The Wedding Photographer

by Sakshama Puri Dhariwal

  And that’s when the feeling of betrayal turned into anger. Blind white fury. By splashing those pictures in the newspaper, Risha had made him look like a fool, but she had also turned Chinky’s wedding into a cheap PR stunt. To the world, it would look like Khanna Developers and Shopcart had tapped into their marketing budgets to release a full-page ad in the newspaper.

  In his rage, Arjun had picked up his coffee mug and hurled it on the floor. The cook had come running out of the kitchen, looking frightened out of his wits. Arjun had mumbled an apology and helped him clear the mess. But unfortunately, the violence didn’t help calm his temper. Because his anger wasn’t directed at Risha for her connivance or cruelty; rather, it was directed at himself for his naiveté and stupidity. And for being duped by a woman, again.

  Arjun’s thoughts drifted to his ex-girlfriend Karishma. Last year, he had pulled some strings to help her snag a shampoo brand endorsement with actor Nasser Khan. In addition to a month-long television campaign, Karishma’s face (and overly Photoshopped hair) had been plastered on every newspaper, magazine and hoarding in town.

  Soon after, she received an offer to do a cameo in a TV serial. Wanting to congratulate her on her success, Arjun had flown to Mumbai to surprise her. But as fate would have it, he was the one in for a surprise. Arjun had walked into her hotel room to find her fucking Khan on the couch.

  ‘I’m sorry, baby. I don’t think we should see each other any more,’ she said, and then went right back to what she was doing. The next day, Bombay Times had printed a picture of Karishma and Nasser having dinner at Hakkasan.

  Arjun was probably the only asshole in the world who had his heart broken via a newspaper twice, he thought with self-deprecating humour. The only difference between the two women was that the model had sold her body and the journalist had sold her soul.

  He turned at the soft knock on his door, knowing only one person would dare to disturb his solitude.

  ‘Come in, Annie Aunty.’

  ‘Your sister is on the phone,’ she said laconically.

  ‘I’ll call her back later.’

  ‘Do you still want me to hold your calls?’ she asked.

  Arjun shook his head. ‘Give me five minutes and then send in Saraf,’ he said, referring to the CFO.

  She paused. ‘Do you need anything else?’

  He gestured to the coffee table on the other side of the room. ‘Get rid of all the newspapers.’

  Risha sent another message to Arjun, her seventh since morning. In addition to several texts, she had called him half a dozen times, but hadn’t heard back from him. It was now 7 p.m. and she was, quite frankly, tired of his attitude. She had half a mind to march down to his apartment and confront him. At least he could’ve had the decency to call and cancel their date. How could he blacklist her without even hearing her version? How old was he anyway, ignoring her like that?

  Then she felt a stab of guilt. The indisputable fact of the matter was that it was Risha’s fault. She had left her camera unattended and if the photos had made it to the newspaper, she was the one to blame. And she was willing to take responsibility for her actions, if only he would let her.

  Risha swallowed her pride and typed him an email, having procured his email address from the business editor, Vandana, at the pretext of doing a follow-up on the photo essay.

  ‘I don't think you’ll get much out of him,’ Vandana said. ‘He’s a bit... reticent.’

  ‘I know,’ Risha said with some annoyance.

  ‘You do?’

  ‘I mean, I’ve heard,’ she amended with a smile before making a hasty exit from Vandana’s room.

  She sent Arjun the following email:

  Can we please meet today? Just for a few minutes, so we can talk about this like adults. I know you’re upset, but at least give me an opportunity to explain. Please call me!

  A few minutes later, Risha received the following email from one Annabelle Dias:

  Dear Ms Kohli,

  I am writing to you on behalf of Mr Khanna.

  Your constant communication in the form of phone calls, text messages and emails is badgering, distasteful and bordering on harassment. I request you to cease contact with Mr Khanna immediately or he will be forced to undertake legal action against you.

  We hope to resolve this issue promptly and amicably.

