‘Anu, I love you,’ Pitajee said, as Anu’s eyes dutifully brimmed with tears. Pitajee clutched her hands with all his might. ‘I would have died had you married Saumen. I would have died!’
‘I love you too! I love you too!’ yelped Anu, and threw her arms around Pitajee.
‘Oh, pumpkin!’ said Pitajee.
‘Cupcake!’ murmured Anu and I almost threw up. I had forgotten how disgusting those two could be.
‘Guys!’ I tried again, mercilessly separating them. ‘Look!’ I pointed towards a crowd that was now running out of the wedding grounds towards us. Ahya, having kicked off her golden heels, was leading the pack. One look at her set face and I knew I would soon be running the fastest I have ever run. ‘We need to run!’ I said, with all the wisdom I could muster.
‘I agree,’ said Pitajee, ‘but one moment.’ And with that, under Anu’s beatific smile, Pitajee went down on one knee.
‘Will you marry me, darling?’ he murmured dreamily.
Did these guys not know that we were running away from a wedding? From Anu’s wedding?
‘Yes, she will,’ I barged in hurriedly.
‘Yes, I will,’ said Anu.
‘Now give her the ring,’ I said to Pitajee, who turned to look blankly at me.
This man!
I yanked my own engagement ring off my finger. ‘Here! Use mine!’ I said, thrusting it in Pitajee’s hands.
‘Now you wear it! Quick!’ I hissed and literally put the ring around Anu’s finger and began to run towards the car.
A sardarji walking past us poked his wife and pointed at the three of us – Pitajee in the centre, flanked on either side by Anu and me, running towards the car with a small mob chasing after us.
‘Oye teri,’ I heard the sardarji exclaim in awe. ‘I have heard of one man running away with one girl. But look at this man! He is running away with two brides!’
I stopped running only when we had reached the car. Pitajee took to the wheel and I sat next to him, pushing Anu into the backseat. Adrenaline pumped through the car as Pitajee now took control of the situation and pushed the accelerator hard.
‘Kas,’ came a small voice from behind me a few minutes later.
‘Yes?’
‘You put a ring on my finger,’ Anu said. ‘I hate to break it to you, but I think we are engaged.’
I slumped into the seat laughing, weak with relief, and Pitajee joined in. There was just one thought in my mind. Anu and Pitajee would be together now. With my faith in love and destiny restored, I yelled at Pitajee to drive more carefully.
41
Indira Gandhi International Airport, Delhi, 16 December 2013.
‘Be good, Kasturi Shukla Dixit!’ said Vikram, winking at me.
The million bangles on my hands jingled happily, as Purva and I bid our final farewells to all the people who had piled into the four available cars to drop us off at the airport. I absently fingered the watch on my wrist, Purva’s dad’s watch, the watch I had not taken off since the day Purva had gifted it to me. With one swoosh of my heavy Kanjivaram sari, I turned around to make my way to the check-in desk. Pushing our humungous suitcase with ease, Purva put an arm lightly around my waist. Just the two of us now.
‘Cannot wait to get on that flight to Brazil,’ he said lazily. ‘It has been so crazy, these last few days.’
Oh, yes. Crazy it had been.
The night of the wedding, worthy of a full-fledged three-hour Bollywood movie, now flashed before my eyes. The mad car-ride across Delhi, rushing to my wedding just as Mum and Anju Aunty … err … I mean Mummy … were about to throw screaming fits, given that they had just realized that the dulhan was absconding, their horrified faces when they saw that there were more brides than expected.
‘When He gives, He gives with an open hand,’ said Purva’s naniji on seeing two brides in place of the one that was missing.
Pitajee’s parents had been pulled out from the crowd. Pitajee quickly told them the whole story and asked for their blessing. Too shocked to say anything else to their son who stood next to the girl he loved, pleading with them, they had nodded their approvals. I felt for them. I did. They had, after all, only come to attend a wedding, not take home a daughter-in-law.
Purva, barking at the panditji, had insisted that the sindoor ceremony and pheras be done right away.
The Goswamis had finally barged in, threatening to call the police. Which was ironic, since twenty policemen had accompanied them anyway.
Anu, sitting next to a horrified and clueless panditji, had had a hysterical meltdown, wedding lehenga and all.
Ahya had had the grace – at least momentarily – to look shameful at what she had done, but later had asked the police to arrest Pitajee, which had Pitajee and me very scared for a minute.
