Chapter 15

twerping

@twerping

Spring arrived to the city surreptitiously and before long the residents of Mayur Vihar society complex found themselves preparing for the ultimate festival-- Holi.

In the Iyer household the festival brought with it a peculiar gamut of conflicting emotions. As Tamil Brahmins, the family seldom if ever partook of alcohol. However, there was an unwritten rule in the household that every year on this particular day the Iyer men will drink at par with their Punjabi counterparts and then live to tell the tale. Mrs Iyer was no great fan of this rule but before such an overwhelming display of male stubbornness, she had long given it up as a lost cause. This annual moral laxity had grown into a family tradition and she only used it as fuel in those arguments with her husband when she ran out of ammunition to put him in place.

The women were less unconstrained in the way they chose to spend the day. Mrs. Iyer took this as an opportunity to sit at judgment on all her neighbours while her two daughters-in-law mainly spent the day trying to minimise the number of scrapes that Shravan could get into. Mihika went wild with the rest of the youngsters of the society.

This year Ishita found herself in charge of Shravan since Vandita had been forced to avoid physical exertions due to her condition. The expecting mother had opted to spend the morning in bed. This left Ishita largely alone and ignored as the society ladies saw through her in their rush to apply colour to each other. Ishita didn't mind.

Standing at one corner of the large hall, she watched the frivolity and thanked the stars no one had applied colour to her. Shravan was blissfully monkeying around with the other kids and simply watching them was entertainment enough.

Raman on the other hand had less luck. Instead of spending the morning working, he had been forced into a fresh pair of kurta pajamas under Mrs. Bhalla's strict injunctions and had grudgingly arrived at the hall where the rest of their neighbours had gathered. He was in the middle of a merger and was in no mood to join in any form of socialising. Thus he was hardly prepared for the onslaught of ladies who jumped at this opportunity to pull down this celebrated tycoon a peg or two. Pammi aunty was the first to approach him as he stood near the food stand, glowering at his hapless siblings. 

"Raman, inna sona munda is standing colourless! Why?!"

The plump lady beamed at him as her eyes glinted with mischief. Romi and Rinki backed away, knowing Pammi aunty was not one to be trusted, especially on this day. Raman, secure in his superiority, stood unsuspecting.

"Hello" he said, trying to be polite.

 Pammi aunty made a big show of being grieved at the lack of any colour on Raman.

"Raman, aisa kya ho gaya hai ke tu ab aise sukha sukha khara hai!"

Raman pretended to be amused by the joke though he was fast losing patience.

"Pammi aunty, I am absolutely fine! Why don't you go and enjoy the party?"

Pammi aunty came closer. Raman took a few steps back. In his focus on Pammi aunty, he did not notice the three women who had tip-toed their way to stand right behind him. As he backed away from Pammi, he moved closer to them and they were waiting for just this opportunity.

Splash!

A bucket of water was tossed in his direction. Raman sputtered as he wheeled around to find three complete strangers giggling and nudging each other as Pammi aunty came up and high-fived them.

"Ab gila ho gaya toh gulaal bhi laga le, Ramannn!"
The last she had to scream out since her target realising the full nature of the danger he was currently facing, had turned and fled. The ladies ran behind him in hot pursuit.

In his eagerness to get away from the unholy purple gulaal he had spotted in the hands of his attackers, Raman had unknowingly reached the corner where Ishita stood. As he turned around to smooth talk his way out of the present situation, his eyes fell on her.

A mischievous notion ran through his head and suddenly instead of wanting to escape from Pammi aunty's clutches, he waited eagerly for the ladies to catch up with him.

Huffing slightly, Pammi aunty and her accomplices soon arrived upon the scene.
"Oye khoteya! You think you can escape us today of all days!" She declared, glaring at Raman.
He gave a mock stern look and nodding at Ishita, said, "I can't believe how rowdy you lot are! Look at Mrs Iyer there. Catch her behaving like goons?"

Pammi glanced at Ishita and smiled before turning back to Raman. 
"I will not listen to all this aanap shaanap today. You are getting gulaal on you one way or another."

Raman folded his arms and said with a cheeky grin, " I shall come to you obediently only if Mrs. Iyer there applies the gulaal first." And then catching the confused looks on the faces of his pursuers, added, "I know she will never do it and so I am safe."
With his move in motion, he waited for the inevitable.
Pammi and the three Punjabi ladies now turned their focus on Ishita.
"Ishita, tu kya khari khari humari aisi beizzati hone degi?" 
Pammi aunty, impervious as she was to refusals, did not listen to any of Ishita's protests. 
The emotional blackmailing soon had her walk slowly towards Raman Kumar Bhalla with some of the colour in her unwilling hand. He pretended shock and started to say, "Mrs. Iyer! I can't believe you will give in to those junglee billis!"
This caused another uproar from the ladies. Amidst the commotion, Ishita quickly dashed a bit of the colour on his cheeks and retreated. The awaiting ladies pounced on Raman.
With attention once more turned away from her, Ishita quickly left the place and came out of the hall. The feel of his cheeks was branded on her palms. She stared at her colored hands in dismay. What was happening to her!? What was the meaning of her heart hammering against her chest?
As she desperately tried to choke back this unbearable lightness that filled her, a pair of arms firmly took her by her waist and pulled her into the alcove behind the stairs. She looked up at a much dishevelled Raman Kumar Bhalla looking down at her through hooded eyes. A smirk danced at the corner of his lips and colored in purple and pink as he was at that moment, he looked raw with a touch of the wild about him. Ishita stilled in his embrace.

