231. OS 12: A Delicious Theft (Part 4-5)

Link to my new short story: Taking Care of You


“I thought I was dreaming when I first saw you," he said.

 “How did you know it was me?” she asked. “I could have been anybody. A thief even.”

He smiled wearily. “I don’t know many thieves who would look at me with anxious eyes and then cry because I was sick,” he mumbled.

Is it possible for love to bloom, sight unseen? Juhi and Abhay are strangers who know each other better than they know themselves. One night changes the equation and the even tenor of their lives and puts all their doubts and fears to rest.

http://pothi.com/pothi/book/ebook-smita-ramachandran-taking-care-you

Link to my first e-novel; A Home for Meenakshi

http://pothi.com/pothi/book/ebook-smita-ramachandran-home-meenakshi

"I love the way you love, Meenu," he whispered, his eyes on hers. "Such loyalty, such passion..."

Meenakshi Sharma, an orphan, lives in Varanasi with her uncle, a chronic bachelor who wants her to become a professional musician. She unwillingly relocates to Delhi to study under a renowned musician for eight months. Staying for rent in the outhouse of the Agrawals, she meets Aditya Agrawal, an attractive young man brooding over the memories of his horrendous past. Pulled between her uncle's expectations of her and Aditya's love for her, Meenakshi struggles with her feelings. How can she disappoint her uncle who had devoted his entire life to her upbringing? How can she pretend to be blind to Aditya's feelings for her? A romance that moves between the alleys of the holy city of Varanasi and the modern city of Delhi.

A blog for my VMs:

http://smitarsvms.blogspot.in/

Part 4

Khushi stared at him, her eyes wide with shock. Ek, he stole her chef’s cap. Do, he dared to touch her?

Jhansi ki Rani sent her blessings from the other world. Khushi’s eyes hardened, her jaw clenched.

“Like this,” she bit out, lifting her foot to stamp his shoe-clad foot as hard as she could make it.

“Ouch,” he cried, letting go of her arm.

“Take that, you chor, you villain. Stealing my cap. How dare you?” she asked, fuming.

She grabbed her cap and put it on her head.

“Are you nuts?” he asked, looking first at his bruised foot and then at her cap.

“Yes, I am nuts. Kya kar lenge aap?” she asked, her hands on her hips.

He shook his head, caught between unwilling amusement and real outrage.

“I am only nuts. You are worse. You are a criminal, a pilferer, a crook who made his money by stealing the bijjnijj secrets of poor abala naris like me,” she denounced him firmly.

“Abala nari? You?” he asked, a smile lurking in his eyes. “Every part of you is a potent weapon, Khushi,” he said huskily.

She frowned. Did he think she hid guns under her kurta?

“Your eyes,” he said softly, lying back on his recliner.

Khushi’s eyes widened and looked at him with suspicion. Did he think she could cast evil spells with her eyes?

“Your lips,” he continued, his eyes twinkling as he read her thoughts that were clearly visible on her face.

Khushi frowned. Did he mean she had scolded him thoroughly? If he did, he was right to accuse her lips of being dangerous.

His eyes ran all over her from her delicious lips down her neck, her full bosom, her curved waist and shapely hips, her slender, long legs...

“And?” Khushi asked curiously.

He choked back laughter.

“And your hands,” he obliged.

She looked down at her hands. Her poor, innocent hands. How could he call them potent weapons? Sudenly a picture flashed through her mind of her wielding a sharp knife as she sliced vegetables furiously for dishes.

A triumphant smile appeared on her face. “Yes, my hands are dangerous,” she told him smugly. “I will chop you into a hundred pieces like a carrot if you dare to so much as look at my cap,” she said. “It is good that you have realised how dangerous I am.”

Arnav struggled to keep his laughter under control. His eyes lingered over her hands. An image of her fingers trailing over his naked chest filled his mind.

He drew in a deep breath. He could almost feel her fingers touching him lightly, exploring the texture of his hot skin, savouring the feel of his hard muscles....

This was heaven and hell, he realised looking at her clueless face.

“Give me my cheque,” she demanded.

He drew in a deep breath hoping to calm his galloping heartbeat.

“Cheque?” he asked, wanting to keep her in his room forever and some more.

She pursed her lips. “The cheque for the remaining amount for tonight’s dinner,” she explained. Was he trying to weasel out of paying them?

