Chapter 3
Lost... but now Found!
Jasmine had gone to buy him some time alone... he needed it so badly, mused Arjun.
The moment was here. The moment they had all been waiting for was here, and yet a part of him was hesitant to accept that Neil had finally found Radhika.
There were so many questions he had, and he was afraid that a mere phone call would not give him time enough to ask all of them... but phone he had to! With trembling hands Arjun punched in Neil's number on his cell, and heard the call go through.
Everything about this call was different and filled with a sense of elation... The static on the line, the ringtone, the number of beeps, everything was special, almost sweet... so sweet that he found himself trembling with the sheer joy of it.
On the 5th ring, the call was picked up and a voice that he had sorely missed for the past 8 months of his life came on the line.
"Arjun!" he heard Neil saying his name with a clear and happy voice that echoed his brimming joy, "I finally found my Chashni, Pineapple!" and then broke into an uneasy laughter that to Arjun's ears sounded like The Idiot, was in tears.
***
"You are sure?"
"Yes, we are!" chimed in Zubin, and Arjun figured Neil had put them on the speaker phone. "We saw her, Arjun sir. This is for real."
Arjun reclined back on the seat behind his desk and gave a long drawn sigh. To Neil it sounded like a soul being set free from years of self-inflicted torture. What he would give to witness the same flowering in Sam, when she heard his news.
Suddenly, Arjun wanted to leave everything he had built for himself here in Delhi and fly to wherever Neil was. "Where are you calling from Neil? Where is she? How is she? Is she alright?"
"Haan! Haan! Haan! Saans lo, Arjun.
"Now is not the time to withhold your breath. The time for wishing that you are dead is gone. This is the time to celebrate. To come alive. To prepare for a most awaited reunion. Arjun, its all falling into place, everything is going to be alright. I know it is!
"Just put in your papers for a long holiday and take the first flight out to Dehradun, I will come pick you up, and on our way to Srinagar, I will fill you in on all the details. I know! I know you have questions... but just hang in there brother!"
Arjun closed his eyes, and savoured the moment.
"Arjun! Yeh yaadon mein khone ka waqt nahi hai. This is a time for action, Pineapple. Get going and get your ass on that plane fast.
Rahi baat chashni ke sapno mein kho jaane ki, toh uske liye business class ka safar hai naa!
Ab chalo, NIKLO!! I am waiting, baahein faila ke... pata hai na, you owe me a hug!" and with typical Neil Malhotra alacrity, he disconnected the line, leaving Arjun grinning from ear to ear.
Romantic Reveries
Ana, had started her count till 100. She did that when she was particularly exasperated at something, and this Rahul Khetan was fast getting himself into that category as far as she was concerned . At all other times Ana would have lapped up his unnecessary praise as part of her professional triumph, but right at this moment ... Juliet was getting impatient to meet her Romeo... she could not wait to see the back of this man. Her jaw was paining from treating him with false smiles and she was wondering if he would get scared and get lost if she unleashed her mean side on him.
As tempted as she was, she thought she should give him time till she reached 100.
Just then from the corner of her eye, she spied Jasmine beyond the glass doors of the conference room, talking animatedly to someone on the office board. There was something about her stance that made Ana feel like here was her cue to excuse herself and make a beeline for Arjun... and she promptly grabbed it.
"Rahul! I am so glad that you liked the presentation, but you need to excuse me, I have just remembered an urgent task I had given our receptionist. Need to quickly check on her. You don't mind do you? In fact, why don't you occupy our conference room for some more time, I will see to it that you are served up some nice refreshments. Arjun will be here in no time to sign on the dotted line, and we then can get this account going officially.
I absolutely assure you, that CNI can look forward to some pathbreaking and awesome creatives from DIDE that will help your brand penetrate the higher echelons of Indian society."
And then without much ado, Ana batted her sooty eyelashes at Rahul, gave him her best dazzling pearly white smile and walked out of the conference room.
***
"Jasmine!"
"Jas!"
Ms. B looked up as both Ana and Arjun reached her reception table at exactly the same time and collided with each other in their haste to get to her.
"Yes Sir! M'am!"
Ana looked towards Arjun, all ready to apologise for the collision that had just taken place, and she froze. Arjun was grinning silly. There was a kind of a light in his eyes that she had never seen before, and happiness oozed out of him like he could not contain it. Like, he did not want to contain it.