"Am I supposed to let you go without a share of the payback?" he asked, his voice oddly tender.

Ishita struggled in his grasp but he tightened his arms around her, pulling her closer. As he bent his head forward, Ishita tried to fight through this unfamiliar haze that was filling her.

"Wh-what are you doing?" 

Instead of answering her question, he bent low and dragged his cheek against hers with a slow leisurely pull. Her breath hitched as the slight stubble grazed against her skin, leaving a tender soreness that did nothing to ease her heightened senses. When Raman pulled back, Ishita let out the breath she didn't know she was holding in. Her eyes had hooded and unknowingly, her fingers now clutched his kurta, twisting at the silky material. Her face had assumed a fluidity that Raman found irresistible. He lowered his head and hovered over her lips, suddenly plagued by an uncharacteristic uncertainty. 

It must have been the madness that filled the very air that bright spring morning that made her do it. But Ishita, drugged by this unfamiliar desire coursing through her veins and heady from the knowledge of her effect on the man standing before her, did the unthinkable. As Raman hesitated, his lips mere inches away from hers, with a swift move, she closed the distance and brushed her lips against his. Time stood still, as the feel of the lips meeting in that softest of kisses drowned out everything else. Slowly a spark of surprise flashed through Raman's eyes. Ishita, stunned at her own wanton behaviour and trying to clear her head of the feeling of his lips against hers, watched him. Raman's eyes drifted to her lips and back to her eyes, before he shed his doubts and pulled her in, this time for a hungrier, swifter, and deeper kiss. Ishita felt the world come to a stop and then start spinning again. Her body melted against his, as her hands clawed at his shirt. His arms seemed to be the only anchor in the midst of the tempestuous sensations flooding her mind and body. Desperately, like a shipwrecked adventurer being washed away by a tidal wave, her nails bit into him with a ferocity that she never knew existed within her. When Raman released her from the kiss, she was a mess. Her breath came in rough gasps, her lips tender from his ministrations longed for more and her mind could barely process what had just transpired between her and this man, an almost total stranger.

"Try denying that you are attracted to me again?" Raman asked, his voice teasing, warm from the impact of the kiss.

The words broke through her haze, acting like acid burning through her skin. Her body tightened, suddenly intensely aware of her proximity to this man, and shame and anger of the most profound shade filled her, replacing every other emotion. With one harsh push, she had Raman staggering away. Her eyes blazed with anger even as her ears felt hot and if not for the gulaal would have given her away with cheeks crimson of the deepest hue. 

"So what if I am?" she demanded, her breath unruly, her chest heaving.

Raman stared, in momentary shock. 

"So what if I AM attracted to you, Mr. Raman Kumar Bhalla?! I am married! Does that not mean anything?!" She stumbled across the words as the anger made her see red.

"Please, Ishita, I think it is time you stopped hiding behind that middle-class morality," Raman said, annoyed at her relapse into that stubborn streak. "Why this hypocritical pretense?! If two adults desire each other, why fight it?"

Ishita staggered at the nonchalance oozing through every word the man uttered. 

"Don't!" She raised her hand to stop Raman from going on. "What appears to be middle-class morality to you, what appears to be hypocrisy, is a promise I made before God and my family--" Her words failed her at this point and she felt choked as hot unshed tears pricked at her eyes. The memory of her father's face rose before her. Him smiling at her, placing her hand in Subbu's, touching her head with that familiar gentleness, as she bent down to seek his blessings. Blinking back the tears, she went on, trying to fight through her trembling voice.

"For you, marriage might be a joke, a pretense! But for me, it means something. It is a promise that I made and which I intend to keep. And a passing attraction to another man is not worth letting go of everything that I have struggled through."

Raman watched her trying to hold herself together. Had he thought her to be beautiful before? Right now as she stood before him, offering him her rejection in no uncertain terms, she looked sublime. The streaks of colour on her face left by him drew his eyes. I did that, he thought with an irrational sense of pride. Mine! something within him declared with ferocity. 

Her eyes must have caught something in his face because she shook her head solemnly now, her voice hardening slightly as she spoke.

"I understand you have gone through a bad divorce. But that doesn't mean you go about wilfully destroying the very bond of marriage. What you are doing is playing a sick game! Toying with me, pretending to like me, just to prove that the marital bond is a farce, a pretense! I know I am no great beauty that I will have men falling head over heels for me and I understand that you take joy in such seductions. And maybe there are women out there who will agree with you and be ready to play this game of yours. But leave me out of this."