The Masquerade (AnShi/ShivIka FF)- Epilogue UPDATED (Pg 130){COMPLETE} - Page 95

Something was wrong in the air. Try as he might, Shivay simply wasn't being able to figure out why, despite having the air conditioning on full blast as well as notching up the air purifier, the musty smell in his Porsche wasn't going away. When he had started out that evening, he hadn't quite noticed that the car was smelling like Rudra's socks but the smell had grown. It had evolved quite a character by the time he found himself before Anika's home. And in vain he had tried to get rid of it.

When the temperature inside the car had reached arctic proportions, Shivay gave up and switching off the AC, rolled down the glasses. Immediately the fresh whiff of a-day-old mud that provided the special monsoon flavour in Anika's neighborhood, added its blend to the already healthy aroma circulating in the car. He wished his lady would make her appearance soon.

In between scrolling through his emails, he kept his eyes trained on the greenish grey door. She'd said, she won't take a minute. Finally, the door opened and Shivay's breath caught at his throat for reasons that had nothing to do with his olfactory senses. The woman just knew how to knock his socks off every single time!

On his latest trip to Dubai, the dress had beckoned to him and he'd picked it up, despite her warnings that he must not on any account get her another of his useless gifts. Of course, because apparently whatever he picked up was impossible to wear or be of any known use. He would beg to differ on that but his woman was not nothing if stubborn.

But this was a sleek number, and when she had rounded upon him, hands on hips and assuming the Greek warrior mode, he had pointed out that Priyanka also owned something similar. She had tried to shove it away nonetheless but then he had gone and called her a 'prude'! Okay, that had been uncalled for but what can a fellow do when his very ability to make life choices was being called into question. She had left then, face dark, and he had been relieved to get the call this morning that she wasn't cancelling the evening's plan.

And now she hits him with this! By the time Anika reached the car, Shivay had come out to meet her with a grin stretching from ear to ear.
"The dress looks lovely!" he told her as he held the door open.
"Just the dress?!" she retorted with a toss of her head and busied herself with rifling through her handbag. But Shivay was feeling like he has won the Olympics this didn't dampen his spirits. He floated to his seat.

Adjusting the seat belt, he turned towards her.
"Of course you look lovely!"

She didn't reply to this but turned and looked out of the window.
Chastened slightly, Shivay placed his hand on hers. She struggled for a second but relaxed when he gave a gentle squeeze.

"I didn't mean it, you know that right?"

She didn't look at him but said instead, "I am no mind reader!" She shrugged before adding hotly, "And what's so wrong about being a prude?"

"Nothing! You are perfect, as you have told me often enough."
His eyes danced with suppressed laughter. The happiness of seeing her in something he had chosen for her, made him giddy and want to end this fight even before it could start.

She looked at him now. And he forgot his giddiness. There was hurt there that she was trying to mask with coldness.

"I am what I am, Shivay. I was never the society lady that you are used to."

Her voice was flat. He didn't know how to respond to this.

"And I do love you but I don't think I can change myself for your--"

"Anika!" He broke in.

She looked at him in surprise. His gaze was inscrutable for a second before his face broke into a beaming smile. Arching an eye brow, he studied her.

She blushed at such open scrutiny and asked, "What?"

"Ab aye na ooth pahaar ke neechey!"

His words made her turn to him in surprise. She was expecting a fight. Not this! As her gaze flickered across his face, his eyes darkened.

"So what did you just tell me, Miss Anika?"

She scrunched her face in confusion before it hit her. He took her hand and gave a sudden hoist that landed her right in his arms.

"I love you too. Exactly as you are. I knew it before you told me. You are perfect."

She smiled at him then, shyly, before lifting a finger and running it along his cheeks.
"When did my man become Smart Singh Oberoi?"

"Well, he always was. Or else if left to you, we would still be fighting our way to kingdom come!"

She sniffed at this and then immediately scrunched up her face.

"Eeeh! What died in here?!"

Shivay looked around him nervously as he let her go. She returned to her seat and he started the car.

"Trying to figure that out myself," he told her. "Haven't taken this car out in a while."

"Oh! This comes from having your cars rotting away inside the garage!" she said. "Get it? Rotting away?!"

And then followed this up with a bout of cackling laughter. Ever since Anika had taken up evening classes in English, her store of bad jokes had increased.

Shivay rolled his eyes. They headed out. Anika started fidgeting with her seat belt within minutes.

"Put some music on," he suggested, eyeing her. She pulled a face at this and replied petulantly, "I've left the car mix in your Audi! Remember we were playing it on the way back from Khandala?!"

Shivay was well aware of this but pretended disappointment. Since that day he had promised himself that he'd go to any length to not hear the phrase 'Larki beautiful kar gayi chul' ever again.

Nodding at the glove compartment, he told her "Why don't you check the CDs in there?"

She gave him a disparaging look as if to express grave doubt at whether anything found in his collection would be worth listening to. But she opened the compartment without further protests. Immediately that god awful smell increased and filled the car. The car shuddered to a halt. Before Shivay could say anything however, Anika let out a wail that was half surprise and half agony. She pulled out a bag. Her bag to be precise.

"You left your ..." he couldn't complete the sentence.

Anika lifted the bag, her sabzi ki dukaan and made a face. Then she opened it and pulled out a plastic bag full of... Carrots. Old decaying carrots!

She didn't meet his eyes but quietly opened the door and jogged over to a garbage bin. Shivay looked at the unassuming bag and tried to convince himself to check it for any other offending items. She returned before he could act on this. Anika cast a sheepish grin his way and said, "Well, it smells better already!"

She gave a few loud sniffs to prove her point. Shivay had had enough.

"Marry me!" he announced.

She stopped mid-sniff and stared at him.

"Yes. You heard me right!"

She plonked herself on the seat and rounded on him.

"Is this how you ask a woman to marry you?! Are you proposing to me or ordering an execution?"

Shivay started the car and with eyes on the road said, " Don't push me."

"Help me God!" Anika groaned to the heavens. "This man!"

Shivay didn't reply. There was silence in the car for a while.

And then...

"Fine!" said Anika.

The car screeched to a stop this time. Immediately the sound of a dozen cars honking behind them filled the air.

Shivay looked at her and smiled.

"Shall we go to the temple then before you can change your mind?"

**********

The press had a field day with Shivay Singh Oberoi's marriage to a complete nobody. The thousand or so close friends and family members invited to the wedding went away with no clear impression of the bride other than the fact that she was no great beauty and had a very peculiar way of expressing herself. They told each other, such an union could come to no good. Have such mismatched marriages ever led to happiness? The society Mamas warned their sons and daughters to not make such foolish choices as that arrogant Oberoi boy. The Papas chugged in enough Scotch to put a smile on the face of a bulldog and celebrated the fact that the Kapoor and Oberoi empires had not merged.

What the bride and groom had to say to all this however remained unknown. Owing to being away at an undisclosed location, both Mr. Shivay Singh Oberoi and his wife were unavailable for comment.

THE END