Having oiled her hair, she walked towards the hall to see what Mama was upto. It had been a while since she had relaxed and spent time with her mama–mami. They understood the hours she kept and never nagged for her company. In fact they had been model guardians except the one time Mami had cross questioned her over her plans to meet Rakesh and with good reason, Meenu chuckled to herself. She recalled her first date with Rakesh and wondered what she would do if she was alone with Rakesh in Chutneyed, sitting on his kitchen counter. She would rip off his chef’s whites, kiss him numb and trail her nails over his taut abs, she decided. God, how did he stay in such good shape? Chefs were meant to have tumbling tummies. How many hours did he work out?
‘Where is Mami?’ she asked her mama who was reading the newspaper.
‘Hanumar kovil,’ he replied referring to the temple down the road.
‘How is Varun doing at the University?’
And now Mama truly looked stunned. His niece never bothered to ask. Not that she was ever impolite, but she never seemed to have the time for idle talk wither.
‘Good. He is doing great. Secured a four last semester!’ he said at last.
‘Oh super,’ said Meenakshi not surprised by her brainiac cousin’s perfect GPA.
She sat down on the sofa and picked up her mami’s Sudoku puzzle book to solve when she thought she could feel her uncle’s eyes on her. She looked up from the book.
‘Don’t you have to get to work?’ he asked with barely hidden surprise.
‘No, it’s cool, Mama. It’s Saturday. People come in only by one.’
‘Oh good. Mami is making onion sambhar and potato roast. Eat and go.’
‘Won’t miss it,’ she said smiling back.
What he didn’t realise was that even though his niece looked like a cat stretched out on the sofa, she felt far from relaxed. In fact, Meenakshi was trying to put off her meeting with Rathore as much as possible. As much as she wanted to get over it, she dreaded it. So she hung about the house, buying rusks and nankattais from the vendor who sold them from a steel trunk, read a book and caught a snooze before leaving for work.
Meenakshi had to walk past the sports desk to get to hers but to her relief Rathore was not in his seat. She hated herself for the queasiness she felt in her stomach and chillness at the tip of her fingers. Thankfully, she had work to submerge herself in.
Around four, someone tapped on her shoulder. She turned around to see Rathore, in a black-and-white Bayern Munich jersey and jeans, smile down at her.
‘Hey … how have you been?’ he asked with his arms crossed, even though Meenu knew it sounded awkward.
‘Good. What about you?’ she asked her eyes running over his face which appeared more and more lined and haggard. He had also developed the slightest of paunches. All work and no play, she surmised. Meenu felt the slightest twinge of pity. Jaipur couldn’t have been all fun.
‘Was really busy Minaakshi,’ he said simply. ‘You don’t know what it is to be part of the launch edition’, he added loftily. Did he always talk down? Or had she only begun to notice?
‘Got a couple of offers for a third book you know,’ he said sounding quite flushed and proud now. ‘There were a lot of discussions with a captain – I could tell you his name but then I would have to kill you,’ he added with a wink.
‘Why would you have to kill her?’ asked Ria Mulchandani, who had butted in out of nowhere and looked shocked out of her brains. The intern had come up from the entertainment desk to discuss something with Meenakshi. Probably if her nails matched her lips, thought Meenu uncharitably.
‘Listen, Rathore,’ she said quickly before Ria hijacked her attention, ‘we need to talk’. But Rathore had his gaze fixed on Ria who looked unmissable in her flaming-red cocktail dress, which she had probably thought appropriate for work.
‘Over dinner?’ he turned around and asked realising Meenu was waiting for him to answer.
Meenu wanted to say ‘no’ but precisely at that moment Ria screeched her lungs out.
‘You are Arjuuun Rathore right? Oh God, kaaku raves about you all the time.’
Rathore cocked an eyebrow at Meenakshi, seemingly for an explanation.
‘Bhabiji’s neice,’ Meenu explained pointing at Ria. She then let out a sigh and went to collect her quota of Sodexo coupons that the HR was issuing. Cursing Ria’s poor timing, she strode away. She tried to cool down by reminding herself that she had waited a whole month; what difference did an evening make although she wished she had already broken up with him. But no, time was tick-tocking at an inordinately slow pace.
