‘Mr. Chauhan, I completely understand. And I have to say this—you’ve been really nice. Not everyone offers an alternate slot every time we miss one.’
The coffee arrived, interrupting the conversation briefly.
Once the cups with the steaming coffee and the plates with cookies had been laid out, Shilpa was on her mark.
‘Shall we start, Mr. Chauhan?’
‘Whenever you are ready,’ Manav smiled, taking a sip of the coffee. He reclined on his chair, his eyes fixed on Shilpa.
‘Tell me, what made you get into this business? Were you driven by your passion, or, is this something you were destined to do, inheriting the business from your illustrious father?’
‘I have always been asked that question. It is true that I inherited a real estate business from my father, and a very successful one at that. However, you must agree, I changed the face of that business, and the face of this city in the process. The shopping malls I built are comparable to the best in the world and more and more global brands are queuing up for space in our properties.’
‘A number of trade pundits have criticised your decision of investing heavily in Kolkata.’
‘I don’t agree. When I look at Kolkata today, I see a city in the cusp of change. The purchasing power of the upper middle class...‘
Manav’s phone buzzed again. He looked at the screen and rejected the call, again.
He took a sip of the coffee and was about to speak when the phone buzzed, yet again.
This time, he looked apologetically at Shilpa and said, ‘Can I take this, if you don’t mind?’
‘Sure, Mr. Chauhan. Please go ahead.’
Manav walked across the room to an antechamber, closing the door behind him.
‘How many times do I have to tell you not to call me when I’m at work?’ Manav held the phone close to his mouth as he spoke into it. ‘Unless someone’s dying! And why don’t you get it? I rejected your call twice. Isn’t that a more than subtle signal that I’m busy?’ Manav paced up and down the small room. ‘There’s a journalist from Business Today in my room and I am in the middle of an interview.’
‘But Manav, baby, we’re getting late for our lunch date.’
‘I repeat...I’m in the middle of an interview, Neha, for God’s sake! And we never planned for a lunch date today.’ Manav was livid, almost shouting into the phone now. He was sure there was no lunch date with Neha in his calendar that afternoon.
‘What? Now your fiancée has to make an appointment with you for lunch? I feel like being with you for lunch, and that’s it! I’m coming down to your office to pick you up—now. Just say goodbye to that journo, na. Or, is she hot?‘
Manav could hear giggles in the background. So she was with her stupid friends. He was probably on speaker, and Neha was trying to show off her absolute control on her fiancé’s schedule.
‘Neha, I don’t have time for this nonsense!’
‘Baby, we also planned to go for lingerie shopping for the wedding, remember?’ Neha tried to sound sexy, her voice suddenly turning husky with renewed giggles in the background.
‘Fuck the lingerie and fuck the wedding!’ Manav screamed into the phone and ended the call. He clutched the phone tight in his fist and clenched his teeth, banging his forehead on the wooden panel on the wall.
After a while, Manav walked out of the antechamber, looking distraught, his face flushed.
Shilpa had heard him and had stood up, spilling coffee on her skirt in the process. She was desperately looking for a tissue. The recorder had been turned off a while back.
‘I...I am sorry, Shilpa. Can we do this some other time?’ Manav did not look at her, visibly embarrassed, as he headed towards the door. ‘Priyanka, please apologise to the lady on my behalf and escort her out,’ Shilpa heard him say as he walked out of his cabin, closing the door behind him.
Chapter 8
Manav emptied the glass of whisky and looked down from his balcony at the sparse late night traffic on the road below, the monsoon breeze ruffling his hair. There was a light drizzle.
He let out a deep sigh. It was clearly not working.
The Awasthis and the Chauhans had been close for three generations. Deepak Awasthi, Neha’s father, and Surinder Chauhan, Manav’s father, were successful entrepreneurs with impeccable acumen, whose respective businesses in restaurants and real estate had flourished even when the climate in the state had not been too favourable for business. The two families came together in a number of business collaborations, and that only helped strengthen the bond between them. When the two families decided to get Manav and Neha married, Neha was happy. Manav was not too sure.
