Geet scanned the contract, her eyes widening and her smile faltering with every word she read.
"What on earth is this?" she asked Maan furiously.
"Look, is there any way you can just sign it without making a scene?" Maan said, exasperated. Why did girls have to endeavour to be difficult all the time?
"Sign this? This says that I have to be your fiance for real!"
"Hell no!" Maan quickly corrected her, "Not for real! What the hell! You will only be a fiance in name and only for a period of two months. After two months, as per clauses 7 and 8, we will break up and you will disappear from my life. No lingering. And for the duration of two months - and I am referring here to Section B, dealing with conditions of employment - you will at all times be aware that you are only a fake fiance and you will not expect any kind of real emotional involvement from me. You will also honour the secrecy pact in clause 1, and if you even attempt to blackmail me, you will be deemed to have breached the contract, and will consequently forfeit any pending renumeration due to you."
Geet breathed deeply. This was a joke.
"This is a joke," she said out loud.
"I assure you it's not," Adi said to Geet earnestly. He had drafted the contract himself, with Maan Singh Khurana breathing down his neck, constantly threatening to murder him if things did not go as planned. A joke, it most certainly wasn't!
"Okay," Geet said slowly, patiently, as though she was speaking to a dim-witted child, "I came here to audition for the role of the main lead in Arti Sen's serial. What, in Babaji's name, is going on here?"
"Arti Sen?" Maan said, incredulous, "What are you talking about? Adi, what is she talking about? This is not a serial, girl. It is a role that you have to play in real life. Did you not know what we were doing? Don't tell me, you thought, all along, that this was for a serial? When did any of us say anything about there being a serial? Adi, you didn't goof up again, did you?"
For what seemed then like an eternity, Geet stared at him, her mouth half-open, unable to give expression to the emotional storm within her. His words ricocheted off the walls of her ringing ears, as she began to make sense of it all. She had come to the wrong place. The advertisement... The address... That autowallah... It couldn't be. And yet there was no Arti Sen after all, no serial, no audition. All those hopes, those dreams, all those efforts... everything had come down to nothing, crashing bit by bit until an eerie silence rang, threatening to overwhelm her in its deafening cacophony.
She composed herself. This was not the time to break down.
"I made a mistake," she said, forcing calmness in her tone, "I'll leave now."
"Not so fast, Handa," Maan said, "First sign the contract."
"You cannot force me," she said, highly affronted by this ungentlemanly attitude. How typical of guys, to not recognise a damsel in distress when they saw one!
"Maan Singh Khurana can do what he likes. And don't flatter yourself. The only reason why I will force you, is because Dadi has seen you, and we can't change the girl now. So just sign the contract, okay?"
"And if I don't?" Geet said stubbornly, hating his arrogance more and more with every passing second.
Maan looked up at the skies in desperation. Of all the girls, they had to end up with this one? Yeh ladki mujhe paagal kardegi, he realised, and, right on cue, a heavy sense of doom fell upon him.
Adi sprang to the rescue, explaining to Geet that Maan was very well-connected, that he knew top-notch film producers, and that if she helped Maan out, he would return the favour. Geet missed the 'no way!' expression on Maan's face, and proceeded to lecture Adi about how her talent and hard work would suffice to help her set foot in the film industry. She added a dramatic dialogue for good measure, "Sifaarish ke dum par chalne se mere usool ki haar hi nahin, meri kalaa ki bhi tauheen hogi."
Thwarted by theatrics, Adi sighed at Parineeta, who didn't notice this subtle plea for help, as she was busy deciding what she would buy with the salary increment she was planning to bargain for. After all, she was the one who had called her client, Maan's Dadi to the studio. If not for this extraordinary brainwave, and the accompanying perfect timing, Geet would never have been selected.
Maan's eyes flitted, frustrated, between Adi's infuriating defeated look and Parineeta's incomprehensible nonchalance. What useless people he had in his employ! He realised he would have to step back into the fray himself.
He tried bribe, he tried coercion (again), he tried challenge, he tried insults, he tried flattery. Nothing worked, least of all, flattery, since it was so glaringly insincere that even a table-lamp would have snickered back at him.
And then it struck him, the reason why he was having to go through all this trouble: his Dadi. It was to put an end to her continuous nagging that he needed to find himself a fake fiance. For those of you who don't know, Savitri Devi Khurana is one of the most skilled emotional-blackmailers the world has seen. Surely, Maan thought, some of the genes would have passed on to him. And if not, he had enough first-hand experience to be able to parrot out his Dadi's choicest phrases back to Geet.
But he had not even gotten to the bit about his Dadi's having "lived her entire life already" (this, by the way, was amongst the most infallible weapons of Savitri Devi's repertoire), when Geet began to giggle uncontrollably.
"You do know what a pathetic actor you are, right?" she said, once she could speak.
"Look, Handa... I really -"
"Geet," she corrected mechanically, "You're really desperate, aren't you? Okay, done! I'll help you."
Maan swore the air around him had frozen, stupefied. Was it possible? Had she actually let go of her stubbornness? Could pigs fly after all? Now, that just confirmed it, then and there, beyond all possible doubts: girls were weird, confused, unpredictable creatures.
Geet, on the other hand, was having second thoughts. Why had she been so quick to agree to be his fake fiance? This was that Khurana guy, that obnoxious, rude, self-centred guy she couldn't stand. Two months! Dear Gods, how would she survive? Okay, she had not signed the contract yet. She was under no obligation to carry on with this nonsense. She could still back out.
And yet, she actually kind of wanted to help him out, for some obscure, unfathomable reason. For that same obscure, unfathomable reason, it bothered her that he was trying so hard to convince her, and that she was being so unreasonably unflinching. It bothered her enough to even distract her away from the this-isn't-an-Arti-Sen-audition disappointment.
It was just two months, she reassured herself. She would survive. In fact, hang on, she thought, as a most delightful epiphany struck her, this could even be fun!
"Okay, let's get things straight. So why are you doing this?" Maan asked, once he had recovered from the shock.
"More than one reason, Ma - Khurana. One, pocket money. Two, acting practice. Three, and, I warrant you, this is the best one... I get to irritate you."
"And the point of that is...?"
"Oh, I like to amuse myself," Geet said, grinning mischievously, as her mind began concocting strategies to get this Maan Singh Khurana off his high horse. This would be fun!
"How mature!" Maan snorted in response.
"And speaking of "mature," I want new clauses added to the contract. No touching. Well, nothing beyond holding hands. And definitely no kissing."
"Goodness, Handa, who would want to kiss you?"
"You'd be surprised," Geet quipped, unfazed.
Parineeta smiled. Yes, he would be.
..........
Glossary
Yeh ladki mujhe paagal kardegi - This girl will drive me crazy.
Sifaarish ke dum par chalne se mere usool ki haar hi nahin, meri kalaa ki bhi tauheen hogi - To depend on someone's recommendation, would not only constitute a defeat of my principles, it would also be an insult to my talent,
Kumkum Bhagya
Bade Achche Lagte Hain Naya Season
Cricket
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