Serendipity

17

"What the hell does this mean?" Vanraj hollered at her from the door of her apartment, shaking the newspaper to Anupama's face.

"Come inside and we can discuss." Anupama sounded extremely calm. That should have gotten Vanraj's alarm bells ringing but when had he ever stopped to consider anything other than what his own petty mind told him.

"Why should I? When you can behave like a shameless woman, why should I care?"

"Mr Shah, please come inside, don't create unnecessary scene." She was still speaking extremely calmly.

"Kavya, look at what she's saying," his voice turned up a few notches. "I AM..I AM..MADAM THINKS I AM CREATING A SCENE UNNECESSARILY?"

He took a deep breath while Kavya rubbed his arm to infuse some form of semblance into Vanraj. The next words he spoke, although equally angry, were less loud.

"And what about HER? The one who's shamed us in society? Everyone is gossiping about her and..."

"I believe my fiancé asked you to come inside Mr Shah, TWICE," Anuj's voice boomed from the living room. That stopped Vanraj's tirade as he and Kavya tentatively stepped inside the house.

As the two stepped into Anupama's apartment, they took in the dingy surroundings, lack of decor and sparse furnishings in the space. In the six months following the divorce and Anupama's departure from the Shah household, both Vanraj and Kavya had never bothered to visit Anupama. They had her address, Hasmukh Shah, Vanraj's father, had shared it with the family six months ago. He'd hoped that his son would do right by Anupama, take care of her needs until she was able to fend for herself, if not for the sake of his previous relationship, then at least as a gesture of humanity. Needless to say, he was sorely disappointed.

"Please take a seat," Anuj pointed to the two plastic chairs in front of him, while Anupama closed the door to the prying eyes of neighbours who'd come out to witness the earlier commotion.

Then looking at Anupama with an emotion she couldn't place he said: "Anupama, why don't you make some tea for Mr and Mrs Shah while I have a brief chat with them?"

Anupama knew what was in store for Mr and Mrs Shah. Minutes ago she'd seen Anuj deal with her landlord. As she made her way into the kitchen, desperately trying to stifle her bubbling laughter, Vanraj and Kavya looked like two deers caught between headlights.

Anuj got up, plucked the newspaper from Vanraj's hand, opened it to the article page and spread it out for all of them to see.

"I believe you had questions about this article Mr Shah." Vanraj cleared his throat to offer some sort of a lame explanation. But before he could say something, Anuj continued: "Your first question to Anupama was what does this mean?"

Just then Anupama brought two cups of tea and handed them to Vanraj and Kavya, both of who promptly put it down. They knew, with Anuj Kapadia sitting in front of them, talking to them in that "tone", nothing would go down their throat.

"Anu, would you like to answer that?"

Vanraj's eyes expanded at the familiar gesture this famous business tycoon had shown his ex-wife. While Kavya turned green with envy, Anupama nodded her head and said: "Its means that Anuj ji and I engaged."

Kavya smirked. "Anupama, before you talk about getting engaged to someone as big as Mr Kapadia, at least learn to speak proper English."

As soon as she'd said it, Kavya knew she'd stepped over the line. She saw Anuj's eyes turn to slits. Then his eyes relaxed, and he smiled. The lion had begun its hunt.

"Mrs Shah, how many languages do you speak?" he asked, picking on invisible flecks of lint on his impeccable suit.

"Just English," she stammered. "I can speak some Hindi but I'm not fluent."