Arranged Love (5 page)

‘I had no idea that he works here,’ I emphasized, glad to have someone to discuss the absurdity of the entire situation with.

This time, she seemed to believe me. ‘Deep sir didn’t know either that you were joining iTrot. Kavita ma’am informed him only two days back.’

‘Sheer coincidence, don’t you think?’ I exclaimed.

‘Kismat Konnection!’
she replied excitedly.

I was about to tell her that I had little faith in fate, when a fat, fair guy walked in, snapping the fingers of both his hands alternately to produce a sort of musical tune.

He squeezed his bulky frame into the chair next to me. I could smell the coconut oil in his hair even from a distance.

‘Namaste bhabhiji. Myself Sanjeev Sharma,’ he introduced himself, in a typical
dehati
style.

Bhabhiji!
Was he living in the black and white era? I gaped at
him in disbelief. Sporting a tilak on his forehead and a partially unbuttoned, orange shirt, he looked like an avatar from Govinda’s Coolie No. 1.

Seeing the perplexed expression on my face, he reasoned, ‘IIT Brotherhood,
bhabhiji
. Deep is my brother from another IIT.’ He paused to laugh at his own joke, before adding, ‘
To, aap bhabhiji huin na?’

It was obvious that he, too, was aware of my matrimonial goings-on. ‘How many people exactly do you think know?’ I inquired, shifting uncomfortably in my chair.

I saw Sanjeev carefully survey the people in the neighbouring cubicles, take his hands out from his shiny black pant pockets, and start counting in binary finger notation. (You can count up to 1023 using base 2 notations on 10 fingers). He stopped at 8. With 2 to the power of 8 being 256, this meant that the entire office knew about my arranged marriage proposal to Deep.

‘Deep sir is an open book, you know, like Saifu in the movie
Dil Chahta Hai
,’ Madhuri offered, trying to salvage the situation.

Immediately the image of a friendly, funny and flirtatious guy popped into my mind. I had quite liked that character, but I just could not see the connection now.

‘Suhaani ji, we have all been eagerly waiting to meet you, following every move of yours ever since you stepped out of the taxi,’ explained Sanjeev. ‘First you paid the taxi, then you signed the register, then you talked to the receptionist, then you went to the ladies’ room, then you had a coffee, then you looked at the
Travel Times
, had another coffee …’

Flabbergasted, I looked at him blankly, as he narrated a minute-by-minute account of my entire day since I had arrived at iTrot. com. Discernibly, the entire office had been spying on me.

‘What kind of rumour-mongering happens in this office?’ I blurted out in exasperation. In general, like most people,
I enjoy surprises. They add spice to day-to-day life. But too much spice can be difficult to digest, and today was turning out to be three red chillies’ hot spicy.

‘It’s not what it seems like,’ said Sanjeev calmly. ‘Deep had just showed us the biodata long time back, but when Kavita got to know that you were joining our company, all of us started teasing him,’ he justified.

‘Sharma ji,’ I replied respectfully, ‘I think there is a slight problem.’

‘They are just friends,’ interjected Madhuri, in an effort to restore peace.

‘We are not even friends,’ I said, a bit more sternly this time. I noticed the colour drain from Madhuri’s lively face, and she immediately returned to her seat. Sanjeev also glared at me accusingly for being unreasonably rude, and glided his chair back to his corner.

I was left alone staring at their backs. I wanted to be angry with Deep for landing me in this soup, but as it was not exactly his fault, I was confused as to whom I should blame. I knew both Madhuri and Sharma ji thought I was stupid to dislike Deep, but I couldn’t tell them that I already had a boyfriend or that I didn’t feel sexually attracted to Deep. Well, if you leave out his husky voice for a second. Speaking of which, I heard the unsettling voice from the aisle and quickly turned to face my workstation. The last thing I wanted was for Deep to catch me mucking about. I clicked on the folder named ‘Special Project’, opened the hundred-page requirements document, and started reading. But of course, not a single word reached my mind, which was busy processing the day’s bizarre events. Not only was I now reporting to a guy my dad wanted me to marry, the whole office seemed to know about it, and wanted me to say yes to him.

