03: Krittika: The one who cuts
"Sarcasm is a weapon P." Khushi says packing her lunch and taking an expression that is borderline patronizing.
"Amma. Ask her to stop calling me P. My colleagues and my thirty-five children giggle when she calls me "P" loudly and acts all innocent when called out on her bullshit." Payal harangued as she aggressively sliced tomatoes.
"No, really. Sarcasm is awesome especially thrown in the faces of rich douchebags and their petty pranks." Khushi violently stuffed rolled roti into a steel box.
"Something happened at work?" Garima asked ignoring age old argument between the two sisters.
"I am choosing to ignore what possibly could go wrong when you work with cadavers' undertone and be the big guy here and go right to the story." Khushi, like always, goes off on a tangent first. Looking at Payal's urgent look, Khushi hurried to make her point. "Yesterday, these assholes come by trying to bribe me into giving them a cadaver for an elaborate prank they were going to pull on their cousin."
"I don't get it." Payal noted sagely. "I mean they are rich people right? Couldn't they paid off someone to get a cadaver instead of doing all the leg work themselves? They sound both stupid and taking cues from shitty TV shows." She shut up once she took in Khushi's murderous look.
Payal was logical. And that got her into trouble when she was expected to be a hypocrite and blindly support her sister. The shit I do for my family, she thinks mutely.
Naturally Garima's interest is piqued. "What was the prank?" Payal sniggered when Khushi's next version of her famous murderous look shifted on to their mother. Garima backpedaled rapidly. "I mean that's a stupid thing to do. Not to mention undignified and disrespectful." Garima sighs in relief when she sees Khushi's face loses a bit of tension.
"Yes. It is disrespectful. I wanted to arrested their asses on the spot but my assistant held me back from stabbing those idiots with scalpel." Khushi shoves her lunch box into her bag and waits for her mother and sister to respond. Responses are very important for her and Payal being Payal, denies that to Khushi at every possible chance. Naturally, Payal shifts the conversation to a different topic altogether. It is what sisters do.
"Is this all because the new broody ACP has gotten you all hot and bothered?" Payal asks, maintaining childlike innocence in her voice. Garima's eyes widen and turns towards Khushi, brimming with a million questions while Khushi exalts her soon-to-be patented murderous look at Payal.
Payal kisses a spluttering Khushi's cheek and waves her mother good-bye.
"Sooo -" Garima starts but stops when she sees Khushi's face. "New colleague?" Garima asks weakly.
"Something like that," Khushi grits out. Knowing her daughter, Garima waits. "He is stupidly intelligent and has made brooding into an art. He questions everything I do which is irritating because I am the forensic examiner and he is incredibly - not. Since I am a woman I must have been painting my nails or changing my tampon during my training and missed majority of what was taught there because he keeps asking - Are you sure, Dr. Gupta?'" Khushi's shoulders slumped slightly.
Garima regards her daughter carefully. Khushi had to overcome lot of misogyny and sexism to be where she is. And there were many men - in and out of law enforcement who looked down on her and the job she did which they wouldn't had it been a man in her role.
"Khushi, don't jump to conclusions after meeting a person for few handful of moments." Garima tries.
Khushi looks at her mother as if she has grown two heads. "One of the constables grabbed my ass three months ago. At a freaking crime scene. I outrank that man by several rungs and this is how I get treated."
"Didn't you knee him in the groin?" Garima asks.
Khushi looks positively gleeful. "One of my very fine kneeing moments." Garima sighs and offers Khushi a supportive smile.
"Has this new inspector bothered you some way?" Garima prods gently.
Khushi sighs and shakes her head. "That's the thing Amma. He is annoyingly polite with irritating amount of patience and being, you know, him." She flapped her hand to make a point.
Garima swallowed a smile and looked at her daughter fondly. "I am sure you will deal with him accordingly if he did misstep."
"You bet." Khushi hugged Garima sideways and left home with a huff.
Garima went in search of Shashi to gossip about possible crush Khushi may have on her colleague.Authors Note: I apologize for not responding to all your comments. Its awesome to read them all and I love them to pieces. Have fun reading and talking and spamming. Everything works :=)
Yeh Rishta Kya Kehlata Hai
CID
