Ariya FF The lucky charm - Page 7

Loved it dear

Awesome part

Thanks for the PM

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Woww superb update..

Like it dear.. Ariya meet.. 😍

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Updated..

Wow riya met arjun

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Superb update

Continue soon

Nice part.

Finally Ariya meet.Riya did cheating but caught by Arjun😆 Seriously, nothing can be escaped from the eyes of Arjun, be a ACP or skipper.

Waiting for their more interaction.

Thanks for PM and continue soon.

Riya caught for buying the genuine nikes

But Sam's girlfriend is not ayesha god

Update soon

Amazing update 👏

Loved it

The Indian public is brutal. They want to stand with a winning team, not their team.

What? Sam's girlfriend is not Ayesha? Aww

Chotu's description of his team members and the whole scene was funny

So finally Arjun and Riya met.

Of course Arjun noticed that she bought fake Nikes but making her feel stupid in front of everyone wasn't cool

Thanks a lot for the PM

Sorry for the late comment

Please update the next part soon

I was still smiling idiotically when sam came up, a full two minutes later.

Sam :What's this about you being a fireworks freak, reeta?

he demanded as the make-up man touched up his face

Riya : It's riya,And yes, I am a bit into fireworks, but that's just because the day I was born so many crackers went off it kind of got internalized into my DNA.

Shivee : You were born on Diwali?

Riya (laughing) : No, I was born the day India won the World Cup. You know, in '83.'

Sam : Twenty-fifth of June,(promptly)

I nodded and then karan said testily,

Karan : sam, if you've finished your touch-up can I have you two back in the frame, please?

I don't think they liked the way he said it, because right away, the two of them started messing around. They got hold of the phuss phuss sprayer the make-up people were using and started spraying serious amounts of water onto shree's face, chortling happily.

I think they were picking on shree just because they'd spotted he was a total heart-throb in the making. A simple boy from malda district in kolkata , with tousled copper curls, fair Greek god looks (except for a delightfully snub nose), and big brown eyes. The most attractive thing about him was that he didn't have a clue how hot he was, though I'm sure there were a billion girls out there who'd be happy to enlighten him. And I think that's what was getting sam and Shivee's head .

Shree was being good-natured about all the kidding around. I could see karan was getting irritated though, but was too shy to protest. Damn, I hope I wouldn't have to go over and intervene. I nudged chotu

Riya : Do something, na.

Chotu : I don't have to, Look, arjun's coming now.

And sure enough, the moment arjun took his place between them they got all sober and cooperative.

The rest of the shoot was pretty orderly. Shree went off,and saif was ill. Neelo was looking more relaxed now, as one by one he ticked off all the shots on his list. I studied rawthe while we shot him because I was curious to see how he would react in front of the camera. Most cricketers freeze when the lights come on, they smile this stiff, too-wide smile and their eyes get a panicked deer-in-the-headlights look. You have to shoot reams of film just to get one decent shot where they don't look like halfwits. Or they make their eyes all big-big, as Eppa would say, and end up looking idiotically startled. Or they get that cocky grin that sam and Shivnath had perfected. The one with that cheapie meet-me-outside-baby-I'll-show-you-my-quick-middle-wicket quality to it.

Arjun did square his shoulders just a little when the camera came on, but he didn't turn into a halfwit. I was pretty impressed, till I remembered that he probably had a lot of experience doing this kind of stuff. I mean, he's done so many ads The only telltale sign that he wasn't absolutely comfortable facing the lights was the way he sort of narrowed his eyes down to slits before every shot. Luckily for us, though, that ended up looking good.

The players seemed to like Neelo. He'd shot with them tons of times and they were all fairly matey. Over tea he told me that some of them, specially sam, were curious about me.

Sam : you're this major executive who only does the Bollywood shoots,Now they all want to know if you'll go out with them.

I knew he was pulling my leg of course, but he'd definitely created some trouble in my life, because the next thing I knew, Shivee and Bala were on my case demanding to know why I didn't make an ad featuring them and Deepika Padukone.

Riya : Arrey, we'll never be able to get three big stars like you together on the same dates,But it's a great idea, all the same. We'll get our creative team to work on it.

