As soon as the three buddies entered Nandini's room upstairs, Ranbir threw himself on Nandini's dainty little bed which was half covered with the worthless stuff her to-be inlaws had brought for her. But the moment he hit the bed, Ranbir screamed from a shooting pain in his hip. "Mar gaya, W*F Nandini, needles laga ke rakkhe hain kya bed pe, to welcome your in-laws??"
It indeed was a needle, fallen lose from one of the saree boxes. The girls started giggling when they realized it, while Ranbir, massaging his back exclaimed in utter disgust "Your in-laws are really a pain in the ASS man!! And before you roll your eyes at me, I am in no way apologetic for my language." This cracked up Nandini even more, who by now had her tummy hurting with all the laughter.
"Waise itna saara luggage? Navya, Have you packed your whole wardrobe?"
"Nandini...Nandini..when will you grow up little girl? Three out of four are empty, and ek main we have got our stuff." Ranbir replied.
"Wo to Manik ke bolne pe humne Mumbai land karke kharida humne taki yahan aake thora melodrama kar sakein." Then Navya explained how all three of them had gone to Delhi and then to Dehradun. She told her about Nishant and Ria and how they had helped in hacking Neel's accounts. Then she mentioned how Manik had to leave suddenly and then how he had called them from Dehradun to protect Nandini.
Nandini, after hearing out the entire story was having a hard time deciding how to react. Should she celebrate the fact that she was so loved, that keeping her in oblivion, her lover and her friends had gone to such an extent for her sake, or should she mourn the same? Had it not been for her own grandmother's dogged , persistent & stubborn prejudice, none of this would have happened. And it wasn't just the physical exhaustion, they all had jobs to keep, and having lost her own, few weeks ago for an extended absence, she knew these people had put a lot at stake. She had always admired Manik for being such a good friend, she had always felt his pain, but for the first time today she was living his circumstances where her family had become strangers and friends had taken their place.
"I am sorry Ranbir..Navya..meri wajah se.." The smile on her face from a few minutes ago had almost fast slipped away.
Navya put her arm around Nandini "Sorry kyun Nandini? Dost hote kisliye hain akheer?"
"Are Nandini tum fir suru ho gayi.. Yeh tum dono ka common disease hai kya? Sorry..thank you..fir sorry..fir thank you.. Thak nahi jate kya itni formality karte karte...suno kehte huye bura lag raha hai, I mean you are the bride and we should be the one bringing you food but Ma kasam bohot bhook lagi hai.. 10 minute mein garma garam chole puri nahi mile to I swear, tumhari shaadi ki jagah yahan mera shraadh ho jayega. So please jaldi se do plate chole puri lake do for me...and ya by chance if you happen to have any moti choor ke laddoos to...kya baat! "
Nandini smiling went downstairs to bring two plates full of piping hot food for Ranbir.
*****
A little later, Nandini received a call from a courier guy and when she went down to see what it was, she realized, the flow of gifts hadn't stopped with the entry of Ranbir and Navya. Infront of her lay a huge box, all gift wrapped and tied with a pale pink satin ribbon. Nandini turned it sidewise to read the gift tag. Ok, so this too was from Manik. With Navya's help, she moved the box upstairs to her room. But during this movement, they caught the attention of mrs. Dixit. While her chachi and Amms were busy in the kitchen, and Rishab had gone out with chacha to inspect the banquet hall they had booked for the marriage, Mr. and Mrs Dixit were keeping a keen eye on all the things and people entering the house. And from the look on her face, she seemed more excited than Nandini to see what was inside.
So, she tiptoed after them to Nandini's room upstairs.
When they tore off the wrapping paper, they realized, it wasn't one but in fact two gifts. One, surprisingly was for Ranbir and the other for Nandini. Ranbir opened his box to find a DVD and a long note attached to it. He read the note silently and said 'All set bro' to no one in particular. The girls, however were too engrossed in fishing out the goodies from Nandini's giant sized box.
(Sry cudnt upload the pics of the attire )
Too shocked to react, but for completely different reasons, both the girls kept gaping at each other with their mouths wide open.
"Ye sab.." While Navya was fumbling...wondering, when did Manik develop such an impeccable taste in traditional attire & how on earth had he managed the time to do all this in the midst of his mission , Nandini was fuming with anger looking at the price tags. And Ranbir, amused at such diverse reactions from two prototypes of the same Sub-species, thanked his own fate and pitied his friend's.
Nandini was angry, she was very very angry. Firstly, this lehenga, it was a Manish Malhotra signature lehenga and had cost Manik a fortune. Forget buying, Nandini wouldn't even have imagined looking at it and here Manik had home delivered it to her along with a bridal kanjeevaram saree and two super expensive sets of jewelry.