  Sincerely,

  Annabelle Dias

  Assistant to the CEO, Khanna Developers

  Risha had been on the edge the entire day and that email was enough to send her over. She wrote a text to Nidhi:

  Mission SoL Spy is off. Please don’t ask me why. I don’t want to talk about Arjun Khanna ever again. I’m sorry I ever met him.

  Nidhi texted back:

  What happened?

  Risha forwarded the email to Nidhi with a line of her own:

  I mean it, Nidhi. I never want to speak about him. EVER.

  Furious on her friend’s behalf, Nidhi responded:

  I second that. However, it would be nice to drop an email to Nitisha and Rohan.

  Risha agreed with that. She had spent the whole day fretting over Arjun’s reaction, not realizing that the newly married couple was the most affected party in all this. She wrote them a short note explaining about the memory card and apologizing profusely. She assumed complete responsibility for the day’s events, ending the email with the following line:

  I know you have no reason to believe me, but please do. I promise you I had nothing to do with it. I’m truly sorry.

  Nitisha and Rohan were due to leave for their honeymoon in two weeks, but since it was the day after their wedding, Risha knew she probably wouldn’t hear from them for a while. So she was surprised when Rohan’s reply came mere minutes later:

  Risha, we know you didn’t. Lack of privacy is one of the perils of being in the public eye and we must endure it as best as we can. Nitisha says she can’t wait to see the first set of pictures!

  Risha exhaled in relief. It was the first easy breath she had taken since the morning.

  Scandal Day 5

  4.13 a.m.

  Arjun awoke with a start.

  He glanced at the digital clock on his nightstand. As usual, he had beaten his alarm. He wondered how he had ever managed to oversleep the morning of the wedding. And then he remembered.

  Risha.

  He remembered the way she felt wrapped in his arms. He remembered nestling his chin in the nook of her neck. He remembered the way she smelled, like frangipanis on a rainy afternoon. He remembered her bright hazel eyes, glittering with laughter at something he had said. And then he remembered the garish photo collage in the newspaper.

  Arjun threw back his comforter and sat up in bed. Trying to ignore the throbbing in his head, he grabbed his phone to look through his emails. The interior designer had sent him the proposed design of the model apartment for the new building. As he waited for the image to download, he skimmed through his inbox, but found nothing of consequence. Then again, he had only checked his email three hours earlier.

  While searching for the downloaded photo in his phone, Arjun spotted the selfie of Risha and himself, and his hold on his phone tightened.

  How could anyone who looked so innocent be so calculating? He stared at her beguiling eyes and seemingly sincere smile, and thought, with a whit of remorse, that perhaps he had jumped the gun with the threat of legal action. Her texts had sounded so ingenuous that he had nearly called her back. Which is the reason he had asked Annie Aunty to draft an official-sounding mail. He had almost hoped that Risha would call his bluff, but the phone calls and texts had stopped immediately.

  He tossed his phone on the bed and got ready for his run. Instead of the usual runners’ track in his building, Arjun stepped out on to Golf Course Road. Maybe the few extra kilometres would help subside the pounding in his head.

  And the ache in his chest.

  ‘Hello?’ Risha answered her desk phone.

  ‘Madam, there is someone here to meet you,’ sa
id the security guard from the reception.

  Risha frowned. ‘I don’t have any appointments. Who is it?’

  ‘I don’t know, madam. He has a delivery and he said he will only give it to you.’

  Risha’s heart skipped a beat. Maybe it was Arjun. Maybe he had realized her innocence and had come to apologize for jumping to conclusions.

  Risha stood up hurriedly and slammed the phone, drawing a sharp look from Kabir. She threw him an apologetic smile and walked to the reception—hopped, was more like it. She opened the door and saw her nineteen-year-old cousin, Bobby.

  ‘Hi, Bobby,’ she said, surprised. What was he doing here? Were Chachi and Chacha okay?

  ‘Hi, Didi!’ he said with a bright smile.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ she asked and then, trying to conceal her disappointment that he wasn’t Arjun, added cheerily, ‘It’s so good to see you!’

  ‘Likewise, Didi. Actually, your dad sent me this courier and asked me to hand-deliver it, since you didn’t receive the last few packages he sent you,’ Bobby explained.