When she had returned with her coupons, Ria was still flicking her hair, licking her lips and, touching Rathore and he didn’t seem to be in the least discomfited. But just as she took her seat, turning her back to them, Rathore mouthed a sorry and let himself be whisked away by the intern.
Later that evening, the nerves were back. She couldn’t help worry about how the talk would go. Should she get back up? Maybe she could ask Rishi to tail in the distance. But if she was really going to get back up, the five-foot-four-inch Rishi wouldn’t stand a chance against six-foot-plus Rathore. Maybe she should ask Rakesh. Ha! That was an idea worth executing, if she wanted to see one of them dead. Or maimed.
‘Minaakshi,’ a voice bellowed. Meenu started and looked away from her screen to her desk head who sat at the end of the aisle. The greying business desk head beckoned her to him. Meenu was there in a flash. She knew the voice too well to not dilly-dally.
‘Yes, sir,’ she asked slipping into the formality she always adopted while addressing him.
‘What the hell have you typed?’ he demanded shaking the printout.
Meenu leaned in to take a look at her article which had been slashed in red all over. She really did feel back at school. Her desk head literally shoved the print out into her hands.
‘Read what you have written,’ he thundered.
On closer inspection, Meenu saw that her desk head had circled wherever the word SOP appeared.
‘Don’t you know the difference between ESOP and SOP?’ he demanded.
Meenu gulped. She couldn’t remember what the article had been about. She had been very distracted while filing it.
‘Sir, ESOP refers to employee stock options and SOP to standard operating procedures,’ she replied meekly.
‘Then why have you used them interchangeably?’ he bit off. ‘A sexual harassment case has been levied on the owner of one of the biggest hospitality chains in the country. Can’t you get your head around the details?’
Meenu looked stricken. She had never come under fire with the business desk. When she had been allotted the desk, she knew she had been thrown in the deep end and had been meticulous and thorough in all her work. Today notwithstanding.
‘Look here,’ he said pointing at one of the lines. ‘It says, “At the time of hiring the plaintiff, the company had done away with SOP”! Do you know that for a fact, Meenakshi Iyer?’ he asked in his silkiest voice. ‘Or did you mean ESOP – that the company did not offer the plaintiff ESOPs at the time of hiring? Can you even begin to imagine the ramifications of such careless reporting?’
Meenu flushed a sambhar-onion pink.
‘I’m going to rewrite this myself. Mail me the original text,’ he said and waved her off not before grumbling aloud ‘now-let’s-see-her-getting-a-byline-for-this.’
She returned to her seat and waited and watched as the rest of the team put together the page. At quarter to eleven, when the page was released, Meenu heaved a sigh of relief and headed out for a walk. Bang on time, her phone rang. It was Rakesh.
Forcing herself out of her sulk, she said, ‘Helloo…’ sounding too chirpy for her own ears.
‘Hey, how is everything?’ he asked.
‘Not that great,’ she replied.
‘Tell me,’ he asked his voice quietening instantly, ready to do some listening.
‘No, no … nothing much. Just regular work shit,’ replied Meenu. �
�You tell me. Finished service?’
‘Something really odd happened at the kitchen today’, he said.
Meenu was quiet on her end.
‘A lady came to review us in the morning and I was out shopping for some flowers and herbs…’
‘Without me?’ she asked in a mock stricken voice.
‘Cute,’ he said with a laugh, ‘but you mentioned you worked on Saturdays.’
‘Yes, I do,’ Meenu said glumly.
‘So this lady comes by and hates everything we serve. Curses and rants about each and every dish,’ he continued.
‘You should have her meet me. I positively lust for your coffee meringues.’
‘Only them?’ asked Rakesh hoping she would rise to the bait.
‘Rakesh Ramakrishnan,’ she thundered into the phone. ‘Are you forcing me to talk dirty?’
‘Haha! I thought I could,’ he chuckled back.