“The dinner,” he mused. “You cooked it?” he asked as if he didn’t know.

Khushi stared at him in silence for a moment and then looked heavenwards. “Hey Devi Maiyya, what kind of client have you given me?” she asked aloud. Then she looked directly at Arnav. “Yes, we cooked it. You saw me cooking. Remember? You were hiding behind the door and we were cooking in your kitchen?” she asked him, her tone that of a Kindergarten teacher coaxing a student to eat his food and not use it as face paint.

Arnav looked at her with doubt in his eyes.

“You are a cook?” he asked.

“Ji, a chef,” she replied. “The best chef in Lucknow,” she boasted.

He sighed as though despairing of her. “Why did you chose to be a cook?” he asked. “Slaving over a hot stove like a servant,” he said, shaking his head in disappointment. “What kind of career choice is that?”

Her astonished and furious eyes looked at him in disbelief.

He sat back, waiting for the fun.

“You think being a chef is a bad career choice?” she asked to confirm.

“Yes,” he admitted. “You must be very low on drive and ambition to tie yourself to a chulha all day long,” he pricked her deliberately.

She put her hands on her waist and drew in breath to appear larger than she was to scare him.

 Arnav’s shoulders shook in mirth. She was trying the defence tactics of the puffer fish!

“Aap ko bata doon, that I am very happy to be a chef. And not any chef, but a Lakhnavi chef,” she began, trying to sound reasonable.

He shook his head in pity.

Her ire rose till it all but consumed her.

“I am a chef. My sister is a chef. My father is a chef. My father’s father was a chef. His father was a chef. My father’s father’s father’s father’s father was a chef. My...” she began.

“I get it,” he smiled as though mocking her. “You know nothing else.”

She drew in a sharp breath.

If only she had her ladle with her. She could knock him one on the head.

Or her knife. Pleasant visions of her using her knife creatively on this vile Raizada floated through her mind.

“It is our khandaani pesha,” she claimed. “We do it not because we don’t know how to do other things, but because we love cooking. It is in our blood. My jalebis, my laddoos, my parathas, my gulab jamuns,” she waxed eloquent.

“They are in your blood?” he teased with a straight face.

She fumed. The knife was looking too tempting by the moment! She hoped Jiji hadn’t packed it yet.

She marched to him and leaned forward, her face close to his.

“You have contempt for chefs, don’t you? You think we are wasting our time? We are. We really are, cooking for you, a man who doesn’t value what he puts in his stomach, a man who tries to steal from those who feed him,” she vented. “Do you know what cooking is to us? Do you? Do you?” she asked, her nose almost touching his as she challenged him.

“No,” he admitted, loving her closeness and feeling lost in her gaze.

“It is a pooja, a sacred duty,” she claimed. “But how will you understand that, you underhanded crook? Do you really want to know my value? Do you?” she asked.

“Yes,” he replied softly, his eyes lingering on her face that was so close to him.

“Don’t have breakfast tomorrow,” she ordered. “And don’t have lunch. Return home in the evening. I will come here with food that I have cooked with my own hands. Then and only then will you understand what I am worth,” she declared.

“I will,” he agreed recklessly. Heck, he would starve for days if it would bring her to his home again.

“I will take my cheque only tomorrow evening,” she stated, “after you realise how divine our calling is.”

He nodded. “When will you come?” he asked eagerly.

“Five,” she said. “Will you get home by then? I can’t get out of my house late in the evening,” she explained.

“I will be here,” he replied. He would, he said silently. Even if he had to cancel all his afternoon appointments.

She nodded. She was not Khushi Kumari Gupta if she couldn’t teach this robber a lesson.

“Five,” he repeated. How many hours would he have to wait? he wondered.

She turned and walked away with a huff, the cap still perched on her head.

Part 5

Arnav Singh Raizada got home at four.

“Chotey?” Anjali’s call sounded unsure. She blinked her eyes to make sure that she was looking at her own brother. “You? Here? At this time?” she asked, totally thrown at this unexpected darshan of her one and only papad ka tukda at home during daytime.

“Kaa hua, Arnav bitwaa?” Mami asked. “Ijj ophice shut down? Bhere ijj Akass bitwaa?”

“You are alright, aren’t you, Chotey?” Nani asked, worried. “Shall I bring warm milk with turmeric in it?”

“No,” he muttered, hiding his flushed face from them as he walked up the steps to hide in his room.