  Risha remembered saying that to her father the last time he had asked her opinion on so-and-so boy as a potential husband.

  ‘You came all the way from North Campus to Connaught Place for this?’ Risha asked, feeling terribly guilty for the inconvenience her little white lie had caused him. Her parents were going to get an earful for this.

  Bobby shook his head. ‘No, no, I take MBA coaching classes across the street, so I thought I would drop it off before class.’

  ‘Oh, thanks, Bobby. And sorry for the trouble.’

  ‘No formalities, Didi. Ghar ki baat hai[65],’ Bobby assured her.

  Even though Risha knew it was a casually uttered platitude, his choice of words suddenly made her very homesick. Wanting to extend her meeting with her cousin, she asked, ‘Do you want to come in for some chai?’

  ‘I can’t, I’m late for class. But next time, pakka[66]!’ Bobby promised with a grin.

  Risha gave him a quick hug and thanked him again before waving goodbye.

  With a sigh, she opened the envelope, dreading its contents.

  Delhi University Boys’ Hostel courier log

  Sender’s name: Dr A.K. Kohli, Amritsar

  Receiver’s name: Maneesh Kohli, New Delhi

  Date of receipt: Mar 2, 2016

  Time stamp: 3:51 PM

  There was another listing below that, but Risha’s eyes had started burning at the word ‘Patiala’, so she stopped reading. For a split second, she was tempted to email Dr Romeo. Maybe this was her fate, becoming a homely and cultured wife to an energetic doctor. Maybe she should move back to Amritsar, and with it, to a simpler life.

  The hardest decision she ever had to make back in Amritsar was whether to stuff herself with popcorn at Rialto Cinema or gorge on kachoris at Giani Tea Stall. She thought of the time Rishabh had taught her to drive a scooter. She had fallen smack in the middle of the crowded Lawrence Road, badly scraped her knee, and stubbornly refused to cry when her father dressed her wound.

  Suddenly, Risha missed her parents terribly. Her independence felt like loneliness and the space of the proverbial big city made her claustrophobic. She crushed the newspaper clipping in her hand, then feeling guilty because Bobby had made the effort to hand deliver it, straightened it between the palms of her hands and shoved it inside her purse.

  For the rest of the day, Risha threw herself in her work. 11 Foods With the Most Antioxidants. 6 Reasons Power Yoga Trumps Gym. 8 Ways to Fall Asleep Faster.

  When she sent Kabir her third piece, he came by to her desk. ‘Whoa there, slow down, tiger!’

  She looked at him inquiringly.

  ‘I have a strong feeling you’re planning a holiday,’ he said.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because you’re obviously trying to get a head start on work,’ he said, referring to her back-to-back articles.

  ‘You didn’t like them?’ Risha asked.

  ‘Au contraire. It’s some of your best work. But if you have so much time on your hands, why don’t you help with Page 3?’ Kabir suggested.

  Risha smiled sweetly. ‘Thanks, but no thanks.’

  ‘Okay, but stop writing faster than I can read,’ he teased.

  An hour later, Nidhi met Risha at the exit gate of the News Today building and tried to convince her to come over for dinner. ‘We’ll make it quick, I promise,’ Nidhi said, as they walked towards the parking lot.

  Risha shook her head again. ‘I have a ton of work.’

  Nidhi cocked her head. ‘I thought you wrote three pieces today?’

  ‘Photography work,’ Risha clarified.

  ‘The Khanna–Singhal wedding?’

  ‘Yup.’

  ‘Why’s that so urgent?’ Nidhi asked, as they reached her car.

  ‘I want to get the first set of photos across to Nitisha and Rohan before they leave for their honeymoon,’ Risha explained.

  Nidhi frowned. ‘But they don’t leave until next week. Can’t you do it tomorrow?’

  ‘I could, but frankly, I’m quite tired of looking at Arjun Khanna’s face,’ Risha said, forcing a laugh.

  Nidhi caught the pained look in Risha’s eyes before her friend ducked in through the passenger door. ‘So have you received any more entertaining matrimonials from your parents?’

  Risha dug into her purse for the newspaper clipping. ‘This will crack you up, for sure!’

