The Wedding Photographer

by Sakshama Puri Dhariwal

  Arjun dropped the photograph like it was on fire and stood up abruptly. ‘I think I’ve seen enough.’

  ‘Bhai, have you spoken to Risha?’ Nitisha asked softly.

  ‘I’m not interested in speaking to lying, conniving con artists,’ he bit out.

  Nitisha shook her head. ‘She’s not a liar. Risha had nothing—’

  ‘I don’t want to talk about this,’ Arjun said tersely.

  ‘But you don’t understand. Her memory card—’

  ‘That’s enough, Nitisha!’ Arjun roared.

  Nitisha pressed back into the sofa, aghast. She had never seen her brother so angry.

  A few moments later, Rohan stood up and put a hand on Arjun’s shoulder. ‘I think you owe your sister an apology,’ he said in a quiet voice.

  Arjun took a deep breath. ‘I’m sorry, Chinky. I shouldn’t have raised my voice.’

  Nitisha shook her head. ‘It’s okay, Bhai. I just hate seeing you like... this.’

  ‘I promise I’ll shave,’ he teased.

  She gave him a small smile, but it didn’t reach her eyes. ‘I’m going down to say hi to Mom and Dad. Rohan, do you want to come?’

  Rohan nodded. ‘Go on. I’ll be there in a few minutes.’

  After she left, Rohan turned to Arjun with a speculative look. ‘Drink?’

  Arjun shook his head. Then he nodded.

  Ignoring his ambivalent response, Rohan poured two large whiskies and brought them over to the coffee table. They sipped their drinks in comfortable silence for several minutes, until Rohan finally spoke. ‘What’s going on, man?’

  Arjun stared at the bottom of his glass. ‘Work stuff.’

  The deep lines of fatigue on Arjun’s face and the lost look in his eyes made it obvious to Rohan that there was more on his brother-in-law’s mind than just ‘work stuff’. So Rohan decided not to beat around the bush. ‘She didn’t do it.’

  Arjun didn’t pretend not to understand. ‘Then who did?’

  ‘I don’t know, but I’m positive it wasn’t Risha.’

  The conviction in Rohan’s voice took Arjun by surprise. ‘What makes you so sure?’

  ‘Because she told me.’

  ‘And that’s enough?’

  ‘When you choose to trust somebody, you can’t have conditions. You need to trust them completely, no questions asked.’

  Arjun gave a mirthless laugh. ‘Are you sure it’s not just because she’s a friend of Vikram’s?’

  ‘Are you sure you want to let her go over a small misunderstanding?’ Rohan asked.

  Arjun’s jaw hardened. ‘Even if she didn’t do it, it doesn’t matter. She’s just a wedding photographer.’

  ‘That’s true. Just a wedding photographer. Not someone worth losing sleep over.’

  Arjun shot him a look.

  ‘Look, man,’ Rohan began, ‘if you want an out, you have it. But if you genuinely like this girl, you need to let her in.’

  ‘I don’t love her!’ Arjun said fiercely.

  Rohan smiled. He hadn’t used the word ‘love’. ‘Of course, you don’t.’

  Arjun chugged the rest of his drink and Rohan took that as his cue to leave.

  ‘Time for a meet-and-greet with the in-laws,’ Rohan said, standing up.

  Arjun gave him a grim smile and walked him to the elevator. ‘Take care, man.’

  ‘You, too. Sleep well.’

  If only, Arjun thought. If only.

  Scandal Day 10

  9.09 a.m.

  Arjun washed down the last of his breakfast with his coffee and stood up. He folded the newspaper into a quarter and tossed it on the dining table, before slipping into his jacket. As he walked over to the living room to pick up his laptop, the collage of photos on the coffee table caught his eye. Having missed the cricket match, he picked up the sheet containing photos of the event. One image in particular caught his attention—a picture of Team Bride in a huddle.

  The team members included his father, two of his golf buddies (a high court judge and the CEO of the largest bank in the country), Pinku and Minku, Annie Aunty’s husband, Khanna Heights’ property manager, Shankar the driver, and even Asif, the gardener’s son. They seemed to be in the midst of an intense team strategy discussion and were oblivious to being photographed.