With the wedding now less than a month away, Manav was finding it increasingly difficult with every passing day to handle Neha. It was the third time they had fought in the last two weeks.
The last time, Manav had walked out of a restaurant in the middle of what was supposed to be a romantic dinner with his fiancée. On that occasion, Neha went on and on about what she considered was Manav’s ‘waning interest’ in their relationship. She felt Manav did not find her attractive enough anymore, as Manav had spurned her sexual advances on a few occasions.
That girl was bringing out the worst in him and Manav could not let that continue.
He fumbled in his pockets, looking for his phone. He had to call Neha.
‘Is she asleep?’ Manav pondered for a second.
It did not matter, he decided.
He had had enough. He did not want to lose a good friend.
Chapter 9
Manav looked around the room at the grim faces of the elders.
He had barely got out of bed that morning when he was summoned to the living room downstairs. When he made the phone call the previous night, he had no idea that the entire Awasthi clan would flock to his house at daybreak. Neha did not look at him. Her eyes were swollen. She must have cried all night.
‘Manav, it’s perfectly understandable if the two of you have had a tiff. You are young and wedding preparations can be stressful. You have a business to run, and my daughter can be very unreasonable at times....’ Deepak Awasthi started off in a conciliatory tone. The effort showed.
Manav spoke after a while.
‘This is not a lovers’ tiff. This is not working, Uncle. I have thought this through.’
‘And when did you find the time to think this through?’ Surinder Chauhan roared. ‘Last night? Over your whisky?’
‘Manav, the two of you have known each other for some time now...’ Deepak Awasthi continued.
Manav did not let Deepak Awasthi finish.
‘Yes, Uncle. But I don’t think it means that we should get married!’
Deepak Awasthi looked miffed. The veneer of sobriety had finally slipped.
‘And you realise this now? With less than a month to go before the wedding?’
He cast a sympathetic glance towards his daughter. He then looked at Manav’s parents with mute pleas of crushing what he thought were mere whims of a wealthy bachelor, and then, he glared back at Manav.
Surinder Chauhan looked into Manav’s eyes and asked, ‘You’ve met someone else, haven’t you? Probably during one of your business tours or in the office....’
Manav raised a hand.
‘Let’s not make things nasty here, Dad.’
‘You think I’m making things nasty, Manav? You didn’t bother to think twice about Neha! You didn’t bother to think about us! You are playing with people’s feelings here, Manav.’
Surinder Chauhan started pacing the room swiftly, his hands clasped tightly behind him.
Deepak Awasthi sat facing Manav, eyes fixed on him. After a while, he lost his patience and shouted, ‘Look at you...sitting there like a picture of calm when all of us are so hurt, so agitated over your ridiculous decision! Is this how your parents have brought you up?’
‘Enough!’ Manav finally lost his composure at the mention of his upbringing. He shot up from his chair and headed towar
ds his room.
‘Well, this is it, I guess...looks like there isn’t anything left to discuss here.’ Deepak Awasthi stood up. The colour had risen on his chubby face, there were sweat patches on his shirt. His wife and daughter followed his cue.
The mothers exchanged furtive glances. Surinder Chauhan cast a reproachful glance towards his son and then took a step towards his childhood friend, Deepak Awasthi. The latter’s hands, however, were firmly ensconced inside his trouser pockets.
As the Awasthis marched out of the living room, Neha stopped in her tracks and turned towards the receding frame of Manav.
‘It was stupid of me to believe we’d be together for a lifetime!’ said Neha as she threw the engagement ring at Manav. ‘Looks like you have other plans.’
‘Neha, we can still be friends. That’s exactly what I want. This marriage thing...‘
Neha did not let Manav finish. As her tears spilled over, there was suddenly an uncharacteristic, almost menacing, steely resolve in Neha’s tone. ‘I know you’ll come back to me, Manav. I’ll make sure you do! You will put that ring back on my finger.’