  Nidhi managed to keep a straight face as Risha read out the matrimonial. Or at least until she got to the email ID.

  ‘Dr Romeo?’ Nidhi gasped, through a fit of giggles.

  ‘Careful. That’s my future husband you’re talking about,’ Risha said with a wry smile.

  ‘Maybe it’s an old email address, from when he was a kid,’ Nidhi reasoned.

  ‘Must be, because who the hell still uses Hotmail?’

  Nidhi glanced at the cut-out in Risha’s hand. ‘What about the second one?’

  ‘A tissue paper magnate,’ Risha answered, skimming through the listing.

  ‘What’s wrong with him?’ Nidhi asked.

  ‘Nothing.’

  Except that he didn’t make her laugh. Or bring her desserts. Or make the world stop spinning on its axis every time he touched her.

  ‘Maybe you should meet this tissue paper guy,’ Nidhi suggested.

  ‘Yes, because if I married him, we could use our unlimited supply of paper products to toilet-paper Sukhi’s cabin. What say?’ Risha grinned.

  Nidhi casually flicked the clipping from Risha’s hand and tossed it into the car’s cup holder. ‘And we could blame it on Kabir!’

  That made Risha laugh.

  Four hours and three hundred photos later, Risha began to see the merits of meeting a new guy. She touched her hand to her laptop screen and could almost feel Arjun’s scruffy jaw under her fingertips. Maybe this wouldn’t be so hard if he wasn’t so outrageously handsome, she thought with grim humour.

  She was such an idiot! How could she be with a guy who had cast her aside over a stupid misunderstanding, without so much as giving her an opportunity to explain? Not that he wanted to be with her.

  A tear rolled down Risha’s cheek. Maybe having the tissue paper guy around wasn’t such a bad idea.

  Scandal Day 9

  7.23 p.m.

  Arjun walked into his apartment and found his sister and brother-in-law lounging on his couch, a stack of papers in their hands.

  ‘Hey, guys,’ he said, smiling his first genuine smile in a week.

  Observing his four-day old stubble and dishevelled hair, Nitisha said, ‘You look like crap.’

  ‘Nice to see you too, Chinky,’ Arjun said dryly.

  ‘Just saying.’ She shrugged.

  Rohan got up to shake his hand. ‘Dude, I get the whole unshaven look, but what’s with the hair?’

  ‘I fell asleep in the car,’ Arjun explained.

  ‘Not while driving, I hope,’ Rohan joked.

  Arjun shook his
head. ‘Driver.’

  ‘I thought you hate being “driven around like a child”,’ Nitisha said, biting into an apple.

  ‘I haven’t been sleeping much at night, so I asked to borrow Dad’s driver,’ Arjun said.

  Nitisha and Rohan exchanged a look.

  ‘The office is ten minutes from here. Are you telling me you’ve only been getting two ten-minute naps a day?’ Nitisha asked, her face filled with worry.

  ‘Did you guys break into my apartment to lecture me on sleep?’ Arjun snapped.

  ‘Nitisha wanted to show you the wedding photos,’ Rohan said. ‘And we didn’t break in, we used the all-access key card.’

  Arjun tossed his laptop bag on a chair, flopped on to the chaise of his sectional sofa and stretched his legs. Nitisha handed him a large sheet of photo paper, containing a dozen thumbnails arranged neatly next to each other. The three of them pored over the photos for a few minutes, making jokes about the SoL clan’s poses and Pinku’s dense chest hair, until Nitisha pointed to one particular photo. ‘This one is my favourite.’

  The photo was of Nitisha seated on the couch in the bridal suite on the morning of her choora. There was a large mirror on the wall behind her and it reflected the happy expressions of her entire family.

  ‘Yes, it’s a good one,’ Arjun agreed.

  ‘Really good,’ Nitisha said, meaningfully. ‘Have you seen it properly?’

  Arjun narrowed his eyes and studied the photo carefully. He was about to ask her what she was talking about when he spotted something. On the right corner of the mirror, crouched on the floor, her face half hidden by her camera, was Risha.