They went off gratified and I slumped back in relief, only to notice MR. ARJUN looking at me with amusement in his eyes.

Arjun : Nice save, huh.

Riya : Save?

I widening my eyes as innocently as I could.

He nodded unconvinced, and then leaned forward suddenly and touched my knee.

Arjun : Look, I'm sorry, but we have to leave now.

Riya :Huh?Neelo, d'you have any shots left...?

He did. Three vital shots with Shivee and sam for a promo we were going to run called OPEN YOUR ZING! COLA WITH THESE TWO OPENERS. I whispered to him what RAWTHE was saying and he said all he needed was the openers for forty-five minutes more.

arjun : Sorry,

when I told him this as nicely as I could. He got to his feet and suddenly loomed hugely above me.

Arjun : The boys have to leave now - practice. And sam has an appointment with the physio.

And that was it!

In spite of the obscene amount of money we put into this stupid sport, they all just grabbed their kitbags, muttered goodbye, and left! Chotu, the snake, who pockets this huge commission from Zing! Co. as well, didn't say a word! And of course my idiot client Ranjeet just smiled weakly and thanked them in a servile way. The best part was, remember that dumbass Rawal? The one who'd caused us to lose a good half an hour at least? He took away three pairs of shoes with him! His own, the Montu-Nikes, and the pair he claimed didn't fit! What kind of cheapskate was he, anyway?

Now I was stuck in bloody Dhaka, with a bunch of shots left to shoot and a deadline staring me in the face.

Damn! I thought wildly. What the hell am I going to tell sanjay ?

Neelo, karan and I had a distress meeting after the players left and tried to figure out if we could manage without the opener shots.

Neelo : I could do some Photoshop, I guess Shoot some guys in office and stick Sam's and Shiv's heads on their torsos, but it'll look fake.

Riya : Besides we cost separately for those shots and if we don't get them Zing! won't cough up that money.'

That made karan sit up and take notice.

Karan : F**k, do something, riya! You're in servicing. This is your thing! You didn't just come to Dhaka to meet a lot of hot cricketers, you know.

Hello, that was so uncalled for! I had done nothing but concentrate on work the whole day. Okay, except for one quick peek at arjun's chest as he'd switched shirts. Still, these creative types panic easily, so I didn't take offence. Just looked into his wild staring eyes, patted his arm and told him reassuringly, with more confidence than I felt.

Riya : Chill, okay? I'm on it.

That evening I took a long walk past the hotel property and down a tree-lined lane. I even did some jogging, and each time my feet hit the ground a voice in my brain went 'don't panic, don't panic' in an insanely martial rhythm. But it was useless. I was completely and totally panicked. The shots I'd missed were actually vital. We needed them for a promo that was breaking ten days from now. Two litre and 600ml Zing! bottle labels had to go in for printing in three

I collapsed onto a conveniently placed wooden bench as little pulse points twitched all the way up and down my legs. I twisted my sweaty hair, curling wildly in the humidity, into a knot at the nape of my neck and sighed. What was an unsporty person like me doing taking all this exercise, anyway?

Sam :Excuse me, is this seat empty?

The unwanted question was uttered in a smoothly sing-song voice, which I recognized instantly. Sure enough, I looked up to see sam the opener smiling down at me.

Riya : No, it's cool.

I managed to answer and he promptly folded up beside me. He'd obviously been out jogging too; he was all sweaty and smelly. He pulled out a bottle of Gatorade and sipped it down while I looked at him weirdly , not quite knowing what to make of the situation

Sam : The batti went in the Sonargaon, Instead of waiting for it to come back, I decided ki, chalo, ditch the treadmill and hit the road!

Riya : oh

Then, sweaty sam started jerking one leg up and down, up and down, up and down. It is a very irritating habit. My brother rohan used to do it a lot when he was younger, but he stopped when one of his Military Academy instructors told him that it was a habit that betrayed extreme sexual frustration.

Riya : So...how long have you been a custard?

Sam : Hain? .

Riya (God, what was wrong with me?): i meant a -' I cut myself off abruptly. I had been about to say 'cut-surd' but then Ithought maybe it wasn't a politically correct question.

Riya : Damn these machchars(slapping at the mosquitoes on my bare arms.) Are they biting you too?'