                                          ***

The three ladies stood watching him escape, frowns creasing their forehead.

“Nani, it is four, isn’t it? Our clock isn’t slow, is it?” Anjali asked.

Mami looked at the time on her pink heart-covered phone. “It ijj sixteen hours,” she replied. “Matmal, one ijj 13, two ijj 14, three ijj 15 and phour ijj 16,” she calculated.

“Chotey aaj jaldi aaye gawa,” Nani wondered aloud. “Is he sick?”

“I will call Amanji,” Anjali decided. She quickly selected his number on her phone and called him, putting the phone on speaker mode.

“Amanji, Chotey returned home early today. What happened?” she asked.

Aman looked at the glass wall visible from his seat and said, “I don’t know, Anjaliji. I am stumped. He cancelled all the meetings slotted for 3.30 and after and walked out of the office.” He fanned himself with a document, the AC unable to take care of the results of his feeling of acute shock. “I am glad I was sitting when he replied ‘personal business’ when I asked him why he was leaving.”

“Personal business?” Anjali parroted him, her eyes wide.

“Bhat personal bijjnijj does hamre Arnav bitwaa have that we don’t knows anything about, Hello Hi Bye Bye?” Mami asked.

Nani looked heavenward for a reply.

Anjali cut the call.

HP came to them on reluctant feet. “Naniji,” he called.

“Yes?” Nani asked.

“Arnav bhaiyya hasn’t touched the lunch I sent to his office,” HP said mournfully.

“What?” Anjali squealed.

“He didn’t have breakfast too,” Nani discovered.

Into the silence came Mami’s voice.

“Hamre Arnav bitwaa ijj dieting for a zero phigure like Kareena Kapoor?” she asked.

                                      ***

Arnav paced the room impatiently, his head turned to look at the clock.

It was only 4.15.

He scowled. It was only 4.15.

He sat down, staring at the clock, willing the hands to move faster.

A knock sounded on the door.

“Who is it?” he asked.

“Hari Prakash, Arnav bhaiyya,” HP replied timidly.

“What is it?” he asked.

“Shall I bring you a mug of tea?” HP asked.

“No,” Arnav replied.

“Arnav bhaiyya,” HP demurred.

“Leave me alone,” Arnav replied. He had more important things to do—like looking at the clock. “HP, I will have a personal visitor at 5. Show her up to my room.”

HP took a moment to close his open mouth. “Yes, Arnav bhaiyya,” he managed to reply before going down unsteadily. A girl was coming here to meet Arnav bhaiiya? A girl? Really?

“What did he say?” Anjali asked him eagerly.

HP repeated Arnav’s order and went to the kitchen to fortify himself with a long glass of water.

“A girlwaa?” Mami asked, her voice thin with shock.

“Coming here to meet him?” Nani wondered aloud.

“Nani, maybe he is dreaming?” Anjali suggested.

“Bhich girlwaa will dare to visit hamre Arnav bitwaa and that too at his homewaa?” Mami asked.

“Personal business, personal visitor,” Nani mused.

“Nani,” Anjali said, almost scared to put her thoughts in words. “Can she be—I mean, the girl—maybe she is Chotey’s girlfriend?”

In the perfect silence that followed, all heard Mami’s pink heartwala mobile phone fall to the ground from her shocked hand and crack and shatter into many pieces.

                                            ***

Khushi rang the bell at five.

The door opened.

She stared at the three ladies who had opened the door. It took three of them to open one door?

“Khushiji?” Anjali’s question was shrill with shock.

“The cooker?” Mami asked in a whisper.

“Aap?” Nani asked.

“Yes,” Khushi replied. “I am here to get my cheque,” she said. She saw HP standing behind them, his eyes as big as saucers, his hands folded at the darshan of the Devi. “Where is your maalik?” she asked.

HP looked towards Arnav’s room.

Khushi nodded at the ladies and marched up the steps to beard the starving lion in his den.

                                           ***

Arnav heard the knock on his door and stood up, feeling his head spin of a mixture of strong relief, acute anticipation and hunger.

“Come in,” he called.

Khushi pushed open the door and walked in with a cloth bag in her hand.

“So, how are you?” she asked, looking at him from the top of his head to his feet.

“Fine,” he said, his eyes running over her eagerly. She was really here?

“Ready to have your meal?” she asked.