C’mon. Give me a break! Such things are supposed to only
happen in movies, not real life. Baffled and in dire need of some sane advice, I sent an SMS to Tanu di and Neha, ‘SOS. In Deep Shit.’ Surprisingly, I got an immediate response from Di.

‘I am back. Let’s meet tonight after work.’ There was some silver lining to the dark, cloudy day.

I was sitting in my room with Jay next to me, sipping cool beer, and laughing at Jay’s funny pronunciation of Hindi words. He was massaging my shoulders with his powerful hands, his touch causing ripples of excitement to flow through my body. He bent down slightly, and brushing his lips against my ears he whispered, ‘Can I have a word with you?’

As usual, I answered flirtingly, ‘As long as the word is not SEX.’

‘Well, I was thinking along different lines,’ he said.

But this time, his voice was not a soft murmur. It had a gruff, husky tenor that startled me out of my daydream. Deep was standing next to my seat, with an amused smile, his eyes playfully mocking me.

‘I am sorry. Um … I was just thinking about this crossword clue. Aaa … three letter word for
a fun way to exercise
,’ I blabbered incoherently.

‘Run?’ he suggested, with a quizzical look on his face.

‘Yeah … quite possible. Both sex and run will fit,’ I mumbled sheepishly, checking out Madhuri and Sanjeev one by one, from the corner of my eye. They were seemingly busy working. Not that I could feel any more humiliated, if they had heard me. I was already feeling an amalgamation of confusion, anger and helplessness. Adding embarrassment to the mixture could hardly make it worse.

‘Let’s go some place else and talk,’ he suggested.

Gathering a notebook and a pen, I quietly followed him. On my way, I felt curious glances from the people I passed. I tried to walk cautiously so that no one could hear the clicking
of my heels or the thumping of my heart. Finally, we found an unoccupied meeting room at the far end of the floor, next to the stairs. The room had a soothing blue paint and glazed glass windows so no one from outside could see what was happening inside. It was a relief to be hidden from peering eyes, and I felt my formerly frazzled self beginning to calm down amidst the meditative nest of blue walls.

‘Is there a problem?’ he asked, looking straight into my eyes.

His nonchalant expression was a total contrast to the addled state of my mind.

‘Should there be?’ I sassed back, forgetting momentarily that he was my manager.

‘You are fiddling with the ring in your finger,’ he pointed out.

Boy! He was a keen observer and quite perceptive too. Usually I had to tell Jay when I was upset with him or I could sulk for weeks in vain. Yet, I was not ready to tell Deep how awkward I was feeling. ‘I thought you wanted to talk about something,’ I reminded him.

He looked earnestly into my eyes, and said, ‘Your biodata was the first-ever arranged marriage proposal that came my way.’

I noticed that he was blushing.

‘I would be lying if I say it didn’t give me a high,’ he added.

This time I pulled my eyebrows together, forming two vertical wrinkles on my forehead, to show my scepticism. I mean, all the girls at office seemed willing to rub shoulders with him.

‘I have an elder brother who is still unmarried, so my marriage is not on my parents’ radar yet,’ he explained.

I was still not convinced, but I appreciated his forthrightness, and let him continue.

‘I did share your biodata with friends around, but I had no way of knowing that six months down the lane you would be joining
the same company, leave aside the same group.’

Now he was lying through his teeth. ‘The HR manager said you actually selected me for this special project,’ I accused him.

‘Well yes, but that was only two days ago. I felt that your user interface skills would be an asset to our new initiative. Plus the project has high visibility and scope for immense impact. I thought it would be a good exposure for you.’

I honestly thought he was making a mistake here. ‘My resume doesn’t mention any UI ability,’ I warned.

‘Let us say, I can often see what others can’t,’ he replied conceitedly.

Over-confidence is a widely prevalent virus among the breed that is IITian. I saw no point in arguing with him. If he had indeed misjudged my capabilities, it was entirely his problem.

‘If you have any issues working with me, I can talk to Kavita and we can have your group changed,’ he offered.

Issues, my foot! Like I had any feelings for him! I already had a handsome hunk for a boyfriend. I shrugged my shoulders and shook my head to convey my indifference.

Was it my imagination or did I actually see relief sweep across his face? Feeling an inexplicable urge to put him down, I demanded why he didn’t call me earlier to warn me, for he knew that I would be joining his group two days in advance.