Sam, : No, But, pata hai, I know this really cool joke about machchars. There was this one machchar, okay, and he got married to a makkhi, okay? On his wedding night all his buddies pushed him into the wedding suite for his suhaag raat but he kept coming out into the corridor instead. They sent him back in again, but again he came out. Again they sent him in, again he came out. So then they asked him ki why do you keep coming out of the room? What to do, the makkhi has put Odomos and slept!"

Riya mv : Oh my God, how old was this guy? He was looking at me, expecting me to crack up.

So I did. He nodded at me happily and then - with rather obvious cunning - draped one arm over the back of the bench.

Sam : You know, reeta,(one leg twitching madly) there's a very nice nightclub at the Sheraton, do you want to go check it out tonight?

Riya : No, thanks, and it's riya. I have a lot of work to do. But if you're so free why don't you just shoot my three shots tonight?'

His handsome face clouded over.

Sam : Arjun-sir won't let us

I didn't let him finish. I could see sanjay's big bulging eyes before me, telling me to go for the jugular or he'd dock huge chunks off my measly salary

Riya : Sam (sidling closer) isn't there any way we could shoot those shots we missed today? They are very important. I can't manage without them. Because you and Shivnath are the...uh...biggest stars in the team.

Sam : Really? And how do you measure that, Riya ?

Riya : We do research, (I told him smoothly, lying through my teeth.)Among teenage boys and young men. Across five metros, twelve mini-metros, and thirty small towns. They rate celebrities on a scale of one to ten. You are nine, Shiv is eight, and Shah Rukh Khan is seven.

Sam : What about arjun sir ?

'We didn't bother to research him,' I said dismissively. 'We only did big stars.'

Sam : Oh? ( he said softly) , like a man in a happy dream. Then something struck him.

Sam : But why have the boys rated me so highly? They don't think I'm a chhakka wala , you know, a homo or something?

Riya : No-no! they rated you nine on the uh...I-wish-I-was-him-o-meter.

Sam : Wowji! ( happily).

Then he turned to me and said

Sam : Why don't you speak to chotu , riya? He'll work out something for your bacha-kucha, leftover shots.

It was good day as the sportscasters say, but there was nothing sportsmanlike about what I was trying to do. Basically, I snuck around the nets trying to get Mr. Chandrakanth patil to catch my eye so I could spirit the openers away for a quick photo-shoot. Of course, it was totally unethical and unpatriotic and nobody in Delhi knew what I was trying to pull. But it's not like I had a choice here. I'd dreamt they were lobbing massive sums from my cost-to-company, all of last night.

He was nowhere in sight. His portly form and many flashing rings would've been easy to spot in this drab landscape; so I guessed he was inside somewhere. I looked on the ground for a while but no clue of him

I got through on chotu's cellphone number. His phone played Ek baar aajaa aajaa aajaa aajaa aa-aaja for a long time and then chotu's voice suddenly cut off the tinny, nasal Himesh Reshammiya track, sounding surprisingly deep by sheer contrast.

Other side : Hello?

Riya : Hi,This is Riya from AWB. What's the scene on sneaking Shivee and sam out for a half-an-hour photo-shoot tonight?'

A little pause. God, the man was slow.

Other side : Where are you?

Riya : Right by the OB vans...(I waved up at the players' balcony, where I imagined him to be.)Can you come down here and talk to me?

Other side : On my way.

I lurked around the OB van and waited for him, my face feeling warmer and pinker with every passing moment in the hot Dhaka sun. I turned.

Arjun rawthe , dishevelled but dishy in white tracks and tee, was heading straight towards me with long loping strides. He looked like a sleep-deprived superhero who'd been up all night saving the planet. His jaw was set and his brown eyes had that steely killer light that's been patented by the Boost ads. You know, the ones where the bowler tosses the ball up in the air in slow-mo and then catches it again, all menacingly at the poor non-Boost-drinking batsman at the other end of the pitch, before stumping the hell out of him and winning the match for India. he could take the OB van guys apart for concentration

Instead, he swung in right beside me.

Arjun : riya

Wow, I didn't think he'd remember my name and everything. I smiled a bright smile and said,

Riya : Yes! From AWB.