‘Not yet,’ reminded Meenu although she smiled into the phone – the first time in the day.
‘So listen, na … this lady comes in, orders everything off the menu. That’s how my staff reckoned she was a reviewer. Besides my security at the front door swears that she wore a red and green coloured id card which she took off at the entrance. Aren’t those the colours of The Daily Times?’
‘Yes, they are,’ Meenu agreed, her curiosity awash.
‘Okay … I know everyone can be fussy about their food but apparently, she didn’t like anything on the table and I tasted everything they had served her. It was impeccable,’ declared Rakesh.
‘I just want to know what displeased her so much,’ and he sounded truly exasperated. ‘My staff says she didn’t partake of the dip we had provided to go with the triple cooked vadas, nor pour the consomme over the appetisers nor try our nitrogenised ice creams. She didn’t know the name to any of the techniques that we had used … she just simply pointed to whichever dish she wanted to taste.’
Meenu who had been walking stopped dead in her tracks.
‘One moment,’ she said interrupting him. ‘What did she look like,’ she asked walking quickly towards the entrance of her office and past the various aisles.
‘The staff say she was wearing a bright red dress and had light brown hair.’
‘Uh-oh’
‘Why “uh-oh”?’ he asked.
‘I think I know who you are talking about.’ Her eyes were scanning Pinky’s desk.
‘Who?’
‘Ria Mulchandani – she is an intern.’
‘What? You guys sent an intern to review my restaurant?’ he asked, his voice rising.
‘Only because the in-house reviewer was sick…’
‘Oh, come on! My restaurant’s reputation is at stake!’ he said not letting her finish.
‘…and because she is the owner’s wife’s niece…’ Meenu said quietly.
‘What?’
‘Bhabhiji’s niece,’ she elaborated, knowing the connection would mean nothing to Rakesh. But actually, unknown to her it did. She was the woman whose karva chauth party he had refused to cater.
‘Hello, gorgeous,’ said a voice behind her just then. Meenu hadn’t heard him coming with the phone at her ear.
‘Who’s that,’ asked Rakesh, alert now.
Meenu couldn’t get herself to say ‘the creep’.
‘Let me call you back,’ she said instead.
‘No need,’ he said in clipped tones and hung up.
Today wasn’t going well. At all.
18
Strains of M.S. Subbulakshmi rendering ‘Bhaja Govindam’ floated its way into Meenu’s waking senses. She pulled the blanket over her head with a scowl, her wrist burning as it made contact with her forehead. She sat up slowly, wincing in pain. Fantastic. Fever and a headache in progress. Not surprising, she thought, considering last night’s events.
Last night, the dashing Arjun Rathore had called her a bitch the moment she had said she wanted to break up. They had headed out to his car in the parking lot after their respective pages had been released. He had just about buckled his seatbelt when she had faced him and blurted out what she had been waiting to say for over a month.
At first his face had looked inscrutable, shocked even. And then his left hand had come forward and gripped the gear stick. For a moment, Meenu had thought he was about to strike her. He then moved his other hand to the control panel and released the central lock. She opened her door, ready to run for her life but turned around instead to say one final sorry. His lips had curled into a low hiss and mouthed ‘bloody bitch’ in return. Come to think of it, the break up hadn’t been all that messy. Then why in the name of MS (who was still on stanza one) was she feeling out of sorts? And then it hit her like a jamun-ice gola on a Jaisalmer summer.
When Rathore had crept up behind her and addressed her as gorgeous, she had still been on the phone with Rakesh. To a guy on the other end of the line, it would have sounded fairly intimate and raised hackles, especially if one was going out with him. He had probably concluded that she was still going out with the creep! How was she to make him believe otherwise?
Goosepimples rose on her wrist as she recalled the harshness with which Rakesh had cut the call. No, she wasn’t going to sit back and let him be mad at her not when she had finally broken up with Rathore. She would explain to him why it had taken her so long. He would understand, wouldn’t he, she thought nervously remembering how ballistic he had sounded when he had come to know that an intern had been sent to review his restaurant. The review!