‘I didn’t want to influence your decision by telling you that I work here,’ he paused as if to think, and then added, ‘Besides, I assumed you may know.’

Know? How so? Was he now implying that I had joined iTrot because I knew he worked here and I wanted to get close to him? ‘Last I knew I didn’t have the ability to get into other people’s minds,’ I retorted. Only Professor Snape could do legilimency even in the magical world.

‘Your dad knows where I work,’ he stated simply, and left the room, leaving me speechless.

I stared at the framed picture hung on the opposite wall, aptly reflecting my state of mind. There was a picture of a female customer, her hair flying back, eyes wide with disbelief and mouth hanging open in shock. At the bottom was a quote from Michael Stipe that said, ‘Sometimes I’m confused by what I think is really obvious. But what I think is really obvious obviously isn’t obvious …’

‘Indian girl, studying abroad, lying naked with her ABCD boyfriend …’ narrated Tanu di, like she was reading a book’s back cover.

‘Jay is an “Indian Mom, American Dad, Completely American” and I was not naked. I was painting him nude,’ I corrected.

‘Indian girl, studying abroad, painting her naked IMADCA boyfriend, receives an arranged marriage proposal from her parents. She returns to India to convince her parents, takes up a job in the meanwhile, but GUESS WHAT?’ She gave a dramatic pause for impact and then continued, ‘The guy whom her parents want her to marry is her NEW BOSS and he has a nipple-hardening voice.’

‘I never said that,’ I protested, but Tanu di argued back that stories need exaggeration.

‘Is this destiny or her dad’s conspiracy?’ Another pause. ‘What will happen next?’ A longer pause. ‘Will she marry her sexy-sounding boss or will she go back to her gorgeous-looking guy?’ she said, concluding the blurb with romantic suspense to keep her listeners on tenterhooks.

I felt transported to my childhood, when I had once listened to a multi-part story on Vividh Bharti, sitting in front of a cooler with Tanu di on a blazing summer day.

‘Not a bad plot for a chicklet,’ I admitted, ‘but, I thought you
were writing a book on “Girls at IIT”?’

‘There could always be a side-track like a senior who is studying abroad,’ she giggled.

‘Oh! Please, Di. Stop making fun now!’ I begged.

She immediately put on a straight face, pretended to be serious, and asked, ‘So, did you figure out why you were chosen for the customer service training?’

‘Holy moly!’ I sighed as I exhaled slowly. I had not had the chance to ask Deep about wait-the-talk lesson yet, but there was something else that had just caught my attention. ‘Do you really think it could all be Dad’s ploy?’

Tanu di narrowed her eyes in speculation and she started tapping her fingers on her lips. She looked like a lawyer focusing on the details of a case. I could tell that she was seriously racking her brains now.

‘Chachaji did shortlist the companies for you,’ she said, thinking out loud, ‘and he also knew where Deep works.’

‘Pa also proposed that I call Deep for advice,’ I pitched in.

‘Yes, but it was your decision to join iTrot,’ Tanu di countered.

Unable to nail Dad, and in a desperate attempt to hold someone responsible, I took a shot in the dark. ‘Is it plausible that Deep knew the Internet company I was considering and purposely gave me the arguments that would make me choose iTrot?’ I surmised.

‘He might as well have caused the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy and engineered your homecoming,’ said Tanu di, bursting into mad cackles of laughter at the ludicrousness of my proposition.

Not only was I implying that Deep had a thing going for me, but also that he knew me well enough to be able to manipulate me. I saw the farfetchedness of my idea and let it drop.

Looking at my crestfallen face, Di advised that rather than debating on how I got into the soup, we should now focus on swimming out of it.

‘Sidelining Deep should be easy. Accept his group change offer,’ she recommended.

I acceded that initially I had declined the offer to switch the team because of my ego, but now my reasons were purely social. I had since learned that the special project would give me access to FB which was otherwise banned within office.

‘Oh, yeah! Updating one’s Facebook status every few hours is a must, for periodic release of tension,’ she said seriously. ‘I usually go to the loo or take a walk, but that is so twentieth century.’