I held out my hand, oozing professional charm.

He didn't take it. Instead, he slowly held up his own hand, which held a cellphone. I looked at him blankly.

Arjun : chotu happened to leave his phone with me

I couldn't think of one single thing to say, so I continued to stare at him, the smile frozen stupidly on my face.

Rawthe took a deep breath, swept a look at the journalists looking on curiously from the OB vans and then reached out and grabbed my hand. He walked me away from there to a spot behind a big Bong tree and then glowered down at me.

Arjun : Do you have any idea how sacred the evening before a match is, riya from AWB? It's not the time for holding a product so that the logo faces the camera, or for striking smiling poses.

good player prepares for a big match in the way a warrior prepares for war.

Okay, so this man took himself seriously. I mean, I knew I was in the wrong here but there was no need for him to start talking like a Nike poster. Besides, I'd seen how his openers had behaved in the restaurant the previous night. They'd been singing Hindi film songs and dabaoing tandoori chicken, and though I'm no expert, I'm pretty sure that's not what warriors do before a war. So I chinned up and looked him in the eye.

Riya : I'm really sorry, sir, it was just an outside possibility I wanted to put to chotu. Because we had been promised three clean hours with the boys yesterday, but all we got was two-and-a-half.

He shook his head and smiled a little at that, his brown eyes grim.

Arjun: You think you're so smooth, don't you, Little Miss Fix-It? Creating fake Nikes logos, saving the day. The - what d'you guys call it? - the servicing girl. Well, do me a service and stay away from my team.'

It was nasty. He made me feel incredibly small. Especially by reminding me about how he'd covered for me with Rawal yesterday. And the worst part was that I knew he was in the right.

Riya : Look, I'm sorry,I wouldn't dream of upsetting your players' focus. I know how badly they need it!

He'd relaxed a little but that unfortunate remark got him pissed-off again. I saw something smoulder in his eyes. And it wasn't, you know, a sexy smoulder (like how hunky heroes smoulder in wet white shirts in Mahesh Bhatt movies). It was more of a nasty smoulder (like how housewives smoulder before zapping cockroaches to death in pesticide spray commercials).

MY client rajneeth had a major cardiac because I'd been 'rude' to arjun and had 'over-exceeded my brief'. Then Neelo called me and started hyperventilating about how we would all three be sacked.

Rajneet : Because they always hang you in threes, riya , you know? No one ever gets executed alone. Bhagat Singh hanged with Sukhdev and Rajguru, Ravana burns with Meghnad and that glutton Kumbhkaran...even Jesus took two guys with him, hanging right and left. You, riya, are going to take me and karan ...'

I hung up on him too and decided to take a long shower to calm myself down. When I emerged, the afternoon paper had been slid under the door. I grabbed a Diet Zing! from the mini-bar and sat down to read it.

Only to come face to face with an article on ARJUN in SAKSHI'S Gupshup column.

There was a hot-looking picture of him in his India blazer, pushing an airport trolley with an abstracted look on his face. Nothing abstracted about the headline though. It screamed

" RAWTHE THE RAWHEART! in 40 point:

Apparently, the ju boy doesn't believe in love, darlings! He's got this distressing scientific theory that love is... just hormones. A little society bird tells us that he sat next to Yash Chopra at a gala dinner last week. And guess what the two of them ended up talking about, sweeties? Love. Well, ARJUN did the talking mostly. When prodded by the Love Guru about his love life, he opined that he found Ishq, Pyaar and Mohabbat to be highly overrated. He said that he thought love was just a messy job of hormones running suddenly . A mixture of 'glandular imbalances, adrenalin surges and spring fever'. Aren't your hearts just shattered, sweethearts? Mine was. And that's when Mr Chopra told him that he should be called not JUN but ARJUN Coldheart! Wasn't that too, too witty of him, girls? So even if your he arts skip a beat when you see the skipper, I suggest you give him a skip, darlings

He may drink Zing! but his Dil is Thanda!

reporting

SAKSHI ANAND

Hah! Can you imagine?