  In fact, Arjun wondered how Risha had taken the shot without being noticed. She had probably crouched on the field, snuck her hand through one of the gaps between the players’ legs and pointed the camera upwards to take the picture. He felt a reluctant flicker of respect for Risha. Irrespective of what had transpired between them, he couldn’t help but admire her commitment to her craft.

  ‘The party was still on and I didn’t want to miss another Tetris face-off,’ she had told him at four in the morning.

  ‘I don’t know how long Priye Ma will be, is it okay if Rishabh comes up and waits here for a bit?’ she had requested Nitisha the night of the mehndi.

  ‘I can’t drink, I’m working,’ she had said on several occasions.

  Arjun remembered Rohan’s first impression of her. ‘She was so forthcoming about being a novice. She could have concealed her inexperience; instead she volunteered the truth.’

  A strange feeling gnawed at Arjun. All those did not sound like the words of a liar. His thoughts were interrupted by a call from his CFO, Naina Saraf. ‘What’s up, Saraf?’

  ‘Have you seen the fucking Economic Times?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes,’ he answered, ignoring the profanity. Saraf didn’t mean disrespect, that was just how she talked. The newspaper had done a piece on how the delay in sand supplies would affect various real estate projects in NCR.

  ‘It’s only a matter of time before they pick up on the bloody strike. This is not looking good for our bottom line, Arjun,’ she said. ‘We have another meeting scheduled with Yadav and his team today; we need to fix this shit show.’

  ‘I think,’ Arjun said, formulating his thoughts as he spoke, ‘I have an idea to fix it.’

  ‘Better be the best goddamn idea you’ve ever had,’ Saraf said.

  Arjun relayed his plan to her and she was shocked. ‘You’re not fucking serious?’

  ‘As a heart attack. I’ll be at the office in fifteen minutes, let’s talk about it then,’ he said, hanging up the phone.

  Then he sent a text to Rohan:

  I need Vikram’s number.

  Scandal Day 11

  2.01 a.m.

  Risha answered her phone without looking at the screen. ‘Yes, Rishabh? How may I be of service to you at this unearthly hour?’

  ‘Hi, Kohli! Were you asleep?’

  ‘Of course, not. Who in their right mind is asleep at two in the morning?’ she said, feigning astonishment.

  ‘Achha[67], I’m coming up. Open the door,’ he whispered.

  ‘What! Are you serious? How did you get past Tyagiji?’ she asked, flying out of bed to unlock the door.

  ‘I didn’t have to. He's asleep!’ her friend said, hugging her as he entered the apartment.

  ‘Huh?’ Risha said, intrigued by this new development.

  ‘I did spot an empty quarter of Royal Challenge at his window, maybe that had something to do with it,’ Rishabh guessed, making a mental note to bring the unrelenting guard a full bottle of the whisky next time.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ she asked.

  ‘I need some advice,’ he said, flopping on the leather bean bag, causing it to make a ‘poof’ sound.

  ‘Advice that clearly could not wait till the morning.’

  ‘Were you sleeping?’ he challenged.

  Actually, she’d been lying in bed for two hours staring at the ceiling.

  ‘I was about to,’ she evaded, sprawling next to him on the floor. ‘Besides, since when do you take advice from me?’

  ‘I’ve been offered a movie!’

  ‘No way!’ she said, her face lighting up with excitement.

  ‘I was at Chateau when this really hot man—fifty-something, salt-and-pepper h
air—comes up to me and asks if I want to be in a movie—’

  ‘Who’s the director? Who are the other actors? What’s the story? When will—’

  ‘Let me finish, woman! Naturally, I asked him all these questions and he said he’d love to share all the details over dinner tomorrow night at the Leela Hotel, which is incidentally where he’s staying. So I—’

  ‘So you want to know whether or not you should go?’ she pre-empted.

  ‘Of course I’m going, Kohli! I want to know what I should wear,’ he finished.

  ‘Please tell me you’re joking,’ she said.

  ‘About what?’ he asked.

  ‘About going! Are you insane? Didn’t you read the NT exposé about old men luring young models to their five-star hotel rooms with promises of advertising campaigns and big banner films? It’s obviously a set-up!’

  Rishabh shrugged. ‘I know.’

  His words chilled her to the bone.

