It's Just a Picnic in the Park (Cross-over post)
He heard a long whistle and looked up to see Shiv walking down the grass towards where they had set up camp, so to speak. Shiv's eyes were zeroed in on the two identical bikes parked by the massive tree right next to their picnic site. "Holy Moly… whose are these?"
He asked as he circled the bikes before finally looking up for an answer.
"Yours Maan?, or Dev's or Vicky's?" he asked again, now holding the handlebars.
"That's in the negative on all counts… It's ours…"
Nirosha said the first part and Nayana the last as they walked over to their bikes.
Shiv looked dumbfounded while Gauri, who had reached him by now, said, "Oh, will the male chauvinism know no bounds?" before winking at the twins.
Nayana smiled back but Nirosha said, "I know! I would never think you would say that Shiv! Maan bhaiyya maybe, but you? Very disappointing!"
"Hey hey, since when did I become the whipping post for your women's liberation crap?" Maan protested as he got up to walk towards them. "Geet can tell you what an incredibly egalitarian husband I am."
"Yes, of course! When you expressly forbid me from taking public transportation when there was a minor incident, that was a prime example of egalitarianism" Geet proclaimed loudly, looking up from one of the long picnic mats that was spread out on the grass where she was sitting in conversation with Tara.
"Oh come on! That's entirely different! I would never have objected to Nayana going on the bus after that. You know why? Because she can kick ass! You, my dear wife, cannot do any such thing!"
"Listen! I know how to use a safety pin just as well as all the other Indian women out there."
"Oh yea! That's exactly the kind of protection a man
is comforted to hear his wife is able to use!
A safety pin!! Honestly Geet!"
"Hey hey, I have used safety pins very effectively before." Tara piped up in support of Geet.
"You have? When?" Dev asked in the process of arranging the picnic baskets in the really particular order that Dadi wanted them, although he couldn't for the life of him figure out how it made any difference one way or the other whether the snacks were two baskets down the front or the sweets third from the back… but then again, he had discovered that it was much simpler to go along with women's strange requests rather than attempt to make sense of the madness that was domestic organization.
"Oh.. back in college…" Tara answered casually, making it evident that she wanted this line of questioning to progress no further.
Ah, but what man was willing to let something like this go when it concerned his wife.
"What do you mean back in college? What happened?" Dev was persistent.
Gauri had walked over to sit next to Geet and Tara now and she jumped in to add, "It's not that unusual. I have had to do it several times too."
"What? When? Who would have the guts to look at your prudish face and think, "oh, let me poke this bull in the eye!" Shiv wanted to know.
"It's happened
to me too…" Nirosha said now before adding, "But, Nayana is always around when
it does happen. Which is always fun for
me to watch."
"What does Nayana do exactly?" Shiv thought it was only his right to be curious at this point. The girl was tiny like tinkerbell. Really, what damage could she possibly cause?
"You want a demonstration?" Vicky asked, as he carried another picnic basket down from their jeep.
"Demonstration? Yea, I'm game!" Shiv had just sat down on the grass by the mats, but now got up from there brushing off the back of his jeans.
"You're going to regret this, man. Don't say that you haven't been warned!" Maan felt obliged to caution a fellow man from embarrassing himself in front of his new wife by getting his ass kicked by a tiny lil pixie!
"Oh come on! Don't let him chicken out! My ass has been kicked by her and look at me! I am alive and kickin', no problemo" Vicky jumped in with his counter-argument with a gleeful grin.
"Well, you have had ample time to recover, dear brother." Dev piped in now with a smile.
"Can we not talk about Nayana like she is not here, please! Maybe she doesn't want to kick anyone's ass!" Gauri looked at all the men around her in agitation.
There were four immediate 'sorry's' that came, but it was drowned out by a burst of laughter so loud that they looked to the source. It was Nirosha. "Oops, sorry. I just thought it was funny to hear that Nayana wouldn't want to kick ass! Gauri dear! Nayana doesn't sleep well if she doesn't get some butt-kicking in. The bigger the man's ego, the better she sleeps!" Nirosha went off into peals of laughter again.
This time Gauri grinned as well and Tara and Geet had joined in too.
Nayana walked forward from her bike and paused when she was in front of Shiv.
"I don't want to seriously hurt you. So, I have to ask. Do you have any training in martial arts?"
Shiv looked down at her miniature form, dressed in a pair of leggings and a long tunic looking thing, and tried his best to keep from laughing out loud. He could lift her up in one arm, roll her up, and throw her like they did in shot-put, that's how little she was.
He kept his cool though as he said, "I know a little karate."
She thought
about that for a second and nodded. "That
will do."
"I really hope that we don't have to take you out of here on a stretcher!" Maan added his last cautionary note before sitting down on the mat next to Vicky and Dev.
"I am rooting for Nayana" they heard just then and looked over to see Shiv's mother smile as she sat down next to Dadi. Shiv's father and Gauri's father also got prime seats in the small audience, right next to Maan and Dev.
"Let's get ready to rumbbbblllleeeeeeee….." Nirosha added her war cry for her sister and Vicky winked at Nayana. She smiled back and she turned once again to face Shiv.
"You ready?" she asked.
"As I will ever be." Was his quick response.
And thus it started. Out of all the people assembled, only Maan, Vicky, and Nirosha had really seen Nayana fight. And now they spent more time watching the rest of the crowd drop their jaws open in stupor as they watched Nayana fly with her fast kicks and punches. Initially, Shiv was all about defensive maneuvering, which of course Nayana had anticipated, given how he must have underestimated her given her size. But she quickly disabused him of all such notions as she went on the offensive, strong. There was a moment a few minutes in when he paused as he tried to overcome his surprise at her skill. And after that he was less patronizing and more of an equal player. And she had to say, he wasn't bad. Not at all. But she was lighter on her feet and much faster… and in about twenty minutes it was over. She had won, of course… well, more like he had politely withdrawn so that he wouldn't really get his ass kicked. He was a good man… she decided… she always decided that when a man had no issues with acknowledging that a tiny girl could beat him at physical combat. Especially when it was made clear in front of his parents, father-in-law, and wife. But she decided that she liked him even more for the way in which he acknowledged defeat, by yelling out, "God, girl! You are a little pack of dynamite, aren't you? I surrender!" Now, that was a man with cojones! The real kind… just like the Khuranas…. And now she looked at her Khurana and winked and he smiled back, proud boyfriend that he was.
Maan came up now to pat Shiv on the shoulder. "It was a valiant fight, man! You represented us well!"
Shiv laughed out loud at this assessment before asking, "I take it she can ride the bike better than us too?"
"Oh, you have no idea!"
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