[Needs edits big time...]
With no overlaps whatsoever, her schedule changed overnight once she took up the intern position in Scott's organization and they only acknowledged the other's presence in office with their passing nods and brief formal smiles as they crossed each other in the hallways.
She had the same desk and system and the same people around her and despite that continued familiarity she felt she'd moved companies; not jobs; at times requiring to convince herself that the new role was only a sojourn after which she would go back to nail biting review meetings with him during which blood draining contemptuous stares would be a given. It wouldn't be a rare event as was the case with Scott.
That initial setback might have been reparable after all, had she not been told by Meera that they had hired another Analyst - Pinky in her place - under Maan, bringing back to life the initial doubts about her switch to Scott's team, which she'd laid to rest ever since their confrontation in his cabin.
The problem was she didn't see any good from that shift and could only view it as some form of professional rejection over nothing. Perhaps it wasn't nothing, she thought, for she knew he wouldn't make moves that were baseless and her obscured knowledge behind his act irritated her further.
There might have never been an opportunity for reconciliation that week, save Daadima had personally come in to invite her for the Karwa Chauth pooja that she was hosting for a group of their family and friends at the Gym sit-out. "I will try and come Daadiji...", she'd said hoping her lack of eagerness in joining a gathering where he would be present was reassuringly conveyed to him.
Albeit, when Thursday came she couldn't help but arrive early from office and dress in the only finest sari she'd brought along from Toronto - a designer red saree with green thread work, inlaid with crystals of the same color. Partly, she decked up owing to the habit that it had become over the years, to save the best of all that she bought all year long for that day or her birthday. When there was hardly anything to look forward to, she had no option except to let her life spindle around such self-made anchors.
Pulling back her bangs into a butterfly clip again for the 11th time that evening, she checked at her drying Mehendi seated in a corner. She didn't know anyone there and Daadima was held up arranging the flowers and other pooja thalis that would be required in a matter of hours. Soon, the women arrived and she felt small and measly in front of them, in what with their diamonds, rubies and designer lehengas that hosted a small stellar event of sparkles and glitter.
She'd nearly decided to go back to the apartment and come back in time for the pooja, when Daadima had brought a wildly sobbing child dressed in a green lehenga to her and asked for her help.
"Geet, can you get something for Anshu's burn? The rebel that she is, just had to take the diya out of the thali and burnt her finger", the child raised her tiny index finger that was ashened and had her other hand swiping at her nose, "Ask Nakul for the first-aid box..."
"Boo...boo", Anshu blubbered, clutching her horsey, Bullseye.
Certainly, she hadn't considered visiting him in his apartment and there was some hesitation as she said, "All right...", in a slightly loud cheerful voice she reserved for children and took Anshu's hand, "Let's go put something cold for your boo boo...Ok?"
By the time, they had reached the apartment, she'd learnt of Anshu's life history. That she was the 3yr old niece of Maan, which made Anshu's mom his cousin and that she hated carrots and peas, but could instead live on buttered corn and fries everyday.
The crying that had been sporadic bursts in the elevator turned into a wail right when they got to the door to draw her Mama's full-on attention and she ran to him.
Practically shirtless with his kurta thrown over his shoulder and draw string pajama, he was bent over the counter taking off his lenses, looking so...human. That moment, her hand curled to her side feeling self-conscious from having appeared in a sari there. She tucked a wayward wisp behind her ear, her finger skimming down her jaw and felt her breath quicken from feeling his gaze travel down her form without having to look at him, notwithstanding the humming child that continued tugging on his pants.
Swiftly shrugging into his Kurta, he had his glasses on and leaned down to the child to whisper something in her ear, after which Anshu came running back to her and pulled on her hand even as she was ready to leave. When she lowered herself to Anshu's height, she heard her mumble once again, "I want hot chocolate...Mama doesn't know how to make it..."
Still bent over the child, she looked up at him then and he leaned in profile against the high counter, folding his arms with an almost challenge in his eyes, albeit showing he was pleased with her presence from the upward tilt of his lips. There was no telling what had made her agree to stay and indulge the child's craving that had been force fed into her head, but she did, thinking he would make for one hell of a Shakuni had there been a play.
