Part 5
My world was upside down when I woke up.
I saw a two feet in air, and followed them to find a muscular bare chest of a man, which continued to his head touching the ground. Even my eyes without spectacles recognized the man as Rockstar Abhi.
Why was rockstar Abhi upside down in front of me?
The next moment told me it was actually my one-day-old husband, Abhishek. I finally came out of my sleep to recognize that I was in his room. I sat up in a jerk and found my glasses to confirm my thoughts.
"Good morning, Chashmish. You sleep a lot for a teacher. Aren't you guys supposed to wake up at 4 am and come up with ideas to torture students?" he said as he walked towards me. I knew I would be annoyed with whatever he said but I hardly heard him since my focus was to avoid looking at his bare chest. I wished I didn't have to see him like that every day.
I rapidly felt conscious of not wearing my dupatta. I grabbed it from the side of the sofa and covered myself. He looked at me as if I did something unbelievable but walked away grabbing his sunglasses that were on the fridge near the sofa. He wore them and started working out with his dumbbells.
Thinking how weird was it to wear sunglasses indoors, I decided to quickly take a shower. I gathered my toiletries and clothes as he crammed up his music system with his own songs. I was amazed I recognized his songs. It was of course courtesy Bulbul who played them in our shared room every now and then.
I quickly locked myself in the bathroom and breathed a sigh of relief. And I was in for pretty much a shock to have a look at the most lavish bathroom I had ever seen. I thought at least five people could easily sleep in that room if Abhishek's family had too many guests staying over. While I just made peace with the idea of having such a huge bathroom, I was in for more blows to witness the number of perfumes, after shaves, creams and what not occupied the shelves. I never had thought a man could use such stuff that too in such numbers. Bulbul's collection, which wasn't even 10% of Abhishek's, often, drove me mad. To continue my disbelief, the bathtub was a mini swimming pool. Wondering what Abhishek actually does in the tub, I decided to take bath just using the shower.
I undressed myself and removed my jewelry. However, I couldn't bring myself to remove the mangalsutra that Abhishek had tied to my neck the previous day. I was quite annoyed with myself for my regard to these symbols that too in a fake marriage. I avoided thinking more about it for my own sanity and quickly finished my shower. When I came out, I noticed he was doing push ups. I was counting his push ups in my mind without realizing and started doing my hair in front of the mirror.
"Did you take a shower or colour your dress from pink to blue?", I saw his mirror image besides mine fixing his hair.
The smell of his sweat and his mere presence at a foot's distance felt awkward in more ways than one.
"So you always wear the chatri uniforms in different colors?", he seemed to want an explanation about my clothing.
"These are not chatris, they are called anarkalis. They are the latest fashion. Everyone wears them", I replied.
"Really?", he looked at me as with fake amusement. And the look didn't sit well with me.
"At least I am not like you. Who wears sunglasses indoors?", I threw back at him.
"I do and I don't care if no one else does", he took his sunglasses off and met my eyes in the mirror.
I rolled my eyes and took off from that room. I wanted to go see Abhishek's Daadi but didn't know which one her room would be. The house helper Robin guided me to her room.
"Good morning beti", the old woman was her kind and gracious self. I hugged her and sat by her on her bed.
"Hope Abhi didn't bother you too much", Daadi pulled my cheek. I just smiled back and to avoid the topic I asked her if she had her breakfast.
She gave me an overview of everyone's routine in the house. From what I understood, although the family was full of people, not all of them had breakfast together. Daadi ate in her room because she woke up early and was advised by the doctors to not carry empty stomach since she needed to take her medicine. Abhishek's breakfast habits were haphazard and bizarre with his own menu. The rest of the family ate in their own accord.
Robin brought breakfast for Daadi and she asked him to make bread pakoras for me, which he seemed to expertize at. She also reminded him to serve cinnamon coffee' for Abhishek along with his breakfast of the day.
I requested Daadi to eat her breakfast without waiting for mine since it would go cold. She asked me to read out the news paper and I started doing so. She told me how she liked Punjabi newspapers more than the Hindi ones that came to the house. I opened her favorite online Punjabi news paper in her mobile and read out the headlines. I helped her take her medicine and I noticed that her feet were swollen similar to how my mother's used to when she had blood pressure issues. I offered to massage her legs, which I knew helped my mother. Although she was reluctant to let me do it, I took charge and started rubbing her feet.
Robin brought my breakfast by then and Abhishek walked in too with a short glass of wheatgrass extract for Daadi. Abhishek reminded Daadi to take her medicine but Daadi informed him that I had already helped her with them and she had taken them. She taunted him on how he couldn't read Punjabi while I could.
