Chapter 15 – What More Could I Want?
He didn't bother to walk out of the kitchen and waited until Govindan Namboothiri finished his breakfast. It wasn't to save the girl; he didn't care if her father saw him walking out of the kitchen and grilled the girl about why he was in the kitchen in the first place. He just didn't want to deal with the man right now. First of all, his hair and the front of his jhubha was still wet from when the witch had thrown water on him. And secondly, there was something about Namboothiri that was disconcerting… even though he was a frail old man and rather tall and skinny under his clothes, he had a gaze that sent displeasure laced with superiority out in waves. Namboothiri's younger daughter had inherited the same gaze, the only problem was that she shot off her mouth before her gaze could do the talking. She had not yet realized that she could get much more accomplished with far less energy if she would only learn to stop and think rather than merely react to perceived injuries and injustices. The only thing that truly discombobulated her to any degree was intimate touch. Given what the older sister had told him, he should technically have been slapped silly or something much more dire by this point for all that he had done to her thus far. But she hadn't. He wasn't arrogant or stupid enough to think that the only reason the girl didn't react as strongly as her personality suggested was simply because she was aroused by his touch. She wasn't silly or shallow enough to be that type of a girl, he had gathered that already. Even if that was the case, the girl didn't have sufficient experience as yet to know what she felt. From her reactions, it was simple enough extrapolation that not only was the girl a virgin, but she was also completely untouched… and he didn't mean that in the way of others trying to touch her… it was more the case that she had never known sexual desire… he didn't know how she had quite managed such a feat after reaching the advanced age of 25. He had decided that when he touched her, she reacted the way she did because in her own way she believed it to be a just punishment for what she had done. It was as simple as that… he knew from the time that she had apologized after dinner last night when he had taken offense to that breast-milk comment that even though she was an impulsive menace to society, she operated under some strong code of right and wrong… and when she thought she went a bit too far, she accepted – if somewhat reluctantly – what she got in return. When she had made him lose his footing on the stairs and almost killed him in the process, she had taken his belligerent kiss, and when she had almost caused him to suffocate under water, she had put up with all that he did to her in that pond…
No woman – no matter how inexperienced and no matter how dire the situation – would pull off her half-sari or crush a man's face into her chest if she was not A) without designs on his person or B) considered him a sexually non-threatening entity. He would bet all his fortune in this life and the next seven that she had no designs on his person, which left only option B. He could surmise that she knew he was no true lecher. That he was fighting dirty because she left him no other choice.
For an essentially untouched virgin, he had to admit that he admired her belief in herself. She didn't for one moment even consider the possibility that her body may betray her. This was a girl whose mind and heart ruled through and through and her body functioned only in line with the other two and never against it. While he had never felt the compunction to make any woman's body betray her mind and heart before, he also had to admit that he had never set his sights on a woman that he wanted bad enough to want to try to do that. He still didn't. He had no interest in seducing the Namboothiri girl and even if he had, he hoped that he wasn't enough of a cad to try to do that. Besides, she was the sort of girl who didn't take well to such feelings. He figured she would likely dismember herself than tolerate such feelings for someone who she considered her enemy.
"Did you finish the whole thing?" he heard from behind him and just then noticed that he had been standing next to the skillet with a spoon, eating the Upma right out of the pan. There were a few spoon-fulls still left and he hurried to finish it before she could get to it. But before he could, she literally pushed in front of him and plunked a spoon in it to grab as much as she could before sticking it in her mouth. He raised an eyebrow and reached around her to put his spoon back into the pan. She knocked him aside and the spoon fell out of his grip as she took his spoon to fill it up and bring it up to her mouth that still had the other spoon sticking out.
He tried to grab his spoon out of her hand, but she tried to elbow him so that he couldn't. He didn't think through the consequences before he poked either side of her waist with his index fingers. She was ticklish, of course, just as he had expected, and the spoon shot out of her mouth and the other spoon dropped as well as she jumped up with a yelp. The coughing fit started soon enough and he pounded her back as it seemed that some of the Upma had gone down the wrong pipe. The rest of it she had spit out with the spoon, and it had fallen right into the skillet ruining the rest of the Upma.
When the coughing subsided, she looked down into the skillet in dismay and he fought the urge to smile with satisfaction. It was truly a sad day when ruining a headstrong girl's breakfast was the highlight of his day.
"Was that necessary?" she asked, looking up, her eyes serious now.
Whatever trace of smile that had emerged disappeared now as he raised an eyebrow in question.
"Enough food is wasted on account of my cooking; we can't afford to lose valuable food because of silly spiteful men."
"Don't tell me you're all starving here!"
"Not yet, but by the time you are done with us, maybe we will be!" she said as she turned to dump the ruined Upma into the garbage.
"Don't be an idiot! You will be 3 crores – 35 lakhs richer when I am done with you." He said in aggravation.
She scoffed as she turned back to him and said, "The 35 lakhs will go the bank and about fifteen thousand will go to the people in this village who father owes money to. But the rest, you think my father will accept the money that he got by selling his ancestral home? The home that has come to him from generations and generations of his ancestors? The home that is about to leave our family because of his mismanagement? You think he will accept any sum for personal gain when he would have brought dishonor to our legacy?"
"You father has two living breathing daughters under his care! If he thinks protecting a stupid "legacy" is more important than taking care of his family, then he doesn't deserve to be called a man!"
She slapped him then, which he had known she would do in the split second before he finished his sentence.
"You do not have enough honor in your entire body to match what my father holds in the tip of his finger!"
He dragged her up to him as he bit out, "If you really thought I was a man without honor, you would have found a way to maim me by now. And if I was as ruthless as you make me out to be, then you wouldn't have survived after what you did to me last night!"
She pushed out of his arms and turned towards the sink as she said, now in a calmer voice, "My sister and I are both grown women. Our father has educated us to the best of his ability. He has raised us without a mother for the majority of our lives. And he has had to suffer through a loss of a son who was the apple of his eye. If we lose this house, I will find a job. We will move to another house that we can afford and my sister and I will work to take care of our father. And allow him to finally retire in peace from all this. We don't need your worthless money to do that."
He scoffed at her then and asked, "You have never seen 3 crores in full, have you? You haven't thought of all that you would be able to buy with that. The type of lifestyle you would be able to lead. Don't speak of things that you have no knowledge of!"
It was now her turn to look back and give him a pitying smile. "I imagine that you lead the type of lifestyle that you have just told me that I should aspire to. In my limited interactions with you, Mr. Raizada, I have to say, I have found nothing in you that makes me tempted by your proposal in the least. You are not a man who knows any sense of peace. You have never been content in your life. Whatever you are chasing after hoping to give you whatever you think is eluding you will never give you what you are looking for. You are a man who will never feel fulfilled. And you will never find peace."
He looked at her in derision, a sense of loathing creeping up his spine as he briefly felt an insane urge to slap that pity off her face.
"And you claim that you are fulfilled? You who have not seen or experienced anything the world has to offer?"
"I have a father and a sister who loves me beyond life. What more could I want Raizada?"
I have a brother who loves me beyond life. What more could I want in this life, Chotey? It's time to let me go…. Don't hold onto me… Let me go in peace…
He heard the words as if they were rising out of the grave to haunt him… they had been his sister's last words… she had died in her sleep that night.
Suddenly, the kitchen felt claustrophobic. The heat from the no-longer-turned-on stove and the wetness from his almost dry jhuba assailed him simultaneously and he felt his hands curl up into fists.
"f**k you." he whispered before he turned and stalked out of the kitchen.
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Edited by -publicenemy- - 13 years ago
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