you if I did?’

‘I guess.’

‘Well, I did lie down naked with him; but we didn’t make love.’

‘So are you a virgin?’

‘Yes. Are you?’

‘Mentally no, but technically yes,’ he answered.

I knew what he meant by that. He had advised and assisted so many people in consummating their marriages that the art of making love was like second nature to him. I looked at his lips and he looked at mine. I thought we were about to kiss, when he threw a googly. ‘How do I know I love you?’ he asked baffled.

‘What do you mean? I thought you loved me and that is why you asked me in the first place.’ I was obviously taken by surprise. Although obvious had long stopped being obvious when it came to Deep, so obviously I should have expected something unobvious.

‘Well, I had feelings for you, but then you said no,’ he stated.

‘Hello! I am saying a yes now!’ I almost shouted at the top of my voice.

‘What if you change your mind again in a month’s time?’

‘It wouldn’t matter …’

He gave me this most, kissable, quizzical, cute look.

‘It doesn’t matter what my mind says any more, coz my heart will always beat for you,’ I continued. ‘Besides we are soulmates.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘You love to cook and I can eat anything cooked by others. I read only fiction and you only non-fiction, so no conflicts there. You love to sing and I love to paint while listening to music. I also like to kiss you when you sing, but I think we can overlook such minor incongruities. You like sex and so do I. We both love our parents. My parents love you and I am sure yours will love me too.’

‘My mom has two sons and she has always wanted a girl.’

‘See, and I am a girl! So she will definitely love me.’

‘And I like your raspberry lips,’ he added.

‘Yes,’ I encouraged. He was sitting very close to me now and I could smell his spicy aftershave and feel the tension building between us. We melted into each other’s arms and soon ours lips locked in a feverish kiss.

‘I need to ask my friends,’ he said, once we had disengaged our lips.

‘Okay. Sure,’ I said and grabbed his lips again.

‘What does he mean he needs to ask his friends?’ Neha screamed into the phone when I told her after reaching home what had transpired between Deep and me at the office.

‘I don’t know. Do you think he doesn’t love me?’

‘He loves you all right honey. He is just having pre-penetration jitters.’

I didn’t even know such a thing existed, but I took Neha’s word for it.

‘What should I do?’

‘Give him an ultimatum of twenty-four hours.’

‘What if he says no?’

‘He won’t. Guys are not very different from girls. They also love flash sales.’

‘Cool’.

I sent Deep a message saying he better let me know what his
friends think in a day’s time. He immediately responded saying he was going to his friend’s place in Noida and would let me know asap. There was no time to lose. I knew I had to be prepared to convince Deep to marry me. I opened a spreadsheet and went about doing what I was best at. Making a list. If you are judging me for being a listmaniac just look around yourself. From the ‘Top Ten’ lists sprawling across the web, to the playlists in your iTune, the contacts list in your mobile or the weekend shopping list, everything in our lives is nothing but a part of some list. Our very existence in this world is merely a tick in our parents’ list of milestones. Haven’t you heard the new, revised saying? ‘Behind every successful man is a woman who manages his lists.’

I must have fallen asleep working on my list because it was dark when I opened my eyes. Cuddled in a starched, ironed cotton
dohar
, I noticed the keep-alive signal from my laptop, on the bedside table. Mom must have switched off the lights and put the sheet on me. The little gestures that I had come to value only after I had missed them when I was away from home. I unlocked my mobile to check the time. It was 2 a.m. There was no missed call or messages from Deep. Six hours had passed since I gave Deep the time limit. I had eighteen more to wait. I was sure that I was going to exceed the average of sixty-two minutes/day wait time that Kavita had mentioned during my first meeting with her.

I sighed, got up, and went to the loo. When I got back, I saw my mobile flashing for attention. I quickly checked. It was a message from Deep. My heart sank. My fingers trembling with trepidation, I read what I assumed to be another rejection by an IITian. ‘Are you awake? Can I call?’ it said.

Why did he not communicate his disinterest straight away with a message? Why call? ‘He was just trying to ease the blow. Better to get it over with,’ I thought and called him up myself. He picked up the phone even before I could hear it ring.

‘Can you come on Skype?’ Deep asked.

‘Yes,’ I replied.

He disconnected the phone. Tensed and jittery as the financial markets, I awakened my laptop from its sleep. Seconds later we were face to face. He was still wearing the same shirt and trousers he had worn to work, so he perhaps hadn’t gone to bed yet. I looked crappy without any make-up, hair dishevelled, in my well-worn, baggy night suit. I waited for him to start.

‘
Bhawre ki gunjan hai mera dil, kabse sambhale rakha tha dil, tere liye, tere liye …’

As he confessed his love for me with the song, a tear of joy fell from my eye and then my face turned into a colon dash bracket :-)

I had never thought I would write a novel in my life, leave aside a second one. Thanks to all my readers and Facebook fans for their emails and FB posts inquiring about my next novel. Many of them wanted to know what happened to Tanu, my protagonist in
Heartbreaks and Dreams
, after she left IIT. I could have written a sequel but I wanted an FB gen, spunky, racy and humorous voice this time. So I chose to have bring Tanu di as the protagonist’s cousin and run her story in parallel.

I would also like to thank Sujatha and Pwana Kumar, Shivani and Sanjeev Kapoor, Priyanka and Neeraj Aggarwal, Nisha and Bhupi Singh, Nidhi and Rajul Jain, Kamal and Amarinder Dhaliwal, Tanima and Umesh Gupta, Anu and Yash Jagdhari who related their own marriage experiences. When I asked them how did they know if this person was The One, they mostly failed miserably. So I have concluded Love is indescribable and cannot be put on FB timeline.

Shilpi Agarwal, Varsha Mittal, Aditi Saronwala and Pooja Goyal who helped me understand the current generation’s views on sex, love and marriage.

My literary agent Kanishka Gupta of Writer’s Side who said, ‘It looks promising and fun. Better than last time.’

My first book’s publisher Jayantakumar Bose for giving the clearance to publish this book with Penguin.

The entire Penguin team, Chiki Sarkar for reading my synopsis and liking it. Senior Commissioning Editor Vaishali Mathur, for
having the confidence in my book and its youth appeal. My editor-in-charge, Paloma Dutta, for her careful edits and Diksha Wadhwa, my marketing manager, for her ongoing efforts to make this book a big success.

My friend Sonal Bansal, the only person with whom I shared my manuscript as I wrote it, for feedback and reassurance. No, my husband hasn’t read it. He only glanced through a few printed pages once, was shocked at what he read and asked if I was writing an adult novel!

My in-laws for their constant support and encouragement.

My brother Mohit and my friend Punam who helped arrange my love and my parents for bringing Alok in my life.

My husband Alok for loving me unconditionally.

My daughters, Smiti and Muskaan, who had to bear the brunt of my bad writing days. I love you both and I hope you don’t read this book until you are eighteen.

Published by the Penguin Group

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Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

First published in Penguin Metro Reads by Penguin Books India 2012

Copyright © Parul Alok Mittal 2012

Cover design by Aashim Raj

All rights reserved

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual person, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

ISBN: 978-01-4341-882-5

This digital edition published in 2012.
e-ISBN: 978-81-8475-914-3

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