And secondly, why was Manik trying to make the most forgettable day of her life, memorable? Didn't he know all this was getting on her nerves? This fake marriage, these people, these preparations... she didn't need this, none of this, she just needed him near her. He was and always will be her most valuable possession.
This wasn't happening, she wasn't going to wear any of these. She picked up her phone to call Manik when her eyes fell on a note hidden below the jewelry box. Disconnecting the call, she decided to read it first.
'Before you pick your phone and start screaming at me, calm down and read through this.
I know all this is fake and you are hating every bit of it. So am I, except that, we have to do this to expose his truth and his lies, but fir bhi, even for drama sake, I don't want a single thread of anything given by Neel or his family to touch your skin.
Jab tumhari real wali shaadi hogi, I promise I will take you shopping to buy WHATEVER YOU LIKE. Honestly speaking, what you wear or how you dress up, these things don't matter to me...because you are you...my prettiest girl inside out.. And no one can beat that.
But for tomorrow, I want you to actually dress up...n look like a million bucks in front of those greedy bas***ds.
And because I have no idea about your preferences, I thought I'd let you choose between North and south...and Red is my favourite colour :)'
Sighing, Nandini reluctantly dropped the idea of calling Manik.
Neel's mother, peeking from the key hole was just as surprised as she was lustful. If only she could lay her hands on those, she thought. Wondering who had sent such expensive gifts and why, she took a mental note to report everything to her son. Incidentally right at that very moment, Ranbir happened to exit the room and as luck would have it, he walked straight into Neel's mother, who was standing with her cheeks pressed to the door. Caught red handed, she was wondering where to hide her face.
Instead of saying anything to that woman, Ranbir shouted at Nandini "Nandini, you are going to be the worst daughter-in-law ever."
Perplexed, Nandini turned towards the door, seeing ranbir and neel's mother standing neck to neck and immediately understood, that the lady was spying on her yet again.
"Wahan tum dresses mein buzy ho and your saasumaa is dying out of heat. You should have fixed the A.C downstairs, dekho to bechaari kaise tumhare door se chipak kar khari hai to get some cool air. Very bad Nandini, very bad." Then he turned to Neel's mother and said "Koi baat nahi saasumaa, you come with me, I will personally take extra care to ensure that such mistakes are not repeated."
The lady was so dumb that she didn't get the sarcasm in Ranbir's words, she thought he actually meant his words, which he did, but from an alternate paradigm. Little did she know what he had in store for her.
The first thing Ranbir did was to actually disconnect the A.C, so that by noon, the entire lower floor had become a furnace & then to add to their discomfort, conveniently stripped down to a bermuda, while the ladies were struggling in their heavy sarees and Neel's dad in his full shirt and clumsy blazer.
Then came the lunch. Because so many preparations were pending, Ranbir went out of his way to suggest that food ought to be ordered from outside, and he volunteered to do so. With great care he took elaborate orders from each one and as he had known all along, the longest lists came from the Dixit's. But when the food finally arrived, everyone happily ate except the Dixit's because for some strange reason, the delivery boy had messed up only their packet, and by mistake had put in non veg items instead of the purely veg dishes they had ordered. Ranbir did volunteer to reorder, how could he not, but apparently after seeing tandoori chicken instead of misal pau, their appetite had gone for a toss.
So far so good. Ranbir was well on his way to throw the dumb heads out, stepping up on the torture game from time to time, sometimes spilling liquid on them and sometimes on the floor to cause a nasty fall. But he did it with such expertise & feigned such innocence that noone could have pointed even half a finger at him.
Such is the irony of life that what's goes around, comes around. Amms had refused to acknowledge every single word that Nandini had spoken against Neel and now, she could see how two outsiders were creating mayhem at her grand daughter's wedding, but she couldn't say a word as she didn't have any evidence against them.
By evening...roasted, hungry & injured, the Dixit's were more than willing to shift to a hotel (Mrs Dixit had demanded for a room in a five star hotel) to escape further sufferings throughout the night. Who had thought that an auspicious occasion like this would run into such tragedy for them. Mrs Dixit was especially pissed off. She had never liked Nandini to begin with. Nandini's was a rather middle class family and she had never sucked up to her. Now it seemed she was unlucky too. If she could bring them so much bad luck before marriage, she shuddered to think what might happen after she became their daughter in law. Mrs. Dixit for a brief moment, even considered calling the wedding off , but the moment she imagined the angry reaction on her son's face, she gulped her thoughts down. Only God knows why her son was so obsessed with this useless girl.
But thankfully now it was just a matter of 2 hours, when her son would land and take things into his deft hands.
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