Anu had got to her feet in sheer anger and screamed at the top of her lungs, quite like a banshee, ‘I am an adult! No law in this country can stop me from marrying the man I love!’
In the end, it was glorious Paddy who came to the rescue. Clad in my yellow sari, she drew herself to her full height and said, ‘Here, my boyfriend, Tiger, works for News of India. And boy, would the media lap up a story about a lying parent who also happens to be an esteemed IAS officer! Tiger does what he’s told, what do you want me to tell Tiger to do? Pretend this never happened? Or go tell the world about it?’
Stunned silence met these profound words. I almost clapped with delight when Padma finished. That girl is worth her weight in gold.
‘Thanks, Paddy,’ I said to her.
‘I owed you one, Kas,’ she said, flicking her bangs.
Mum and Dad had performed Anu’s kanyadaan when her parents stoutly refused to. Worth their weight in gold too, Mum and Dad.
I had spent the last few weeks imagining a very emotional scene of my vidai. My vermillion-smeared forehead covered in a pallu, tears flowing unabated, family and friends queuing up for that hug, a sad song playing in the background.
Well … none of that happened. The four sets of parents were all too dazed to react. Purva, Pitajee, Anu and I squeezed ourselves into one car and we dropped Anu and Pitajee off at their place first, before heading to Purva’s house.
An overwhelmed Pitajee had mumbled, ‘Thanks guys, I … I … I love you!’ as he’d got out of the car, looking away, a tad uncomfortable.
‘Just return the ring when you feel like it,’ said Purva, and everyone had laughed and huddled for one last hug before the most eventful night of our lives came to an end.
The guests at my wedding went back very content, to say the least. They had come to see one wedding and had seen two, plus some drama and some more drama. One aunt, who had gifted me a pair of gold earrings, came afterwards with a gold pendant. ‘After all, itna maza aya,’ she said, earnestly.
The next few days are now a blur.
Pitajee’s mother, who has always been very fond of Anu, has taken to referring to her new daughter-in-law as the ‘return-gift from Kasturi’s wedding’.
Anu, obviously, now has a very complicated relationship with her parents. Both parties think they are victims. My mother told Anu that she and Pitajee need to have a baby as soon as possible. ‘Babies,’ she said, looking pointedly at me, ‘are so dear to grandparents, after all.’
I had been married for four days then.
By the end of this month, Pitajee’s family will be hosting a proper reception for the wedding. We are all hopeful that Anu’s parents will attend the function, though I have my doubts.
Mum, obviously, posted details of the wedding on ‘Pearls of Wisdom’. There are three posts dedicated to how Pimple helped her best friend run away from her wedding and, in the process, united true love. To be honest, I come across as quite the hero and have therefore shared links to the post with everyone. In a matter of days, the number of followers of the blog ballooned to 3988, as some small websites picked up on the series and people began to share it on Facebook. Last I heard, a local newspaper was going to cover Mum’s
stellar rise to cyber stardom through a three-part interview. Mum is already talking about writing her first book, which will be titled Pearls of Wisdom.
Dad is doing fine, thank you. The surgery and the trauma of it all are past us and we have collectively decided to move beyond it.
Anu and Pitajee. Purva and I. It’s funny how our lives are now entwined in one fabulous, dramatic, Bollywood-esque story that we will probably never tire of discussing. Not only do we share the same wedding date, but also the wedding venue, panditji, puja samagri and, lo and behold, engagement ring as well!
‘What are you thinking, Kas?’ asked Purva, bringing me out of the past.
‘Nothing,’ I said smiling. ‘Ready?’
‘Yes,’ he said.
The honeymoon had been paid for by Purva, but planned entirely by me. There have been … errr … let’s just say, some changes. I felt a little nervous as we made our way to the check-in desk.
‘Flight BA 345 to Brazil, please,’ said Purva, blindly handing to the lady behind the desk the tickets I had just passed on to him.
The lady looked confused.
‘No…’ I said. ‘These are for the US.’
‘The US?’ asked Purva, looking in bewilderment first at me, then at the lady.
I nodded my head. ‘We stop first at Disneyland and then head to Brazil,’ I said, smiling. ‘It’s high time you got to do that trip.’
Purva stared at the tickets in his hand, then at the lady at the desk and then at me. And before I knew it, my brand new, anti-PDA husband had lifted me off the ground in a fierce hug.