I could sense the sarcasm in her voice. ‘Besides, FB updates are the fastest, easiest, most non-intrusive and completely eco-friendly way of letting the world know that you are alive.’ Tanu di joshed at my reasons and broke out into a loud guffaw.

I couldn’t help but crack up at her humour. After we were both done indulging in comic relief, and exercising our facial muscles, she suggested an alternate way out of the Deep trouble.

‘Tell him you aren’t interested in a relationship as yet. This will not be a NO and yet be a NO.’

Trust Di to come up with an euphemist way of rejecting guys. Years of practice had made her perfect in this field. It had always worked, except for her very first time, when it had backfired. She was all of twenty-one then, inexperienced and naive in matters of the heart. She had asked him to wait, give her more time, but interpreting her deferral to be a denial, he had moved on. For a split second, I saw the longing in her eyes for that half of hers that she had lost, before she veiled her sorrow behind her vivacious smile.

‘Having swam across the Deep end, let’s now deal with the Dad end,’ she said. ‘If not for
Dostana
, Chachaji, Chachiji would have surely taken the bait on homosexuality, but the current situation demands a change in strategy. I think you now ought to let them know about Jay,’ Tanu di advocated.

‘Ha, ha, ha …’ I tittered. I might as well go to the war front in Israel or walk the streets naked. Better still, I could also confess to stealing from my mom’s purse in grade four, losing Dad’s collection of old songs, cutting my mom’s wedding saree to make my doll’s lehenga and flushing down Dad’s car key so he wouldn’t go to the office.

I couldn’t imagine confronting my parents or conceding that I had betrayed their trust. The thought of not being their ideal daughter was frighteningly unthinkable.

‘Do you think they don’t already know? All kids make mistakes and all parents know and forgive.’

‘Fine, then what’s the need for me to say anything.’ I knew I was behaving like a stubborn four-year-old who was being asked to apologize to her friend for hitting her.

‘For one, you are not a child any more. Kids hide the truth because they can’t draw the fine line between joking and lying. Moreover, parents deserve to know the truth,’ Di explained.

I was still unconvinced, although the guilt was weighing heavily on my conscience now. Was I unsure of myself and Jay or was I just being careful not to hurt my parents? ‘I will tell them when the time is right.’

‘I said that to someone many years ago and lost him forever,’ she spoke softly, with a pensive look on her face. ‘When you are scared to do something, the right time never comes … until it is too late.’

I was well aware of whom she was referring to. Among all my cousins, Tanu di was the one I was closest to. We were both alone. I had no siblings and her siblings had moved on in life. We could talk about anything inside or outside an Oxford dictionary. YouTube and tube8, girl talk and boy talk, ditching and getting ditched, there was nothing we didn’t share, but this was the first time she had admitted regretting her decision to choose her ambition over her love.

‘Let’s look up Champ on Facebook,’ I suggested, in an effort
to bring back the lovely, dimpled smile on her face. ‘Who knows, he might be available? Perhaps his wife divorced him because they were sexually incompatible?’

At the very mention of Champ’s name, a faint smile spread on her face. ‘I already did. He is not on FB,’ she said, twirling her plait in a self-conscious, shy manner.

I was surprised that Tanu di had checked FB. Facebook for Tanu di was like wearing make-up for my mom. You do it because others are doing it, although natural beauty was the best.

‘I found him on LinkedIn though. He works as an independent consultant in the bay area, advising start-ups on survival.’ One moment her face had the bright, blushing grin of a bride and the next instant she wore a far-off wistful look of a widow.

‘Why are you frittering your life away for a guy who couldn’t keep his pants up for a couple of more years, and went about knocking boots with your best friend’s sister,’ I counselled, our roles reversed.

‘I do go out on dates with other men,’ she defended herself.

‘Oh! But you are still a … I mean you can’t possibly die a …’ I hesitated as her cook came into the room with a courier slip.

‘Stop worrying about me. I am quite an independent, self-satisfied woman.’ She laughed impishly, her eyes sparkling with amusement.

It was good to see her back to her cheerful, lively self. She may have denied her heart from loving another man, but she surely hadn’t denied herself the pleasures of life. The best part about Tanu di was that like the shock-absorbers of a Sumo van she would spring back soon enough after a bumpy stretch.