She rushed to the entrance door to pick up the newspaper and then remembered Mama didn’t subscribe to The Daily Times. Grabbing her purse and still in her house chappals, she ran down the flight of stairs to the all-in-one shop opposite the apartment that sold hair oil, newspapers and cigarettes – everything one needed first thing in the morning and didn’t really think of stocking up the previous night.
Meenu bought a copy and pulled out the supplement and flipped through the inside pages. The weekend edition was always thicker with the editor’s pick on movies, restaurants, crossword grids and there it was – a review of Chutneyed! What usually went as a two column had now gone as a four column with picture and at least 500 words! Meenu walked back in a daze, the scathing review hitting her flat in the stomach. When she returned to her balcony, she bolted the sliding door and sat down on her diwan. She scarcely dared to breathe as she tried his number. He didn’t pick up.
Not bothering to shower, she brushed her teeth, donned some clothes and took an auto to Chembur. At the restaurant, she waited a good forty five minutes, hoping to catch him walk out of his kitchen door. It looked like one of those days he had locked himself in with his staff. She couldn’t walk in, not a second time! Was there a remote possibility he hadn’t come down yet? Looking down at her watch, it seemed not.
Meenu got up from her seat reluctantly and exited the restaurant. She then walked around Chutneyed and up the stairs on its side. Just as she was about to ring the bell, the door opened and a radiant Usha Ramakrishnan in a mango yellow Kanchivaram emerged, delighted but shocked to see her. The lady appeared warm as ever which made Meenu wonder if she hadn’t read the review yet. Maybe she didn’t subscribe to The Daily Times just like her mama–mami.
Mrs Usha Ramakrishnan on her part had been puzzled by the girl’s appearance who looked very near crying. Had she and her son fought? Yes, yes, she had worked it out that the two had been seeing each other. What with the girl appearing out of nowhere, and Rakesh nodding off mid conversations to type furiously into his phone and wait for a reply that would light up his face, she had long concluded that something was brewing between the two. There had also been that late night movie date that Rakesh had insisted she keep with her friends (only to return home later than her) and one early morning he had jumped out of bed and whistled all the way down the stairs to go buy some flowers. Never had the boy shown such eagerness to buy a bunch of flowers. The two had gravitated towards each other on their own, so Usha Ram
akrishnan had decided she would do nothing to disrupt the momentum.
‘Shall I tell Rakesh you are here?’ she now asked softly.
‘Is he home, aunty?’ Meenu asked looking up hopefully.
‘No, he’s at the restaurant,’ she replied.
‘Then I’ll just go and wait down again,’ Meenu murmured, her face downcast. So Rakesh was in the kitchen. He just didn’t want to meet her.
‘What do you want Meenu?’ he asked in a quiet voice. Meenu looked up to see a tired, lined, unshaven face. She felt unreasonably upset to see him this way. If they had had a little bit more privacy, she would have burst out into hot, wet tears. But they didn’t and Rakesh kept standing refusing in his own way to join her.
‘I am sorry about the review Rakesh,’ she said meeting his gaze with her large brown eyes that looked as hurt as she sounded. Her voice wobbled over the next few lines. ‘I checked with the desk which did it. They usually don’t send interns and even if they do, do not carry the review. But the official reviewer has been sick for a while and the reviewer who came yesterday happens to be the owner’s niece.’
‘The owner’s wife’s, you said,’ he said.
‘Yes, the owner’s wife’s,’ she said, nodding quietly.
‘Not surprising,’ he said rubbing his chin.
‘What do you mean?’ asked Meenu, surprised.
‘I had turned her down once.’
‘Who? Ria – the reviewer?’
‘No, I meant I had turned down her aunt’s request once.’
‘To do what?’ she demanded.
And with a sigh, Rakesh pulled out a chair and sat down.
‘The day of your office party, your owner’s wife had asked me to do her karva chauth party.’
‘And you refused?’
‘You sound scandalized,’ he said with the slightest twinge of irritation. ‘He’s your boss. Not mine, Meenaksi. I don’t feel intimidated by him or his wife for that matter.’
After the Storm Page 11