“Yes,” he said softly. He was hungry, but more than hunger for food, he was hungry for her, for her closeness, for her company, for her passionate arguments, for her lips, for a taste of her creamy neck, for a bite of her ear lobe....

“Sit down,” she said, moving to the low table before the recliner, totally unaware of the Count Dracula of Delhi fantasizing about her.

There was no reply.

She turned her head to see him swaying.

Khushi gasped.

He crumpled to the floor at her feet.

After a long moment of shocked silence, Khushi kneeled down by him, dumped her food bag by his side and tried to wake him up.

“Get up,” she ordered, tapping his cheeks. “Get up. Don’t scare me.”

The Raizada brat remained motionless and silent on the floor.

She looked around, scared witless.

She got up, ran to the flower vase, pulled out the flowers, poured some water in her cupped hand and ran to him and splashed it on his face.

His eyelids flickered.

“Wake up, get up,” she entreated.

He opened his eyes with great difficulty. “Food,” he whispered.

Khushi gasped. He had fainted of lack of food? She ran to her bag, pulled out the dishes and returned to him.

“Sit up,” she ordered. “If you eat lying down, you will choke to death and then blame me,” she said.

He smiled slightly.

“I will help you. Sit up,” she said as she caught hold of his arms and tried to lift him. Arnav helped her as much as he could.

After a lot of pushing and pulling, Khushi found that he was lying with his head on her bosom and part of his body on her lap. She swallowed hard. His sandalwood fragrance filled her lungs with each breath she took.

Khushi quickly opened the dishes and broke off a piece of roti, dipped it in the paneer sabzi she had made and pushed it into his mouth.

“Chew, chew,” she instructed, her watchful eyes on his face.

Arnav chewed obediently, feeling a burst of flavours in his mouth.

“Swallow,” Khushi said, peering anxiously at his mouth.

He swallowed.

She spooned some jeera rice and dal fry into his mouth.

He closed his eyes, feeling he had died and gone to heaven.

“Eat,” she urged, pushing another piece of roti and paneer sabzi into his mouth.

He ate.

After one roti and many spoons of jeera rice, he began to feel better. He realised that the soft, plush cushion on which his head rested was her bosom and that he was lying across her, supported by her left arm around him.

He suddenly felt much better.

“Are you feeling better?” she breathed, anxiety evident in her voice.

He sagged further against her. “No,” he replied, cuddling close.

She stared at him for a moment in suspicion. Then she said, “Get up. I will help you to your recliner and serve you dinner properly.”

He wanted to prolong the sweet moment but she didn’t look amenable. Slowly he tried to get up, missing her warm softness like an ache.

She put her arms around him to help him.

He milked it for all its worth, pulling her close to him and running his hands down her back, his fingers tracing the curve of her waist and the swell of her hips.

Khushi squirmed in discomfort. What was this man doing?

She dropped him on the recliner with a sigh of relief and began to serve him.

He ate silently, relishing the food.

“You are very weak, aren’t you?” Khushi asked, standing by him. “You look like superman but don’t have the energy of even a ninety-year-old daadi,” she mocked him. “Can’t even go without breakfast and lunch?” she sniggered at him.

“Diabetes,” he explained in a low voice. “I am not supposed to skip meals.”

She stared at him slack-jawed.

“Why did you want me to starve?” he asked calmly, his eyes on her beautiful orbs.

She swallowed hard and then lit into him. “Why didn’t you tell me?” she asked. “How could I know you would faint? You—you liar Raizada! Did you want to die and the police to arrest me for killing you?” she asked, furious tears filling her eyes.

He leaned back to enjoy the show.

“You stupid man! What if you had fainted earlier in the day? What if I had come late? You would have been lying here dead!” she screamed, trying to impress upon him how idiotic he was. “You are a hazard to yourself and others.”

He smirked, loving her concern.

“Grrr,” she roared, her clenched fists raised. “I could kill you now and go happily to jail.” Tears poured down her cheeks.

“Don’t cry,” he said softly.

“Cry? Who is crying?” she asked, enraged. “I want to strangle you and make sure that you are no more. You are the devil, a rakshas, evil...”

Her tirade remained incomplete as he caught her arm and tugged her to fall against him.

“What—what are you doing?” she gulped, her wide eyes on his molten chocolate ones.

He captured her lips with his, his arms going around her to pull her flush against him.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, SYAMALA!