The cook came back, this time carrying a beautiful bouquet of carefully handpicked red roses.
‘Didi, it ij yoer berday?’
inquired the cook in her broken English.

Tanu di said no and the girl retreated to the kitchen.

‘Didi, hu haj shent theej rojes?’
I asked, mimicking the cook, but she was lost reading the little note that came with the flowers.

I will be in town this Friday,

Would love to catch up with you.

If you consider me worthy of company,

I will book a table for two.

—
VC

Nostalgia overtook her. I could tell from the youthful exuberance that lit up her face that she was back to her IIT days, reliving a fond memory, possibly of another rose bouquet from Champ.

‘Who the fuck is this VC?’ I demanded, pulling her out of her reverie, and accusing her of not keeping me updated with her dating diary.

‘Vikram Chhacchi.’

‘Hmm … unusual surname! Is he good-looking?’

‘Totally! John Abraham types! Tall, lean, handsome, with a smile that makes you go weak in the knees,’ she sighed deeply. Coming from Tanu di, it sounded a little fishy. Like most people of her generation, she was more a believer of internal beauty, the body being just a wrapper to the soul. I, of course, liked my presents attractively wrapped.

‘You are not … er … pulling my leg?’ I asked suspiciously.

She shook her head gently and smiled back.

It was hard to imagine that a handsome catch like him was still available. ‘I hope he is not married,’ I said anxiously. The last thing Tanu di deserved was to become the
‘woh’
in a
‘pati–patni’
combo.

‘Separated,’ she replied, arranging the roses carefully in a vase, ‘and he drives a Mercedes.’

‘Cool! So he is sexy, smart, separated and swanky,’ I summarized, getting all excited now.

‘Where did you meet him? When were you planning on telling me? Have you guys kissed yet? Do you think …’ I barraged her with questions.

‘Slow down, honey,’ she said. ‘Your generation is so tuned to one-way dialogues. What happened to the good old you-ask-a-question-and-wait-for-the-reply way of communicating?’

Sometimes Tanu di could get really touchy about her pre-cybersex, snail mail era.

‘So, where did you have a face-to-face, two ways, tête-à-tête with him?’ I asked again, and waited for her to answer.

She smiled at my deliberate rephrasing of the question.

‘I met him during the final round of interviews for the
Businessworld
Hottest Young Entrepreneurs’ award in Mumbai, last month. He was one of the panellists.’

‘You reached the finals? When will the results come? Did he ask you out in Mumbai?’ I was back to my rapid-fire mode.

‘You are reading too much into these roses,’ she said, bursting the tiny balloons of hope rising in my chest. ‘He wants to meet me just for business.’

‘How can you be so sure?’ I asked. Last I knew, red roses were more a symbol of passion than profession.

She gave me a smug look, and thrust the latest edition of
Businessworld
in my hands.

Tanu di, in a green
tussar
silk suit, was smiling from the cover page. The headline read ‘IIT girl proves to be the hottest entrepreneur’. I let out a little shriek, my mouth agape in amazement. I quickly turned to the relevant page and skimmed through the article. It described how she had taken refuge in a corporate job when her first start-up ApproxAir succumbed to the millennium dotcom crash. However, the entrepreneur in her had roared back again and before long she was nurturing her second venture on employability skilling for students. The business now had partnerships with several
hundred educational institutes across the nation and had job-trained over one lakh graduates.

I tried to close my mouth, but I couldn’t. This was Tanu Di’s dream come true. Recognition at the pan-India level was a testimony to her sheer hard work and undying spirit. Today was certainly a day of surprises.

Seeing my shocked expression, she clarified, ‘I meant to tell you earlier, but we got Dee-p-stracted.’

I held her in a tight hug as if to let the good news sink in, and screamed excitedly, ‘Oh my God, Di. I am so happy for you!’

I saw two drops of tears moisten her eyes, trace their path down her cheeks and disappear. I reckoned one was a tear of joy at having achieved the goal she had set out to conquer a decade ago, when she had refused a Berkeley scholarship and forayed into the real world. The other was a tear of regret at having lost her love in pursuit of her goal.

‘So now you see why VC wants to meet me?’

She was the hottest entrepreneur and he was a hot venture capitalist. There was only one possible reason I could fathom. I shook my head in a no.