***
The next Saturday evening, Manav Chauhan was at the opening of Prestige Mall. The who’s who of the city had turned up for the inauguration of the plush new property of the Chauhans. The police had a tough time managing the hordes of men and women who had been filling up the adjoining roads since the afternoon, the light drizzle notwithstanding. One of the guests of honour for the event that evening was the heartthrob of the city—actress Hiya Sen.
Chapter 10
Hiya lost her parents in a train accident when she was seven and was brought up by an uncle who worked in the local post office in a small town in Burdwan. Her aunt stitched
dresses and made candles when she found time from cooking in a working women’s hostel, travelling by train to Kolkata and back every day. Everything that had been worth anything in the household had already been sold. There was just about enough to eat, the roof leaked in the monsoons in parts of the house and the windows made creaking sounds in stormy nights.
However, Hiya’s life in that run-down house next to the railway tracks away from the din and the shine of the city had a purpose which made every tomorrow worth waiting for.
The local club would often organise late night shows of movies in one of the fields in the neighbourhood. A decrepit projector would beam on a crumpled piece of cloth, with gaping holes here and there, movies with stories of larger than life heroes and heroines whose rags-to-riches journeys filled Hiya’s young eyes with dreams. She wanted to be one of them.
Hiya lived in a world of her own. She talked to herself when she was alone and fell back on her own instincts when she had to make choices. When she was in the third year of her Arts course in college, she filled out the application form for a beauty pageant in Kolkata, much against the wishes of her uncle. She gave up her studies and headed for Kolkata. She won the crown. Modelling assignments, photoshoots for popular magazines, roles in television serials and then movies—everything happened in quick succession and Hiya never had the time to stop and think. Opportunities kept knocking on her door, and her talent propelled her to dizzying heights of fame in an incredibly short time.
With fame, came money. And the men—much-married senior actors, wealthy heads of production houses, lecherous politicians and businessmen she ran into at social do’s. But Hiya was not to be won over with gifts and favours. She wanted to feel unbridled love in her heart for someone, rather than be pampered by her admirers. She missed having someone in her life she would feel like cuddling with after a long day, on the couch in front of the TV with a tub of popcorn, or someone she would just be happy buying things for even if he didn’t need any of those. She missed being unreasonably possessive about someone. She wanted every romantic song she heard or acted in to throw up images of her in the arms of that special someone. She wanted someone to think of when it rained and the earth smelt sweet. She waited for a name she could whisper with her heart and soul, while clinging to her pillows under a warm blanket on a cold winter night. She spent her days and nights with that dream. And when she would meet him, there would be chimes in the air and a light drizzle, and an unruly breeze would play with her dupatta before his passionate gaze—like a scene from one of her movies.
And then she met Manav at the inauguration of one of his shopping malls. Love caught her unawares as her eyes locked with his, refusing to be blinded for once by the dazzle of flashbulbs. For the first time in years, she did not see lust in a man’s eyes.
Chapter 11
Present Day
As Agni and Arya drove across the bridge over the railway tracks, Agni could not help but smile at the glorious co-existence of opposites that made his city so special.
He could see the teeming crowds on the platform at the station, the run-down shanties on both sides of the railway tracks, scantily clad kids playing around and women going about their daily chores nonchalantly as trains sped by their shacks. Their ears were used to the relentless drumming of the trains on the tracks, and Agni wondered if they would be able to sleep at all, if they were put up in more serene surroundings.