'Had she done this to him? Was he happy because of her? WOW! That was a thought', mused Ana.
As contagious as his mood was, Ana found herself returning the grin back and smiling silly too. She wanted to give him a hug and ask him out for a cozy lunch to that romantic Italian bistro that had just opened across the street. She wanted to feed him pasta with her hands and have him gaze into her eyes the same way he had done in the conference room just 25 mins back.
Actually she wanted them to sit in that cozy corner table, almost hidden by the flower stand and kiss him crazy. Feed him pasta and then kiss him some more.
She wanted to taste the pasta sauce on him. She decided there and then that she would call for a Pasta Arrabiata, the tangy tomato with the spattering of oregano on his lips would be something, she would love to lick...
... just as her private self talk could reach more erotic heights, she heard Arjun calling out to her, "Earth calling Anantika... Earth calling Anantika... Anantika, you there...?"
Ana surfaced from her reverie with an almost dumb expression on her face and heard Arjun continue, "Hey! Great presentation. Hope you have wound up Mr. Khetan around your little finger. We need that account like we need air to breathe. Get him to sign on the dotted line today itself. Don't let him get away... Anantika! ...Anantika! What's wrong with you? Why are you blushing so much?"
Was she?? Ana put her hands to her cheeks and wondered aloud.
"Yes, you did!" mused Arjun and promptly continued to shatter her romantic reverie with his next words. She felt more than saw Arjun turning towards his bestie and destroy all her well laid romantic lunch plans in one go.
"Jasmine, I need you to book me a ticket to Dehradun immediately. Something personal has come up and I will be gone for a while. And yeah, as soon as you do that, come to my cabin and I will dictate my leave application to you. I need you to get this typed, signed by me and sent to Divyankar for his record."
"But Arjun, aren't you going home to pack?" Asked Jasmine, "You need to tell Maa too, remember?"
Ana watched the tableau between the two friends like an outsider who was being made privy to a very personal conversation, and she felt a pang of jealousy searing her heart. She knew that Arjun saw Jasmine as his bff and no more, yet she could not help but feel envious of the bond they shared.
"No! No! ...No, this is not the time to tell Ma. I have to see for myself first. I have so many questions Jas, I don't want to drag Ma through all this heartache till I myself am doubly sure, and till I have seen with my own two eyes, and touched with my own two hands, I am not revealing anything to her."
"You're sure?"
"Yes, very sure... and yes, book business class please, don't want to get caught up in the economy rush. Here's my credit card. This is personal, so don't put it on my office account please." He took a paper out of her notepad and wrote down his pin number for Jasmine.
Ana had had been watching Arjun as his conversation played out with her receptionist. She decided she could watch him like this for hours. In the last five minutes, myriad emotions had crossed his face ranging from sheer joy to infectious excitement to serious practicality and towards the end an instinctive melancholy before transforming into a new found hope. What a complex human being he was, and she wanted to know all that was there to know about him.
She promised herself, SHE WOULD!
She would know everything there was to know about him... and fulfilling this promise was going to be the most delicious adventure that she had ever taken.
***
Ana, watched Arjun walk off while Jasmine got busy doing his bidding. This sudden holiday had her puzzled. From where had that come up? What had happened between the time that Rahul Khetan and his team mobbed her in the aftermath of that presentation and now?
She couldn't put her finger to it.
Just that morning Arjun had discussed the strategy to get the CNI account with her father on the breakfast table. But try as she might, when she tapped into her memory bank, and ran back the script of the conversation that had occurred between the three of them, she could not remember Arjun saying anything about a holiday. In fact she remembered him stressing on how important it was to stay focused on this account for the next whole month, and had even discussed timelines for follow-ups with her Dad.
So what was this personal reason that had suddenly cropped up that he was hotfooting to Dehradun so urgently? Ana decided that she was going to get to the bottom of this and turned to interrogate the receptionist instead. But now was not the time, she had to corner Jasmine when she was less busy.
Oh No... He's Married!?
It had been quite a task getting rid of Mr. Khetan. She'd had to concoct the wildest story from her miniscule repertoire of excuses to make it believable. After all he was about to become one of DIDE's biggest paying clients.