  ‘You can’t be serious,’ Risha rasped.

  He looked up at her and the dejection in his eyes filled her with sympathy. She let the silence in the room linger before speaking in a calming voice. ‘Rishabh, you’re better than this. I know you’ve been struggling for a long time, but the hard work will pay off. I believe in you and you need to believe in yourself, too.’

  He sighed. ‘It’s just so hard sometimes, Kohli. When the world keeps telling you that you’re mediocre long enough, you start believing it.’

  ‘You’re not mediocre. You just did a campaign for Delhi’s largest fashion retailer!’ she argued.

  ‘But I want to do a movie. And it’s not like all the other models are so clean! Everyone is—’

  ‘I don’t care if every single model in the country is sleeping around to get roles. You don’t have to do it.’

  ‘I know, but a lot of people are doing it, and it seems to be working really well for them. So maybe...’

  ‘Look,’ Risha said gently, ‘if you want me to say it’s okay, I’m not going to. And I think that’s the reason you came here at this hour—because you knew I would tell you it’s not okay. You will succeed on your own merit and you don’t have to stoop to doing stuff like this.’

  He buried his face in his hands and groaned. ‘I thought I was going to be a movie star.’

  Rishabh was the closest thing Risha had to a sibling and seeing his slumped shoulders and despondent look broke her heart. She put her arms around him. ‘You will be, someday. Just not tomorrow.’

  He nodded. ‘I can’t believe I almost got roofied.’

  Risha choked. ‘Rishabh!’ she admonished.

  ‘No, seriously, Kohli. Imagine if you hadn’t answered the phone or if you’d been asleep,’ he said, looking horrified. ‘What if I’d gone to meet that guy and—’

  ‘But I did answer my phone, I wasn’t asleep, and you’re not going to meet him,’ she said, taking his hand to put a stop to his wild imaginings.

  He nodded and squeezed her hand.

  ‘Look at us,’ Risha sighed after a few minutes of silence. ‘A couple of losers, wide awake at two in the morning, prophesying about what might have been.’

  Rishabh looked up suddenly. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Nothing,’ she said, standing up. ‘Do you want chai?’

  He watched her carefully guarded expression. ‘Sure.’

  She grabbed a pot from a shelf in the kitchen and filled it with water.

  ‘By the way,’ Rishabh began casually, ‘why were you awake so late? I hope you’re not fretting over Arjun Khanna’s “latest conquest”?’

  Risha dropped the tin of tea leaves on the counter, causing a loud clatter.

  Oh, so that was on her mind.

  ‘Don’t believe everything you read on Page 3, Kohli.’

  ‘I don’t,’ Risha said. ‘He’s not seeing that girl. And even if he is, it doesn’t make a difference to me.’

  ‘Yes, she doesn’t seem like the type of girl he—OHMYGOD! I totally forgot!’ Rishabh exclaimed, leaping off the bean bag and practically sprinting to the kitchen. He whipped out his phone and started skimming through his Facebook photos. ‘You’ll never guess what I found the other day? I was looking at last year’s Gladrags after-party pictures—remember that guy, whatsisname, had taken them? What was his name? Something like Sandeep or Sanjeev or something...’

  Grateful for the change in subject and for the therapeutic sound of her friend’s rambling, Risha brewed the tea with perfunctory accuracy. She tuned out his struggle to remember ‘that guy’s’ name, and was nodding absently until Rishabh said, ‘And that’s when I figured out where I’d heard the name Arjun Khanna before!’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Don't you listen to anything I say? The photo,’ he said pointing to his phone. ‘Sanjay had introduced us, but it was just like a quick hi-hello. I remember Arjun wasn’t the talkative type and mostly kept to himself, but Karishma kept flaunting him the whole night. Arjun Khanna this and Arjun Khanna that,’ he said, gesticulating dramatically. ‘She must’ve said his name at least a million times!’

  Risha took the phone from his hand and peered at the screen. The image was a little hazy and even though his gaze was averted from the camera, the man in the photo was definitely Arjun.

  Ever since Risha had handed over the first set of wedding photos to Nitisha and Rohan, she had announced the chapter of Arjun Khanna officially closed. She had sworn not to torture herself by staring at his pictures for hours and she hadn’t broken that resolve even once.

