Chapter 5
" Godammit will you keep your voice down?" Jai roared at her. Bani stopped in her tracks to take in the shaken look of uncertainty clouding his normally sharp as paint gaze and felt reassured with the knowledge that he was handling their unexpected encounter no better than she was. Memories from their volatile teenage years and the effects of shock were driving horse and cart through any effort they made to behave like civilized intelligent adults.
"Look do you want to see this house or don't you? " she asked stiffly.
" If you will control your tongue and stop hurling insults, I see no reason why we should not deal with this on a normal business footing," Jai drawled with icy control.
An hour and a half later Bani surveyed the elegant faade of the house for the hundredth time and wondered how much more time the owners the Rashids, would spend entertaining Jai. Her presence had not been required to give the grand tour. Mr Rashid was a diplomat and had apparently met Jai at an embassy dinner last year. Eager to renew the acquaintance he lost no time telling Bani to wait in the hall, while assuring Jai that he would give a far more interesting tour than she could. Jai hadn't looked at her again. Suddenly she acquired all the visibility of a lowly maid. And that was how it had been earlier. When she thought about it their romance 13 years earlier had broken all the class and status rules—Jai the adored and only son of the Walia banking dynasty and Bani the temporary governess working down the road from his family's palatial summer villa at Goa.
They had not had a single thing in common. Jai had grown up as part of a close knit supportive family, but Bani had lost both her parents by the time she was six. Her elderly grandparents had brought her up. Her entire childhood had been filled with loss and death and sudden change. She had never had security. Illness and old age had taken everyone she cared about till her mother's older sister had taken her turn of guardianship when Bani was 16. A career teacher in her late thirtes, Maya had encouraged her niece to be more independent. But she had been dubious when Bani had initially suggested spending the summer in her final year in school working as a governess.
" I bet you land up with a ghastly family who treat you like a skivvy and expect you to slave for them night and day," Maya had forecast worriedly.
In fact Bani had been very lucky. The agency had matched her up with a friendly easygoing couple who owned a small villa in Goa and went there every year with their children. The Lambas had given her plenty of time off and Dolly Lamba had gone out of her way to see that Bani met other young people. The very first week Bani had been invited to the party where she'd met Jai.
He had roared up on a monster motorbike, sheathed in black jeans with a hole in one knee and a white tee. Tousled hair had been blown back from his lean, vibrantly handsome features and an entire room of adolescent girls had gone weak at the knees with a collective gasp. He had been hugely popular with everyone clustering around him, the undisputable leader of the pack.
Even then he had an undeniable golden aura. One had had the feeling that even on a rainy day, the sun would still shine exclusively around Jai. The angels had not been having forty winks when Jai was born. Jai was rich, handsome and academically brilliant. And Bani's greatest attraction could only have been that she was different from the girls he was used to dating. The new face, the pretty shy girl who had to work to get a taste of the sun, had stood out from his familiar crowd.
But she hadn't known who he was then. His name had meant nothing to her. And even after being slapped Jai had trailed her all the way back to the Lamba house on his motorbike when she had walked out of the party. Losing face in public was every teenager's nightmare and she had been very upset. The more she had told him to grow up and get lost the more he had laughed. " Anyone will give me a reference. I'm a really wonderful guy when you get to know me. And I delighted you're not the sort of girl who gives her all on a first date. Not that I would have said no, you understand… but the occasional negative response is probably better for my character."
" You really like yourself don't you?" she snapped.
" At least I don't lurk behind the furniture, scared to speak to people, and react like a startled rabbit when they speak to me," he retorted quick as a flash.
And she had fled to her room and cried herself to sleep. But he'd showed up again the next morning. Dolly brought him into the kitchen, where Daisy was feeding the two year old. The whole time Jai was with her the older woman hovered staring at Jai as though she couldn't quite believe that he was real.
" I'll pick you up at seven..OK?," he said levelly quite unconcerned by his audience. " We'll go for dinner somewhere.."
" Ummmm….. OK" Bani agreed hesitantly.
Dolly cornered her the moment he departed. " Bani, if I acted a little weird, put it down to me being shocked at the sight of a Walia entering my humble home."
" Why?" Bani frowned.
" We've been coming here every summer for 10 years and I still can't get as much as a nod of acknowledgement from the Walias. His parents are mega rich… as well as their villa here they have a huge mansion in Mumbai where they live most of the time—and they are very exclusive in their friendships. And Jai has a reputation with girls that would turn any mother's hair white overnight. But he usually sticks with his own set. Please don't take it otherwise Bani.. but do you really think you can handle a man like that? He's seen a lot more life than you have."
" But Bani didn't listen. Jai did not seem remotely snobbish. And Jai's unknown parents interested her not at all.
He rolled up in a low slung sports car to take her out that evening. Bani loved it but Dolly grabbed her husband in horror as she peered out from behind the curtains. " I don't believe it!! They've bought a teenager a Ferrari!! Are the Walias out of their minds?"
All the trappings of fantasy were there. The gorgeous guy who had miraculously picked her out of a wealth of beautiful, far more sophisticated girls, the fabulous car. That night they dined at a ritzy restaurant in Margao. Bani was overpowered by her surroundings till Jai reached across the table and twined her tense fingers soothingly in his and then she relaxed.
Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi 2