‘I love you, Kasturi Shukla!’ he said.
‘Let me down,’ I squealed, kicking my feet with delight.
‘These newly-weds!’ murmured the lady at the desk, pretending to be exasperated but unable to hide her smile.
Acknowledgements
I have to, just have to, acknowledge it. ‘It’ is probably destiny or a super-power that we cannot quite understand or God or sheer will or hard work or maybe it is just chance. Whatever ‘it’ is, a heartfelt thank you.
Thank you, Siddharth Vajpayee, for putting up with a wife who dabbles in far too many things for anyone’s good. I love you.
Thank you, Rachana Misra (who is, thankfully, not at all like Kasturi’s Mum) and Nisha Kant Misra (who is, thankfully, a lot like Kasturi’s Dad), for collectively being my shrinks, my wise saints, my best friends, my comfort blankets.
Thank you, Amita Bajpayee and air vice-marshal (retd.) Shyam Bihari Bajpayee, AVSM, for your love and support.
Thank you, Diva Kant Misra and Neharika Neeraj Kalra. What would Kasturi not give to have a brother and sister-in-law like you?
Thank you, Nikhil Agarwal, for reading everything I write and for being the creative genius behind the names of both my books.
Thank you, Alan Cartwright, for your invaluable inputs on my manuscripts, published and unpublished.
Thank you, Neelini Sarkar, Manasi Subramaniam, Ramona Sen and the rest of the team at HarperCollins, for all the hard work you have put into this book. It has been such a delight to work with you.
And finally, to the readers of The (In)eligible Bachelors, thank you for your kind words of encouragement. It has been an incredible journey thus far because of you. I hope I have done justice to Kasturi, Purva, Pitajee and Anu in I Do! Do I?
About the Book
Kasturi Shukla is all set to marry the man of her dreams. Time to stop doing silly things and start living happily ever after, right? Well, maybe someone should tell Kasturi that.
This irrepressibly irreverent and not-quite-beaming bride-to-be fumbles through a messy engagement and, in a moment of indecision, steps across a line that she should never have been near. To make things worse, her best friends are now nauseatingly mushy star-crossed lovers, her future mother-in-law thinks the kitchen-phobic Kasturi is a fabulous cook, her colleague Padma hates her for no reason, her boss wants medical intervention for her imaginary deafness and her mother has become a cyber celebrity. This was not the way things were meant to go.
Smart, hilarious and utterly unpredictable, Can This Be Love? will have you at the edge of your seat – unless you’ve already fallen off laughing.
About the Author
Ruchita is a three-time gold medallist from the Indian Institute of Foreign Trade in New Delhi and the author of the bestselling books Second Chance at Love and The (In)eligible Bachelors, for which she was awarded the Awadh Samman in 2012, and, very recently, Someone to Love. She works in London and blogs at smilethesmile.blogspot.com
TALK TO US
Join the conversation on Twitter
http://twitter.com/HarperCollinsIN
Like us on Facebook to find and share posts about our books with your friends
http://www.facebook.com/HarperCollinsIndia
Follow our photo stories on Instagram
http://instagram.com/harpercollinsindia/
Get fun pictures, quotes and more about our books on Tumblr
http://www.tumblr.com/blog/harpercollinsindia
First published as I Do! Do I? in India in 2014 by
HarperCollins Publishers India
This edition published as Can This Be Love? in 2017 by Harlequin
An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers
Copyright © Ruchita Misra 2014, 2017
P-ISBN: 978-93-5264-387-5
Epub Edition © April 2017 978-93-5264-388-2
2 4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3 1
Ruchita Misra asserts the moral right
to be identified as the author of this work.
This is a work of fiction and all characters and incidents described in this book are the product of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under The Copyright Act, 1957. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins Publishers India.
Cover design: Hasnain Waris
Cover image: Shuerstock
www.harpercollins.co.in
HarperCollins Publishers
A-75, Sector 57, Noida, Uttar Pradesh 201301, India
1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF, United Kingdom
Hazelton Lanes, 55 Avenue Road, Suite 2900, Toronto, Ontario M5R 3L2
and 1995 Markham Road, Scarborough, Ontario M1B 5M8, Canada
25 Ryde Road, Pymble, Sydney, NSW 2073, Australia
195 Broadway, New York, NY 10007, USA
Can This Be Love? Page 21