  But now, looking at his face sent a flood of emotions raging through her.

  As always, Arjun was dressed impeccably and his trademark five o’clock shadow only accentuated his handsome, chiselled features. His dark eyes were twinkling with humour and his hard jaw was softened just barely by a half-smile. Even in this pixelated profile shot, he exuded charm and confidence.

  And then there was the girl clinging to his arm. With her Victoria Beckhamesque bob cut, flaming red lips and glamorous halter sequin dress, she was the very soul of poise and élan. In comparison, Risha felt gauche and ‘small town’.

  Risha returned the phone, and because looking at Arjun’s picture wasn’t masochistic enough, she asked, ‘What was she like?’

  Rishabh took a seat on the kitchen counter and sipped his tea. ‘Total bitch,’ he said, matter-of-factly.

  She frowned. ‘You say that about everyone.’

  ‘I’m serious, Kohli. She was the most vile creature I’ve ever laid my eyes on. Arrogant, narcissistic, and opportunistic as hell. Everyone hated her, the guys and the girls. We were all thrilled when Karishma left Delhi, because she was the type of girl that would slit her own mother’s throat to get ahead in life. Slit her mother’s throat or suck her fa—’

  ‘Okay, okay, I get it!’ Risha said, raising her palms. ‘No need to get graphic.’

  ‘Anyway, she did some big face cream or hair oil campaign with Nasser Khan and now she’s going to be in a movie. Like, Raaz 8 or something. Can you believe it? That silicon-implanted, butt-augmented, hair-extended little slut is going to be a movie star! And I’m going to be posing for Frontier Bazaar billboards for the rest of my life,’ Rishabh groaned.

  ‘Well, I think Frontier is a great brand to endorse. They always offer me masala nimbu pani[68] when I shop at their store.’

  ‘Nice to know that anyone can buy your loyalty for a glass of nimbu pani.’

  Risha was offended by that. ‘Hey! Masala nimbu pani.’

  Scandal Day 13

  7.51 p.m.

  At the Gurgaon Golf Club, Arjun sank into a chair next to Vikram, a huge smile on his face. ‘I had no idea cricket was so much fun.’

  ‘You’re pretty good. Did you play as a kid?’ the cricketer asked.

  ‘I’m more of a football guy,’ Arjun confessed.

  ‘Me, too,’ Vikram joked, and Arjun laughed.

  On the day of the Economic Times article, Arjun had asked Yadav and his team to a friendly cricket match.
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  ‘Is this going to be like Lagaan, Bhaiyaji?’ Yadav had wondered.

  ‘On the contrary,’ Arjun assured him, ‘we’re going to play together, not on opposing teams.’

  Yadav was puzzled by that. ‘So what are the stakes?’

  ‘No stakes, no strings. Just a fun game of cricket. Half the players in each team will be Khanna Developers employees and half will be your guys.’

  ‘But how will that work?’ Yadav had asked, looking concerned.

  ‘Don’t worry, it will work,’ Arjun promised.

  The twenty-twenty game had finished two hours ago, with Vikram batting for one of the teams. Just seeing Vikram had the workers up in a frenzy, let alone the thought of playing a cricket match with him. The match had been a close one, with one team beating the other by only five runs. After the match, the workers and their families had swarmed Vikram, who had patiently obliged their requests for photographs. A few minutes later, Yadav took the stage to announce that the strike was off.

  Arjun’s first instinct had been to call Risha and tell her about his day, about his big win.

  ‘Sometimes people just want to feel like… people. They want to believe that, in the large scheme of things, they matter.’

  Risha’s simple advice, combined with her compelling photographs, had helped Arjun come up with the idea of the cricket match.

  In the last few days since the newspaper article, Arjun had spent every waking hour and every sleepless night agonizing over it, and he was absolutely certain that Risha had nothing to do with the appearance of Chinky’s wedding photos in the newspaper.

  He’d been too angry to see it earlier, but if she had really sold him out, the photo credit would carry her own name, not the silly alias Nani had given her. But frankly, even if it had carried Risha’s name, Arjun would not believe she was anything but innocent.

  Arjun had played back snatches from their first conversation in his head over and over again.