157. OS: 7: The Other Woman (Part 20)

Part 20

For one moment, Khushi was shocked out of her skull at his impudence. Then she found her tongue and snatched it back from the cat.

“The flowers? Kitne sundar the! And the jalebi? Wah, wah! Thinking about them fills my mouth with paani. The sari? Haiyye! Fit only for a laal pari from the heavens,” Khushi gushed.

ASR’s mouth fell open.

“Who asked you to send these things to me? How dare you send such gifts to me?” Khushi barked in to the phone.

“Khushi, I thought you would like them,” Arnav began.

“What has my liking them got to do with anything? How dare you send gifts to a kanya kunwaari?” Khushi roared.

ASR gaped. “Should I send them to a married woman?” Arnav asked.

Khushi hit her head with her hand.

“My life has become worse than a beggar’s since I met you,” she lamented. “Each day is filled with tension and aggravation. By the time you go away, I will have dil ka daura,” she proclaimed.

“I am not going anywhere, Khushi,” he declared.

“Why? Do you want to be a poor girl’s husband?” Khushi asked sarcastically.

“If the girl is you, Khushi, then yes,” Arnav said.

Khushi grit her teeth in helpless anger and fear.

“Do you have any idea of the havoc you are wreaking in my sedate life, you Saale-saheb?” she asked. She did not give him a chance to reply. “You may be Pagal Singh Raizada, but I don’t have to be Pagali Kumari Gupta. Samjhe aap?”

“Khushi,” he tried to hide a smile.

“Don’t call my name. And don’t smile. Don’t think I won’t know if you are smiling at the other end of the phone. If you think you are tez, then I am sharper than you, you Blunt Singh Raizada,” Khushi admonished him.

He choked with laughter.

Khushi snorted. “Do you have any idea what happened in my house when your flowers turned up at my doorstep?” Khushi asked. “Buaji wanted to know who had sent them. How could I tell her that it was from you? I told her that Bediji must have sent them,” Khushi drew in a deep breath, shuddering at the very memory.

“Who is Bediji?” Arnav frowned.

“Who is Bediji pooch rahe he the man who almost got him killed,” Khushi grimaced. “The owner of Happy Singhji’s garage. He likes Buaji, but Buaji doesn’t encourage him. Buaji grew wild at the thought that Bediji had sent her flowers and she went looking for him the next day to give him a taste of her belan. Devi Maiyya ki kripa he, Bediji was not in Delhi but in Jalandhar. Otherwise,” Khushi paused, lost for words to describe the horrifying spectacle rising in her mind.

Arnav turned his head away to hide his amusement.

But she picked it up.

“Aap hasiye. You can laugh. Agar Bediji Delhi mein the, then he wouldn’t be smiling now,” she sighed. “I would be attending his shok sabha right now.” Then she remembered the jalebi. “Why did you send me the jalebi?” she fumed. “I had to push them down my throat before Jiji and Buaji returned from the temple. Do you have any idea how many hours my tummy hurt? That Kamla Chachi! She had to tapak padna at that moment. Otherwise I would have buried the jalebi in the yard,” Khushi said with remembered chagrin.

Arnav coughed to hide laughter bubbling within him.

“And the sari!” Khushi remembered the third gift with a strong sense of injury. “Why on earth did you send me a sari? That too red? That too an expensive one?”

“I thought it would suit you,” he murmured, his mind full of images of Khushi wearing the sari he had hand-picked for her.

Khushi carried on without hearing him. “Buaji and Jiji took it from the delivery boy. I was at the office. When I returned home,” Khushi buried her head in one hand and swallowed hard. “They interrogated me like a kotwaal interrogates thieves and all because of you, you Devious Singh Raizada,” she laid the blame squarely at his door.

ASR burst out laughing, thereby fanning the flames of her anger.

“I had to tell them the truth,” she hissed. “I had to tell them that a boy had proposed to me.”

“I am a man, not a boy, Khushi,” he whispered.

“Who cares what you are, you..you..?” she paused, her upbringing stopping her from calling him everything he deserved to be called...and that too many times.

ASR chuckled.

“I told them that I had refused the proposal because the boy was a goonda who kidnapped girls,” she said with relish.

That took care of his laughter. His jaw dropped. “Khushi, it was just you..I mean, I don’t make a habit of kidnapping girls,” he tried to explain.

“Anyway Buaji and Jiji are happy that I have refused your proposal and want me to return your gift. Aap apna address deejiye. Let me write it down,” she said, looking for a writing pad and pen.

“Khushi,” Arnav said.

“I know my name. Give me your address, please. I will courier it to you,” she said, tapping the pen on the pad.

“Khushi, I don’t want the sari back. It is for you,” he insisted.

“I don’t want it. I don’t take gifts from strangers even though you may find that difficult to believe with your picture of me as a loose woman firmly entrenched in your mind,” she said sardonically.

“Khushi, I am sorry. I was wrong about you. Let me make it up to you,” he began.

Khushi lost control of her soaring anger. “I am not a charity case for you to buy me clothes. Get out and stay out of my life, Mr. Andha Singh Raizada.”

“Khushi,” he tried.

“Don’t talk to me,” she cut him off.

“Khushi,” he tried again.

“I am going to cut the call. I will get your address from Shyamji,” she declared. “Although what will that sajjan think of me asking for his bachelor saala’s home address, I don’t know,” she fretted.

“Khushi, listen to me,” Arnav made an attempt.

“Hum nahi listen,” Khushi declared. “You listen to yourself. I am going to bed,” she stated. “Tomorrow is Teej and I have to fast the whole day, Hey Devi Maiyya,” she thought aloud. “Upar se I have to call Shyamji and go to the couriers.”

“Are you fasting for me, Khushi?” Impudent Singh Raizada asked.

The phone fell from Khushi’s hands at his audacity. She went down on her knees to find the many parts it had split in to.

She put them together and yelled, “No, no, I am not fasting for you, you Shaitan Singh Raizada.”

Arnav smiled. “Does Buaji know that you called me a goonda, Khushi?”

Khushi jumped.

“Does she know that I am the boy you rejected, Khushi?” he asked again, a smirk on his face.

Khushi cut the call and sagged on the bed, all out of steam.