While he sat the child next to the tap and had cold water run over her finger, she searched for glasses and sugar and milk and chocolate all without his help, scuttling from one cabinet to another, with the clicking of her bangles and the swish of the water keeping her company; that is if she discounted his eyes which seemed to follow her every move and induced a slow smolder stirring under her skin.
"Renuji...", she heard him address a stout primped up woman who had come to the door in haste as if he was driving the woman away, "Daadima is at the sit-out. Its the Gym button on the elevator..."
She gave him a slow inquiring 'Awh!..." while on this side of the counter, she washed up her Mehendi to get to the stove.
Perhaps from being aware that she was the kind of woman who wouldn't move until, he gave a quick introduction of her "This is Geet...", he said and her eyes flew back to the woman and she gave her a smiling nod.
"She works with me...", he added and she faced away with a scowl which she hoped he hadn't missed.
The door closed shut and the blue-grey light of the fading evening filled the room with an unexpected warmth. In no time, he was back in the kitchen babbling to his niece and she had it as her single purpose of the evening to ignore him, just as he was ignoring her.
All until, Anshu had to broach the same subject that had miffed her a minute ago.
"Mama...", she'd stopped sniffling by then, "Is Geet aunty mommy's friend?"
She turned to the duo and he was halfway bending onto the counter, blowing at his niece's finger, "No...she is my friend..."
"No Anshu...", she sounded a bit firm than it was necessary with the child, "I work with your mama, not his friend..."
"Ask your Geet Aunty if there is anything at all in this world that she doesn't get mad about?", he straightened himself and she shifted her focus to the chocolate that she was stirring on the double boiler.
"Ask your Mama if he has decided whether I'm his his co-worker or his friend..."
"Trust me", his voice came from right behind her and it jolted her to look back, cornering herself against the fridge and the counter, "Its better that I introduced you as my co-worker... You don't tell people what they don't need to know..."
"Then I'm sure...", she nearly made a face bracing the counter on both sides, "I could have been just your co-worker to Anshu too..."
When they took in the sound of fiercely pouring running water at the tap, they cast a quick watchful eye on Anshu who was busy bathing Bullseye in the tap.
"Well, you also don't tell people what you know, they won't understand...", she heard his smile in his voice and when she wouldn't upturn her face to look at him, he finally acknowledged the real problem. "You are mad about her..."
"Ah! Let's put it on the bulletin board...", she muttered low eyeing the board on the refrigerator, when in truth she bit back the words she'd wanted to speak then: And stop towering over me, you giant! Only, he looked nothing like one in his Kurta and glasses and the overgrown tufts of hair that curled up at the ends.
"Look!", he threw up his hands in surrender; it was a strange gesture coming from him and she watched him intently, "I think I already told you that its for your own good that I moved you under Scott's team..."
"Yes", she nodded, "I would have continued believing that, had you not gone ahead and hired Pinky on the very next day..."
"I didn't have a choice", he rolled his eyes, "It was my boss' insistence that I have an analyst, so I don't end up doing everything..."
"May be you should have told your boss about moving me out of your team", her voice had all that burnished anger of the days they hadn't spoken, "Before you had actually gone and done that...then perhaps..."
"Its a moot point, Geet...", he tilted himself sideways to her eye level, when she would't meet his eyes, "I would have still gotten you reassigned under Scott..."
Stop! stop doing that...she wanted to scream. He was possibly the only one who spoke with every kind of stubbornness there was and she would still find him agreeable.
And all that ire drained out of her voice when he steadily held her eyes, "Fine...I get it. You don't want to work with me. You don't have to tell me..."
"Yes", he cut her off, "Exactly!...You don't have to tell people what they already know either..."
Her brows drew together then, "What do you mean?"
But it was also then, she remembered the melting chocolate and reached for the stove to switch it off when her arm brushed the side of his and felt waylaid there for a short second.
"This conversation that we are having...", his hands animatedly pointed at both of them, "This wouldn't have happened if you are still directly reporting to me. Its another thing that you might have never seen it that way. But I do", he paused to draw emphasis, "I like to keep my professional and personal lives separate..."
