MehRya OneShots - The Butterfly Effect - 3rd Shot/Page 7 - Shaurya POV - Page 3

"Dhabewali" - Shaurya

Chef Kunal couldn't believe his eyes, nor his usually absconding luck.

Since the past eight months he has been working for Shaurya Khanna, he can count on one hand, the number of times his boss has walked out on them mid-conversation. And it has never, to the best of his recollection and to the amazement of those that have been here longer than him, ever happened right before the arrival of a critic.

Working with his boss was like walking through rings of fire on a daily basis but in those events where they were to be subjected to outside inspection, it changed to a fight for survival. Old loyalties, daily preparations, past performances - everything evaporated into nothingness in the heat of the moment.

The four stars had come after days and nights of sweat, tears, hard work, heart ache and the sheer hard-headed persistence of their boss. Theirs was the youngest restaurant to get such high ratings in the shortest time. A feat that did little to quench his boss' perusal for excellence, instead all it did was fuel his drive for more. Feeding the fire that consumed him from within, slowly burning at the edges of his life. With each positive review, the temperature got higher, the flames fiercer, the standards seemingly impossible to meet.

When he had first joined, Kunal used to think working for his boss was the hardest thing in the world. That was until he saw the women around him.

Perhaps it was the glow of that very fire along with the dazzle of fame and fortune that had attracted so many moths (butterflies on the outside, so delicate, so perfect, so fragile, so short-lived). The blaze so strong, so alluring, it blinded them to the pile of broken hearts littered around him, charred by his intensity, crushed by his indifference.

After the ninth girl stormed out of the restaurant in tears, it was only then that he quietly concluded (with enough evidence to support his belief) that the hardest thing in the world was staying with Shaurya Khanna.

He often wondered about him. About the rude, arrogant, seemingly heartless, perfectionist he worked for. Wondered if he could one day be where he was, with a chain of restaurants to his credit, or perhaps even one. He watched him closely. Trying to learn, trying to emulate, trying to understand, his way of working, his passion, his determination.

But no matter how hard he tries, he can't seem to light up the embers of his dreams to flare up into that all-consuming fire that he sees burning in Shaurya Khanna's eyes. He keeps trying and keeps failing to achieve that level of ambition. But he doesn't give up. As long as he's here, he's going to try.

He doesn't know much about his past. Wishes he did. Perhaps that would help. Help him brighten up his future. All he knows is mere hearsay, facts mixed with fiction and gossip, so entangled he doesn't know what to believe anymore. All he's figured out (a well-observed conclusion that he's come to), is that it's his past that's set him aflame, that pushes and propels him through his todays. Keeps him sprinting fast, blazing towards his tomorrows.

But no one has ever heard him reflect on it, remember it whimsically or even so much as speak of it. And no one has ever dared to ask him either. It is an unspoken rule, revered and feared, almost as much as the man before them. And so just like him, his past too remains a mystery.

Sometimes, Kunal wonders if instead of running towards the future, perhaps Shaurya Khanna is just trying to outrun the shadows of his past.

When he tells his friends this, friends from his culinary school who can't believe his luck at having gotten such an amazing career opportunity, such an illustrious job, they shake their heads, mock him and laugh. He joins in. Not because he finds it funny, but because it's ironic. All of it. Not actually knowing the man he has been working with day and night for so long, a mentor who's confused him more than taught him anything and even more than that (and it hurts to admit this, even to himself), their skewed illusion of his job. None of them realise that he's been holding on to it with tooth and nail. So used to barely scrapping by unscathed, job intact, that he's almost forgotten the joy of cooking.

It's weird how his job, much like his boss look very different from the outside looking in. Weirder still how much his job and his boss are both so alike.

There are three facets to his job, much like the three faces of Shaurya Khanna.

There's the public facet, where the dishes he whips up in the kitchen go through the doors and brightens up someone's evening. And then after hours, once the restaurant shuts down, the private facet of his job emerges. This is where he is focused and determined, experimenting, calculating, mixing and measuring - different combinations and connotations, in portions and pinches, his search constantly on to find that next big thing. The dish that will keep his job safe for a few weeks longer. On the days when he doesn't have to go in (so rare, so far between, so cherished), the secret facet of his job creeps out. Hidden behind curtained walls and sheltered from the humdrum of his regular life. In the privacy of those few hours, he cooks the way he likes. Not to impress, please or exist but to reawaken his constantly draining, dying love for cooking, to keep it from fading away, to hold on to that fleeting joy and remember how it made him feel, why he did it to begin with. To remind himself of why he must continue, and not give up, give in, pack his bags and just leave. Away from the madness, the pressure and the man who made sure everything was just so - not that everyone ever really saw that side of him.