This arjun was either a completely cold fish or had a very, very wicked sense of humour. Oh, and sakshi added that he also told Mr Chopra that the only things he revered were honesty, discipline and courage. Which are values I can totally respect, except for the fact that she went on to reveal that he( arjun, not Yash Chopra) had been a 'messy glob of hormoning it out' with two NRI supermodels on the fringes of Bollywood, one sports journalist and, of course, the girl in the pants hai ad, all in the last one year, and would be 'pursuing his penchant for beautiful damsels by judging the Miss India pageant later this month'.

All of which led me to think that he sounded way too busy to make phone calls to CEOs to have me sacked. Hopefully, I'd be able to fly below his radar for the rest of this trip, scurry back to Bombay for my glamorous shoot and never have to meet him again.

But my happy mood didn't last too long. I realized pretty soon that even if arjun didn't get me sacked, the fact that I still didn't have the openers shots might do the job for him. I tossed and turned all night and woke up obscenely early. Too stressed to just lie in bed, I took a long shower, pulled on a dress and went to a coffee shoppe near by

The Coffee Shoppee guys were clearly taken by surprise because all the tables had chairs upended on them as three skinny dudes in Hawaiian shirts scurried around swabbing the floor. The chubby restaurant manager smiled at me extra-chirpily.

Waiter : Miss Mukherjee ! A table for one?

Like he had piping hot breakfast all ready to serve or something.

But maybe he had. Because as he flipped over a chair for me to sit on, I spied all our Men in Blue, and their coach, tucking into a lavish breakfast at a table at the far end of the room.

Uh oh...

I looked away quickly but it was too late. Sam was waving happily

Sam: Hey, riya!

I waved back weakly. Then made a big deal of reading the menu card. The last thing I wanted was for Captain Coldheart to read me the Riot Act about how my crass commercial presence was going to corrupt his pure little performers. Sam looked a little disappointed. Out of the corner of my eye I could see him half rising in his seat but then Shivnath said something to him that made him sit down again. Meanwhile, arjun just sat there, stolidly eating his way through an entire watermelon.

As I fiddled with the cutlery and waited for my order, bits of their conversation drifted over to me. They were discussing what to do if they won the toss. Fat chance. Arjun hadn't won a toss for seventeen one-dayers running. Even a cricketing ignoramus like me knew that.

Waiter : Ma'am, your breakfast....

which he placed carefully before me. I picked up my fork and dug into the bhurji with gusto. Just then, a tardy arrival to the team table, smelling strongly of after-shave, swung past me in a hurry and his entire kitbag, loaded with bats or dumbbells, just bulk-building, protein-shake powders - slammed into my table and collapsed it totally. In one moment I went from a poised, put-together working girl breakfasting alone, to this total kid, sitting there, mouth agape, a tiny triangle of toast and bhurji speared on my fork and the rest of it scattered all around me.

The dude and the kitbag swung back at once and started apologizing profusely. It was shree hid, the I-don'tknow-I'm good-looking-yet .

Shree :So sorry, soo sorry, riyaji!'

The entire team - showing the kind of synchronicity it seldom showed on the field - leapt to its feet as one. They hadn't seen what had happened, just heard the crash, and I think at first they thought the place had been bombed, a likely possibility given the amount of hate mail they'd been getting lately. Sam rushed over at once, going

Sam : rita ? Tussi theek ho?'

Of course I jumped up and said I was fine. And I was, really.

But shree, very stubborn , totally ignored my idiotic protests and kept up the remains of my breakfast and carried it to the team table with a flourish. Hairy pulled up a chair. Everybody had a go at poor shree for knocking me down. And even arjun , who'd glanced up swiftly when the table crashed to check that I wasn't dead or something, was content to just ignore me. Which was really quite excellent behaviour, given his attitude yesterday. In fact, halfway through the meal, I think he even passed me the butter....

Anyway, I ended up eating breakfast with what the commentators are always calling the 'youngsters' on the team. After they were satisfied there was nothing wrong with me they started kidding around like crazy. The match didn't start till twelve-thirty and they were pretty chilled. Arjun was in his own private huddle with Wes, their bald Aussie coach, the boyish-looking physio, Dieter Rund, Laakhi, and that shoe-flicker Rawal at the other end of

the table, but down here the mood

Sam : riya what do you think India should do in order to win today?'