His words registered then and her mouth rounded letting a small sound of surprise, "So, it was personal then...", she said softly, more to herself.
"May be it is...", he repeated her words from the weekend without blinking and she had the strangest urge to gaze at him a beat longer before she awkwardly moved her hair again behind her ear and went back to making the beverage the child had asked for.
They didn't speak after that for a while and in that repose, she remembered their other puzzle of a conversation about complex and complicated and wondered if none of those words applied to him, for his motives always seem to be just as simple as what he'd said minutes ago.
It took her some more time before she had a cup ready for Anshu and while she sipped at it, having her uncle blow at it from time to time, she prepared a homemade band-aid of turmeric for her burnt finger and tied it around her finger "There...you are all good now..."
"Geet Aunty...", she called as Maan carried her to sit by a swing, one she hand't noticed until he'd lowered it from the ceiling right beside the dining area, "Why can't mommy eat until the moon comes out?"
"Oh!...", she was unprepared for that question and reckoned that Bullseye needed to go into the dryer from the line of water drops she noticed on the floor as she made it to the swing and sat facing away from the view towards which the uncle and niece pair did - an incandescent view of all of Manhattan from their living room.
"Umm!", she hooked a finger around Anshu's chin, "My Daadi used to tell me that a long time ago, the earth and moon were married. Like your mommy and daddy..."
"And that every time they fight, the moon disappears and comes back when its no longer katti with its wife...", she must have gotten carried along with the expressions that came with story telling for he had a brow raised at her, a teasing smile playing at his lips, "Then the earth and moon have a feast and we all celebrate. So, we are just waiting for the moon to show up, Anshu. Then your mommy can eat as much as she wants..."
"I take it that your Daadi had a bad science teacher...", he said shaking his head with incredulity.
He shifted to take support from the ornate chains of the swing and kicked off the ground for a gentle sway, while he comfortably had Anshu settled into his lap.
"Don't listen to your Geet Aunty...She's got it all wrong...", he said as her feet lifted off the ground. She resisted crossing her feet at her ankles with her mehendi there that might crumble to the floor, but eventually she gave in and pushed off the tiles every time she thought they could sway a bit farther.
"The moon doesn't go anywhere, Anshu", he said. Anshu tipped her head back to steal a look at him, but in a stealth move she'd least expected then, Anshu lunged to pull the clip out of her hair with a giggle and it came tumbling down as a black cascade in motion. She gasped at first and smiled at the child after a beat, "Its always there. The earth just doesn't see it"
She would have taken the clip out of her hand had Anshu not gone and pinched it around his index finger that same instant and her eyes raised to him as a shiver passed through her back.
"All that time the earth keeps thinking the moon is gone...", he spoke with her eyes fixed on her, while she tried to take her focus to the circles she drew over the lacquered teak of the swing, "Its just going around its wife again and again...", a pause and a disquiet crept into their silence, "So that no one can get close to its wife and I say that the moon is just a plain ol' love struck fool...a rather obsessive one at that, don't you think?"
"Ab...sissy?", Anshu tried emulating his pronunciation and they smiled exchanging a brief glance.
"Sorry sweet heart", he took her tiny palm and kissed it, "Forget I said that...", and tickled her incessantly to take her attention elsewhere.
It was also then that her phone rang and she got up to reach a far corner of the room to take her call. She listened with a weary patience and hid her face from the suppressed curiosity of the uncle who wouldn't continue tickling his niece despite her angelic pleading; since having shared the same distraction as her from their near snug moment that had come with the ringing of her phone. Her emotions burst out as a genie let out from its years of restraint and colored her cheeks while tears brimmed at her eyes. May be it was the man on the other side of the line...or the one who was in wait for her to join him at the swing, but it was some manly undoing then that took all her might to hold fort.
When she came back to sit in her old place beside them, she managed a brittle smile at him not bothering to conceal the mist in her eyes.
"My moon seems resolved to stay away tonight as well...", she said with sarcasm and a shrug of her shoulder, "He missed his flight..."; she twirled the phone in her hand.