"I am too cool to read Punjabi, Daadi", Abhishek said as he had Daadi drink the green extract with his own hands.
"Beti, he always failed in Punjabi exams", Daadi revealed.
"You really wanted me to be a boring Punjabi professor, Daadi?", Abhi said looking at me and I scrunched my nose. Later the Daadi-grandson duo involved in an argumentative conversation about how he should take a break from work and take me out for a honeymoon. He argued he wouldn't go for it until her kidney transplant is done, much to my relief. I didn't even like the idea of honeymoon since I couldn't imagine being alone somewhere else with Abhishek given how he was growing intimidating on me.
Abhishek was going to go back to work from that day itself much to Daadi's displeasure. I told them that I needed to get back to work too after a week since my summer vacation would be over.
Without notice, Abhishek took a bite of the bread paroka from my plate. "See you in the evening, my sweet annoying Daadi", Abhishek placed a tight kiss on Daadi's cheek and turned to leave.
"What about her? Say bye to her also with a kiss", Daadi pointed at me much to my awe.
Abhishek made an annoyed face at Daadi. Daadi returned it with an angry glare.
"You always win, Daadi", Abhi walked up to me and pressed his lips on my cheek before I realized what he was up to. Shivers ran through my body from that point of contact. He had walked out of the door while Daadi shook her head smiling.
"Husband and wife should eat from the same plate. Love grows you know. Abhishek's Daadaji and I always used to eat from the same plate. Finish that piece, it's a good shagun (omen)", Daadi said looking at a half piece of bread pakora left on my plate.
I was never used to eat left over food from someone else's mouth. And here I was trying to eat food that touched my fake husband's mouth while the kiss from his lips still lingered on my cheek. Daadi's eyes were all on me as she expected me to finish that sullied piece of food.
That night before going to bed I really wanted to bring up the kiss that bothered me for the whole day.
"You can't take such liberties with me in this fake marriage", I told Abhishek while he was engaged in surfing TV channels.
"What liberties?", he asked as if he had no idea.
"That... kiss", I said not looking at him.
"Oh.. Ohohoho... kiss!! You call that a kiss? Oh come on, that does not qualify as a kiss. I kiss at least 20 people like that everyday, most of them being girls. And you have no idea how desperate my fan girls are for it", he said mockingly.
"I am not one of those girls for your information", this I said looking at him.
"Why do I forget you are Babaji Chashmish! Kisses are banned for you. May be you can cheat with flying kisses?", he winked at me and blew kisses.
I wanted to pull my hair, rather his hair for all the anger, embarrassment and jitters he was generating in me at the same time. I gave him a disgusted scowl and went straight to sleep on the sofa.
I again noticed that night Abhishek taking his headache pills before he went to bed.
The next few days of my life had similar routines except that I visited my mother's house a couple of times, one time with Abhishek and Daadi. I made sure my mother fixed appointments for her radiotherapies. My respect for Abhishek's Daadi had been consistently growing for I admired her kindness and wisdom along with her knack for life.
Abhishek was growing more intimidating but intriguing. I could not read his mind, he confused me more often than not. He seemed arrogant and rude but ridiculous and sincere too. His dedication to his grandmother was something I appreciated, but he didn't seem to give a damn about a lot of other things. He often talked about money and was immersed in his uncanny world of glamour. He would be away most of the times and when he was home and the times we had to spend with each other in his room, he would be argumentative and taunting, perhaps teasing. I was slowly growing to go head on with him in our silly but sometimes serious disputes but often wondered why was I even involving myself so much. But he had this infuriating ability to get to my nerves and make me give back as much as I resisted.
The rockstar had actually become an interesting piece of study material for me in this one week of spending time with him, even though I had no such intentions. I never tried to invade his personal space, but there was this one thing that I had become curious about. Every night before he actually slept, he would swallow some pills. I initially thought it could be for headache or something but he didn't seem to have a headache otherwise.
That afternoon when he was away, I decided to organize the room a little bit. I had noticed that he mostly threw his stuff around all over the place and frantically searched for them at the last moment. When I went to put his dog tag chains in his side table drawer I saw a couple of bottles with pills. Although I knew I was not fair, I could not resist myself from learning what they were for. I read out the names on them, but didn't really recognize them. When I googled and found information on Internet I was shocked.
Valium and Xanax. Why did the happy love singing heartthrob rockstar need sleeping pills?,
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