All they saw was his public face. The one he put on for the adoring fans and the shutterbugs. Intelligent and ambitious yet humble and grounded. A carefully constructed image he invested so long in creating and polishing. The rising star, a force to be reckoned with, to be admired and fawned over, to be envied and appreciated. That was the Shaurya Khanna his friends knew, the one patrons of the restaurant came flocking for, the women - young and old - stood in queues to be snapped with. The smart entrepreneur who was invited to give lectures, the health-conscious cook who was a celebrity judge on prime time television, a darling of the media that couldn't possibly be anything but his charming, endearing and at times harsh (with justifiable reasons, they told themselves - look he's so honest, they fawned) self.

A face he took off the moment he walked through the back door into the kitchen. Then he was all business - the bitter, ruthless, blood-thirsty kind. This was the Shaurya Khanna Kunal knew. This was the boss that he dealt with on a daily basis, hours on end. A far cry from the image he sold, and the real reason he had reached where he was today, become who he was today. In the concrete walls of his realised dreams, he let his private face show, confident in the refuge it provided. Completely indifferent to the people that got singed by the fire of his ambition, fully assured that in here, he could do as he pleased, the people he had carefully chosen would eventually catch up with the urgency of his drive to chase perfection, to his need to become more, better, bigger, best.

Kunal felt exhausted, tired to his bones. He was never good at racing towards big dreams, had never bothered to act on his own, much less someone else's.

But unfortunately for him, Shaurya Khanna never stopped dreaming, wanting, needing, chasing. And so on and on, they had gone. One review at a time until they had finally reached the pinnacle. But it did little to cheer him up. He had known his boss long enough to know, there was never an end. There would be something new coming their way soon. He could already feel it, see it on the horizon.

However, what he had not seen coming at all, was Shaurya Khanna's secret face. And it had completely caught him off guard. He was convinced the shock it had even tilted the axis of his world a little, beyond repair and he would never be able to put it back together again.

It had happened one inconspicuous day, as these things tend to. Shaurya Khanna had stormed into the kitchen in a frenzy and ordered them to be on their best behaviour, to be extremely polite and cordial and not slip up, in the slightest. An exercise they were frequently subjected to, the staff assumed it was another surprise critic and went through their high-alert last minute ordeals. Kunal too put on his game face and got to work. What he had not expected however was the kind, gentle middle-aged lady to walk through the doors with a proud smile on her face. He had stopped mid-chopping, too shocked at the intrusion to pay attention to the need of the hour.

What happened next, changed his boss' perception in his mind forever.

He had expected his boss to come, charming smile in place and gently usher the lady out. His boss did come along with a smile, but it wasn't one he had ever seen before. Right before his eyes, he watched Shaurya Khanna unveil his secret face in a room full of people who had rarely, if ever, been invited to view it (or would even be considered worthy of it). There was tenderness to him, as he lowered his head, eyes bright and a soft genuine smile in place, to bend down and listen to the lady whisper in his ear.

Kunal soon found out that the lady was his boss' mother. He also found out that his boss had a human (sensitive, gentle, vulnerable) side. But the shocking truth he discovered that day was that even the all raging, all devouring, unquenchable fire that constantly torched inside Shaurya Khanna could be doused, even if momentarily. And even without it, he still burnt bright. But that's a secret Kunal would never reveal, not that Shaurya Khanna would ask him, not that anyone would ever believe it.

Just like he can't believe that his boss has walked out on them mid-conversation today, moments before the dream that consumed Shaurya Khanna day and night was about to be realised.

A part of him wants to follow him and see what it was that had managed to distract his boss and break him out of his all obsessive passion. But he doesn't move. Rajiv Sir was here and his job was still on the line.

He'd just have to concede that the mysterious ways of Shaurya Khanna would continue to elude and haunt him.