Once again, there was a slow sway and the swirling breeze that came with that movement made her want to close her eyes and lean back.
"Mama...you should do tickle", the child answered when he wouldn't, "Then Geet Aunty not sad and smile"
Almost as if he'd been intending the same that instant, he took her hand into his by her fingers and her eyes flicked up to him in alarm. He didn't dither in his hold or gaze and held on for the briefest second in bold assurance that strangely calmed her surge of anxiety.
"Wow...", the child exclaimed taking in the veins of aureate red stain on her palms, while he looked on with a mild amazement in his eyes, as though it was the first time he'd caught a mehendi stained hand of a woman, "Geet aunty my hand pretty too...see..."
Anshu placed her hand atop hers which was in-turn being held by him.
He smiled. "Let's make Aunty smile now, shall we...", he said lifting off Anshu's hand and his words had already brought on a faint smile at her lips without having done anything yet.
He leaned in, circling his other arm around Anshu and touched the tip of her index finger nudging it to close, "This is meera..."
Then he grazed the nub of her middle finger, "This is Yash..." and she folded it on her own accord.
"This is the job she has...", he said and her thumb curled inward.
And the song came on in feeling, Mehsoos kiya hai...making its way to her ears, spreading a warm spill of comfort into her veins and she momentarily closed her eyes feeling the tingle from the touch of his finger seep deep into the skin of her ring finger.
"And this is the big bad New York...", his voice hoarse from a whisper.
She folded her pinky even as he said, "This is rest of the world that she could have if she wants..."
A tear danced at her lashes as she opened her eyes without the realization there was something else that lived on in that second.
"When we mix all this and as long as Aunty is within this circle...", he drew a circle on her palm and gestured mixing all of them in and took a mouthful to Anshu then. She gobbled a chunk of her world with a practiced charm. The next was his own share and then he raised his clumped fingers to his lips which she imitated taking in without any measure of fumble.
"Then she will smile...", he met her eyes and started walking up two of his fingers over her palm with one lingering touch at every beat, "even before my finger reaches the last of her Mehendi...Or..."
He nudged Anshu from his lap, "Anshu will do the rest of the tickling..."
The child's gentle fingers did nothing to her neck and yet she laughed on with a pull at her chest from a rising sob; all the while he held on the tip of her fingers and his thumb traced a slow arc over her palm before he finally let them go.
"More Chocolate Aunty...", Anshu sniveled after and she came back with another small mug for Anshu. But Anshu was ready to get off the swing and wipe the floor using Bullseye as her mop leaving them alone on the swing.
"Does the big bad New York come with you?", she asked, her voice having recovered from the time of the phone call, she sounded more herself, although a tad low on her usual chirpiness.
"No...", he leaned back on his palms and shook his head.
"Why not?", she half-turned to face him.
"I think there should only be one madness at any point in life...", he said staring into the far white of the living room, "And New York is enough of an insanity for you to handle..."
She didn't know who was more lonely then, she or him and fought an overwhelming need to comfort him with a simple touch on his hand.
"And you?", the words slipped as spontaneous as it was for him to turn his gaze back to her...
"I'm here...", he smiled for a pause, "always...around..."
And may be just a tiny bit of hope sauntered inside her from the anchor she found in that moment there...
But, the Gods never let such moments bear weight in the time thread of the universe and like clock work, Nakul came in opening the door.
"Daadima is calling Geet madamji...", he announced to them from the entryway, "The moon has come out..."
He got off before her feet could touch the ground and smiled gesturing with a nod that all would be fine with her.
She scooped Anshu up into her arms and looked back at him to join them, when he ran a hand through his hair and said, "You guys go ahead. I have some work. Here...", he handed her a mithai box, "Just give this to Daadi...She'd come looking for it earlier.
"Bye Anshu...Come back with your mommy...", he said and she led them out after sharing a brief smile followed by a nod.
It was long before she could really break away from the place he'd left him with that look on his face which didn't want her to leave him or wouldn't let himself come with her. The giant that he was locked up in his own tower...
Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi 2
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