14.
The next couple days passed in almost complete silence. Amma, Keerthi, Farhad, Reddy, and the rest of the workers noticed the silence between Raghav and Pallavi. This wasn’t for lack of trying on Raghav’s part, but any time he tried to get Pallavi alone to talk to her, she avoided him, sometimes calling Keerthi or Amma, and even one hilarious time asking Reddy if he had watched the most recent episode of Ghum Hai Kisi Ke Pyaar Mein, and if he thinks Sai should forgive Virat. Reddy was shocked that Akka knew he watched that show, and more importantly that she’d rather talk to him than Anna. When she wasn’t avoiding Raghav at home, she was avoiding him with work. But at work, Pallavi’s troubles didn’t end.
Two days after Amma had come home from the hospital, Baba was at the shop again. Pallavi tried to avoid him, helping clients all day, preparing for the opening of the new mall showroom, dealing with accounts with Keerthi. But at lunch, Baba and her were alone in the shop. She was eating her favorite lunch that she had made this morning, but Baba had Aai’s favorite sheera in his tiffin, Pallavi could smell it. Baba walked over to her, and offered her some.
“No, Ba— no I don’t want any.”
“Pallavi please, listen to me, I made a mistake, even us oldies can make mistakes, right?” Vijay tried to joke.
Pallavi glared at him, and just as Nikhil and Krishna walked in to take care of the store for the rest of the day, Pallavi packed up her things and walked out.
Nikhil spent the rest of the day throwing taunts at his father for not only being stupid, but for also being a coward.
Pallavi rushed home. She was incensed. On one hand she lived with an arrogant, idiotic, cruel man; and on the other hand the man she considered more important to her than her own late father, was trying to ask for forgiveness as if his betrayal, his lack of trust in his own daughter, was something that could be forgiven. Sometimes she understood why Amruta acted out, yes Kaka and Mansi were great, but having to live in that house, with someone like Baba yelling this and that about beti-this and beti-that, and then turning out to be the most anti-feminist human she had ever met, any girl might decide to spend her time partying outside the house. She wondered if Amruta’s experience with bhaang actually helped her, besides making her decide to break into the house of the most vile man on the planet.
When she got back home, no not home, to Raghav’s house, no one was home. Not Raghav (thank god), not Amma or Keerthi, not even Farhad or Reddy or any other workers. She walked around here and there, opening a book, and then getting bored, she walked around the living room, and then the white curtains caught her eye. The studio where Raghav had danced Bharathanatyam that one time. Maybe, since no one was home, she could practice Kathak. Dancing always used to make her feel better. When she lived in Kolhapur, before she married Mandaar, she taught a group of girls kathak, and she missed that so much. The sound of their anklets missing the right steps, their innocent laughs, how much Dada and Vahini loved to watch her dance and teach. She walked into the studio, she noticed some speakers, and connected her phone. She decided she’d dance to filmy songs today, and put on “Mohe Rang Do Laal”
Continued...
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