Sam , doing this really bad Charu Sharma imitation as Shivee waved a banana in my face,

Like I had the foggiest idea.

Riya : Uh,they should eat a good breakfast, focus hard and just play their natural game.

Not bad, I told myself, relaxing a little. Pretty cool of you to use that phrase 'natural game', riya , it sounds like you know what you're talking about....

Sam : Good advice

Sam said one leg jerking the table up and down.

The other boys nodded.

Sam looked set to hit me with another question but I had no intention of playing interviewee any more. My lack of cricket knowledge would be totally revealed. After all, yesterday, on the bench, I'd told him that I was a huge fan of the game and watched every India match, always. So I quickly grabbed the banana from sam's hand and asked a question of my own.

Riya :Tell me, boys, do you guys always eat breakfast together like this before a match?

It worked. They all started talking at once.

They did always eat together before a match. It was Wes's idea, apparently a bonding exercise of sorts. Some of the guys didn't like doing it, it made them feel like kids, but everybody fell in line because arjun backed Wes on it.

So, of course, I started stressing that arjun must be really hassled that I'd gatecrashed their exclusive team-only breakfast but then I realized it wasn't the first time I'd done so.

Riya: Hey, I've had breakfast with all you guys once before too! Don't you remember?

suddenly felt very stupid. Because I'm not exactly a supermodel, or an actress, or a two-headed freak, or anything. There was no reason for them to remember a nobody in a baseball cap and jeans who had sat at their table for fifteen minutes or so, a year and a half ago. I looked down at my bhurji and tried to look like I hadn't said anything.

But sam was all excited.

Sam : Really? When, riya ?'

I said sheepishly,

Riya : In Bombay, ages ago. At the Wank... Wankhede Stadium...I think it's called. It's no big deal. I bet lots of people share breakfast with you now and then. Agents and family and stuff....'

I trailed off self-consciously. But sam was shaking his head impatiently.

Sam : In Feb? Or September?

Riya : feb brought it up. 'At some unearthly hour in the morning. Actually, we needed an NOC from somebody - you, as a matter-of-fact,'

I nodded at Balaji, who nodded right back, going 'Ya ya, of course, of course,' doing a terrible job of pretending that he remembered me.

Riya : I had to get your signature on a lot of papers so you guys let me sit at your table and I grabbed a toast or two.

There was a little silence around the table. Everybody chewed their high-fibre cereal moodily.

sam : That was our first big win, wasn't it guys?

Arjun : First and last

Arjun said dryly, spearing a pineapple chunk.

Riya :Hey, maybe I bring you guys good luck!

I said brightly, for no better reason than that I wanted to show him I was unaffected by his presence.

Arjun : I don't think it was luck that won us the match that day,

I replied in a rush, worried I'd made him mad at me again.

Riya : Of course not. It was just a bad joke. There's no such thing as luck!'

He didn't say anything, just made a kind of grunting noise.

But Shivee spoke up, a little defiantly: 'By the way, skipper, do you know when her birthday is?'

Arjun : When? (looking bored.)

Shivi and sam : Twenty-fifth of June, 1983, Now say ki she's not a good-luck charm!

Arjun didn't look too impressed.

Arjun : Is that a fact?

he asked me, his tone sceptical, almost like he was questioning I'd made it up.

Riya : Yes, actually it is.

He half-shrugged in an ungracious sort of way and looked away.

There was a long uncomfortable silence and then the coach said

Wes : Well, we all know what Shivee and sam are thinking, arjun! If these blokes win today, it won't be because we played well, or because we had a good strategy or because the other buggers screwed up. It'll be all because we broke bread with born-at-the-auspicious-hour riya!'

The boys all laughed at that and I gave a nervous little giggle too, but I couldn't help feeling uneasy. Because even though his eyes were twinkling, I somehow sensed that the new coach were with some disappointment and its disguts may be .

It was like he was this First-World-type gora stuck with a bunch of superstitious Indians or something. I went back to eating the debris of my bhurji, cursing myself silently for making that idiotic 'lucky' remark and even more for backtracking on it so hastily. I must've sounded like such a suck-up. Yes sir no sir three bagsful sir...

Really, when was I going to become a Truly Spiritually Evolved Person?

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