Overlooking the station and the measly existence of the slum dwellers were flats for the middle class that had seen better days. The walls had been stripped off colours and some of the windows had only a hinge to hold on to. Agni looked at the potted plants and the clothes lines that decorated the balconies. He saw men reclining on their chairs with their cups of morning tea and newspapers, the women freshly bathed hanging out clothes to dry, and children getting ready for school. He felt the flats, however run down, had an aura of middle-class security and offered its dwellers a feeling of comfort, even in hardship, which they had probably got used to over the years. It was, again, rather unlikely that their occupants would choose to migrate to a more congenial environment even if such an opportunity ever presented itself.
Driving through the squalor, they crossed Kasba and just as the backdrop in a stage play changes between consecutive acts, he found himself surrounded by plush apartment complexes, office spaces, retail outlets of global brands, and a sprawling new shopping mall, with a movie multiplex.
It was this mall that was their destination that morning.
To be more specific, they were headed towards a boutique inside that mall, by the name of Panache. Panache was owned by Neha Awasthi. Manav had broken off his marriage with her before he went on to marry Hiya.
As they stepped into the boutique, they were greeted by a soft warm fragrance of lavender wafting around the shop. Agni’s eyes went to dresses of esoteric design that connoisseurs of fashion would not hesitate to spend their fortunes on. And his eyes went to a picture of Manav Chauhan inaugurating the boutique with a bunch of happy women around him.
A girl walked up to Agni and Arya with curiosity writ large upon her face. The two policemen obviously did not look anything like the usual customers the boutique attracted.
‘I am ACP Agni Mitra and this is my colleague Inspector Arya Sen. We would like to meet Ms. Neha Awasthi,’ Agni said.
‘Ma’am has stepped out for a bit. She’ll be back anytime.’
‘May we?’ Agni gestured towards a sofa set.
The girl was visibly alert. ‘Um...yes, sure. Please do have a seat.’
‘I’m Anamika. I manage the store during the day.’ The girl introduced herself.
Agni looked around the store. Pointing towards the woman standing next to Manav in the picture, he asked, ‘That’s Ms. Awasthi?’
‘Oh...I thought you knew her!’ The surprise in her tone bordered on suspicion.
‘I have heard about her, though we’ve never met. And I doubt if she knows me.’ Agni turned around to face her and smiled.
The girl sat opposite Agni. ‘How long have you been working here, Anamika?’
‘Almost a year now, Sir.’
‘Right from the time Panache was launched?’
‘Yes, Sir.’
‘That’s Manav Chauhan, right?’ Agni pointed to the picture.
‘Yes, Sir. He inaugurated our boutique.’ Anamika smiled. ‘Well, it’s his mall!’
‘Of course it is!’ Agni reclined on the sofa. ‘Does he visit the store frequently?’
Anamika hesitated. Agni bent forward, his eyes fixed on her.
‘Well...er, he used to. And then he suddenly stopped coming. I haven’t seen him here for a while.’
‘When was the last time you saw him here?’
Anamika tried to remember.
‘Must be close to four months, Sir.’
‘I see. You do know that, he is in a hospital right now, don’t you?’
‘Oh yes! The news was all over the papers!’
‘You got to know from the papers! Wasn’t the incident discussed in Panache?’ Agni smiled.
Anamika kept looking at the floor. She looked up, was about to say something and held back. She looked restless, unable to make up her mind.
The conversation was interrupted by the sound of heels clicking on the polished floor. Agni turned around to see a stunningly attractive woman walking in. Her hair was tied back in a ponytail and she wore large silver hoops. A fitted purple shirt and clingy black pants accentuated her curves.
Agni and Arya stood up as the woman approached them. Anamika stood nervously at attention.
After the introductions and exchange of pleasantries, Neha Awasthi sat down facing Agni and Arya.
‘Gentlemen, I’m so sorry you had to wait. An urgent meeting came up. With one of my suppliers,’ Neha apologised.
‘I completely understand,’ Agni smiled disarmingly. ‘And I can assure you this won’t take long.’
‘Thanks...it’s a busy day!’ Neha almost warned him.
‘Ms. Awasthi, I understand your family is very close to the Chauhans.’
The Colours of Passion Page 3