30. April Fool, Arnavji!


Khushi Kumari Gupta Singh Raizada surveyed the entire office and her husband's employees with a jaundiced eye. Not a man or a woman out there with some life in him/ her. It was the 1st of April, one of the most awaited days of the year when Khushi could be her natural self and get away with it! She chuckled thinking of all the fun she & Jiji had had in her school, tricking classmates and her teachers, and then shouting, April Fool!

And here she was stuck with Khadoos Arnav Singh Raizada, the man who could look at an employee and literally suck the joy out of  him, she grumbled.

 She looked at him, sitting hunched over his laptop and delivering instructions to some poor soul in a clipped voice over the phone. He hadn't even looked at her once in the last one hour. Ufff, the Laad Governor. An hour back, he had raised his left eyebrow seeing her twirl around and around in one of the many swivel chairs in his office. She, suitably chastised, had demurely folded her legs beneath the chair and sat still in a decorous manner.

One full hour of being ignored by him. Grr..Was she a piece of furniture? Even the security guards got a nod as he passed by them. His laptop got all his attention. Laptop Se Unki Tum Kardo Sagai...She hadn't known then that the lines she had penned for the Jiji Tera Jetji Diwana song were the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. As if this wasn't enough, he had his blue tooth...It was not a blue tooth, but her Sautan...Her hands itched to tear it off his ear, but fear of the consequences of her action made her exercise self control. What if he threw her blue tooth in the pool?

He had issued the order that every day, once she checked that her dabbas had arrived safely in the canteen, she was to present herself in his office, and sit there waiting for him to finish work. She was supposed to bring her lunch in a dabba too, and sit with him in the cabin and eat it. He would take her home with him when he finished work. If he had some pressing work late in the evening, she was permitted to go home with Akash.

She was not supposed to mingle freely with the employees. Even Shuklaji treated her with the respect he would accord the Rani of Jhansi. The employees trembled if she tried to talk to them. She was no longer their Bhabi, but Madam. One look from ASR had shrivelled up their conviviality. She had tried. How she had tried to play pranks on her new friends in the office... the security guards, Shuklaji, and some of the others! But to no avail. They had all smiled instinctively at her, and then looked up at the glass cage housing the lion with fearful eyes, their smiles dying on their lips.


She leaned forward and rustled the papers in a file on his table to get his attention. He briefly looked at her with a frown, and then turned back to his work. She firmed her lips. April 1st was her day. She wouldn't let any Akhdoo Singh Raizada spoil it for her. She got up with a huff. He could play with his laptop and his blue tooth... She walked out of the room, her straight back and uneven gait signalling her displeasure to the man who always had his entire attention on her and only her.

He smiled. She would be back after making another round of his office, making his men smile, poking her nose into the lives of the women employees, making fun of Akash, and sharing tales of Lucknow with Shukla. What if his eyes were on his laptop? If his ears heard the sound of some associate on the phone? If he spoke to someone else? His entire mind, his full focus was on her. Only her. That was why he had trapped his titliyaa in his glass cabin...So that he could look at her whenever he wished...make sure that she was safe...ensure that she didnot get into trouble...and spread joy in his office too, just as she had done at home. She knew each and every employee in that office, made friends with his associates over the phone if he permitted her to answer it in his lieu, put a smile on every single face that she saw here...She was his Khushi...HIS KHUSHI...He loved her pranks, her joy, her naughtiness, her impulsive actions..He loved everything about her...

How dare he? He didn't even ask her where she was going? She would show him. Her feet covered the floor at a fast pace as she tried to outwalk her thoughts. She made her way to the car park, and then retraced her steps into the building through another entrance. She looked around the new area. She was not familiar with this part of the building, and found it all new till she reached the storeroom where she & Arnavji had been locked in a long time ago. He had broken down the door at her insistence then, she smiled in glee.

A brilliant idea flashed through her mind. She could pay him back for looking through her in the office today, sitting and smirking and hiding the fact that he was fully recovered while she was flat on his bedroom floor cleaning it to protect his throat from infection yesterday, not thanking her for having saved his company from 2 crooks, humiliating her on the road in the presence of the policeman...The list was long, and growing as she thought longer. She raised her clenched fists in the air, and said, "Grrr...".

She went into the store room. The door had been replaced. It now locked from inside. She gave an evil laugh like the villain in a Salman Khan movie. She looked around. The room was full of old files, discarded fabric, papers etc. Only a moment was needed to think her plan out. She quickly locked the door from inside, and found a bundle of old newspapers to sit on. After praying to Devi Maiyya for the success of her brilliant plan, she picked up her phone and called Arnavji.


He picked up immediately. Why was Khushi calling him?
"Arnavji..."
"Haan...Khushi?"
"Arnavji...I was walking around...and...got lost...I didn't know where I was...Arnavji...I went inside a room...and wind closed the door behind me... Arnavji..."
"Khushi...Are you OK? Khushi.."
"I am scared...Arnavji...The door is locked now...I can't open it..."
"Khushi...don't be scared...I am coming to you...See...I have left the office...I am coming down the steps...I will be with you now...Khushi...keep talking...What does the room have in it? Tell me, Khushi..."
"I think it is a store room...Arnavji...Aaah...:, she screamed.
"Khushi..Khushi, what happened?...Talk to me...Khushi..."
"Arnavji...Arnavji..."
"Khushi...are you OK? Khushi...don't stop talking..."

It took ten minutes for him to locate the storeroom in which Khushi was trapped. Ten of the longest minutes of his life. He had tried three other storerooms before locating the right one. Once he confirmed that she was inside, he knocked down the door, bruising his shoulder in the process. The pain did not register. He was consumed by thoughts of his Khushi in danger, alone, hurt, in tears...

He crossed into the room, and stood shell shocked. Khushi was sitting on a bundle of newspapers, eating ber, her unbound hair gently stirring in the breeze from the big window. The pink dupatta of the suit she had worn for the mehendi was flung carelessly over the neck of a headless mannequin. She smiled at him.

"You found me!", her eyes twinkled. "April Fool!", she laughed at him.

Arnav saw red. He could feel heat emanating from his ears. His muscles trembled in relief and shock. He was sweating, his anxiety converted to anger. Fury at the trick she had played on him, rage at having given her so much power over him, wrath at her delight in having tricked him...

An angry Arnav Singh Raizada was a foolish one, a man who would take up any challenge and do anything to win, a man who knew only that he had to possess what he wanted, a man without the discrimination to judge what was good or bad for him... An angry Arnav Singh Raizada was a force to be reckoned with, totally unstoppable, like a typhoon, destroying every hurdle on the path to the object his heart desired.

He made his way towards her with measured, threateningly slow steps. Khushi stood up on unsteady legs, the ber clutched in her hands. He came close to her, invading her personal space. There was no place for Khushi to retreat. The newspapers were stacked all over behind her. He stood a breath away from her, and breathed into her face like a raging bull, his nostrils flared.

"Ber?", she offered him, her right hand outstretched to show him the fruit.
In a sudden move, his left hand came up to capture her right hand. He took one ber with the fingers of his right hand, and knocked the rest of them on the ground. He raised the ber to her lips, rubbing the fruit along the seam. At times his fingers caressed her lips, at times the ber did. She swallowed with difficulty.

He slowly slipped the fruit into her mouth, past her lips, and made her bite into it. The sweet & sour juice of the ripe fruit dripped into her mouth.

"You like ber?"
She nodded.

"So do I."
He clasped her face and swiftly put his lips to hers, tasting the juice of the ber in her mouth.