Though what irritated Juliet was that she had not been able to bid adieu to her Romeo. She'd had to see him don his sexy Top Gun avatar and walk out of the office in a hurry. For once she was in gratitude to the architect who had the creative audacity to design the cabin walls with sheer toughened and sound proof glass giving the office a more open design scheme. What was earlier an invasion of privacy, suddenly became a god sent gift to spy on her favourite people.
As she approached Jasmine to grill her, she spied her busy in a conversation with her art director Vandita. The Gods had decided to be kind apparently. Vandita was asking Jasmine all the questions that Ana wanted answers to herself.
"Ms. B, Hariyali was sporting his Top Gun avatar today when he went out. Tell me which kudi was he going to impress?" asked Vandita.
"No one. Kuchh bhi bolti hai tu Vandita dikri. Nothing of that sort", Jasmine said evasively.
But Vandita was not one to give up. "Arre bolo naa, Ms. B! Kis ladki ko ghaayal karne jaa raha hai, mera Mr. Hariyali? By God, kitna handsome dikhta hai... when he wears his rayban aviators... Abso smashin'."
"Chup kar Vandy! Kevu vaat kare chhe!" said Jasmine.
"Arre fir kya? Uske gale mein naa, ek board lagana chahiye - BEWARE, don't make me smile. Especially when I am wearing my aviators!"
"Ms. B koi bhi kudi naa, paani paani ho jayegi! When he sports those aviators, he conjures up fantastical images of hard handsome hit men of the coldly ruthless kind in my brain. My knees go weak and I am ready to swoon, hoping to be caught by no other than Mr. Top Gun himself," grinned Vandita shamelessly, while dramatically lamenting to Jasmine about her obvious crush on Arjun.
"Vandy!! This is not the time to talk about stupid girly crushes. He's gone for a long time, and I hope wherever he has gone, he finds his peace once and for all," said Jasmine.
"Peace? What peace? Hame ghayal chhodke kahaan gaya apne liye peace dhoondne?" cried Vandita.
"Uttarakhand. To chase a long lost dream," said Jasmine cryptically.
"Arre apni maa ko akela chhod gaya, Top Gun!" chimed in Vandita irritatingly.
By then, Jasmine had had it.
The entire day had been a bit too much for her nerves. First that idiot, and now this nutty girl, and with all the pent up frustration she blurted out the unthinkable.
"Mala Maa is not his mum, she's his mum in law."
***
Ana did not know who was more stumped - Vandita, Ms. B or herself. Vandita looked like a deer caught at midnight in the headlight of a car on the highway... Ms. B was appalled that she'd let out a secret that was not hers to tell.
While Ana, just stood there watching the two women in front of her with white eyes in an equally ashen face, for bringing her whole romantic world crashing down.
No! No... it couldn't be so!
He couldn't...
He couldn't be married.
Time to wake up!
Red fast ate into white shapelessly, drenching innocence with its harsh reality. The knife plunged deep inside precious soft tissue.
And all the while two pairs of eyes helplessly watched the person they both loved wither right over the edge and pass into oblivion. It was in that moment that all the imperfection of the past came to the fore and metamorphosed itself into a deeper understanding.
Albeit a miserable understanding at that!
As she saw her best friend keel over the side of the cliff, "CHASHNI", screamed Sam, in abject despair and woke up fully drenched with her eyes wide open to find herself reclining in the rocking chair inside her cabin at Bird Song. She had been taking her power nap in between two client meetings.
The nightmare had never ever come to her in the office, and nor had it come to her since Arjun's departure from Mumbai.
"So why now?!" mused Samaira and pulled out her cell phone to message the only man she knew who could bring her some peace.
***
Arjun, heard his phone beep a message tone, but decided to ignore it.
After all, he had a plane to catch... and a dear friend to meet!
Everything else could wait.
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Hope you guys have fun reading this, as much as I had fun writing it. Please do chime with comments like always. I know I have hinted at what happens to Radhika in this chapter... let me know if you liked the hinting... I promise to bhandaa fod the entire back story between chapters 4 and 5. 😆 wont stretch it too long.
Meanwhile, ENJOY!! ❤️
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much love, light and laughter,
Battu.
Cricket
Arjun
Udne Ki Aasha
