A Bend in the road - Vol 2

49. Who is Wickham?

Neelima looked from Geet to Savitri Devi and back to Geet.

Honestly, if she had to list down the times she was uncomfortable as hell, this goes first in the list.

Savitri Devi was a gracious woman and ever so gentle and sweet. So was Geet. But the whole setting, the palace, the mammoth dining hall and the large sets of bowls placed before her, it only made her see how much of a misfit she is in this entire situation.

She had answered a couple of polite questions about what she was studying and all to Savitri Devi after which Neelima was given a tour to the house.

The architecture of the house was magnanimous but old school. It bought out elegance and richness about it, but it gave her the feeling that this was ancestral. It only came to show that the wealth had been there for generations.

Neelima was surprised they could be so humble despite the wealth. Maan was a different thing altogether, he was nice, but there was an aura of power around him that one couldn't miss. Even now, when he walks down the stairs, rolling his sleeves up nonchalantly he still looks the most powerful man walking around.

Neelima has her eyes flit towards the portrait behind Maan and only when he stood just next to it for a fraction of second before descending. She moved towards the portrait a little while later, and looked at it awestruck.

It wasn't just the art that bewitched her, it was as much as the person that was sketched. The man in the portrait had a half smile on his lips, who stood casually, holding a golf club in his right hand. His posture was relaxed, and his hair a little ruffled but he still was very handsome.

"Who's this?" Neelima found herself asking Geet.

"That's Maan's father" it was Savitri Devi who answered her, having her eyes look up at her son. In that moment Neelima saw the tiny moisture in the elder woman's eyes before she had smiled at them both and left.

The similarity went in the posture of the man, the way he looked, and the angular face of both. Maan clearly inherited his father's looks except his eyes.

Maan's eyes however were surprisingly a gentle brown, while the man in the portrait has darkened hypnotic eyes. And strangely she felt it familiar.

"The eyes are different" Neelima mentioned out of context.

"Yeah, Dadi says Maan got his mother's eyes" Geet said.

Neelima couldn't shake off the feeling the feeling of familiarity.

But then Maan had come to ask them to join for the dinner and Neelima, shrugged her thoughts away and went to the dining room.

---

"You got to be kidding me" Geet said half the way through the movie.

"Totally worth coming here" Neelima said popping a popcorn in her mouth. Geet's reaction was totally worth it, when it was relieved that George Wickham was the most hated Villain's name in the history of literature.

The first shock came to her when he was introduced. Geet watched skeptically as Lizzy was all praises for Wickham.

"Lizzy? Seriously? That son of a gun..."

Neelima muffled her laughter.

"Hold your horses until we reach the very end"

And Geet conceded. Although, she looked like she had so much to rant.

Once the movie was over, once Geet was still gooey eyes over "You have bewitched me body and soul, and I love, I love, I love you", they both lied down on the beds spread over the floor as they munched over the popcorn absentmindedly and sighed over Darcy.

"I was a little surprised you didn't watch this movie earlier"

"From where I had come, I was hardly allowed to watch movies" Geet said a little uncomfortable.

Although Neelima had questions about Geet's family and why was she living here in the outhouse, she hadn't questioned knowing if and when time comes, she would tell it herself.

"So anyway" Neelima said effectively changing topic. "Now you know the truth of Wickham"

"What a strange man" Geet said making Neelima laugh.

"He does have a twisted sense of humor" Neelima noted.

"Why would he call himself Wickham?"

Neelima shrugged. "Maybe he thinks he's the antagonist of others' stories"

Geet observed her intently, so Neelima thought they were treading dangerous waters.

"And he called you Lizzy. That was sweet" she said hoping for Geet to not catch on her obvious affinity towards the said Wickham.

Geet looked at her wordlessly.

"You find good in whatever he does"

"You don't"

"Of course I don't"

"But why? What did he do that is pissing you off?"

"I don't know" Geet said really giving it a thought. "I have a general dislike towards men who are stuck up, I think. You had no idea how much I disliked Maan's guts earlier. This guy reminds me of the phase of Maan where he was difficult to be around"

"That has changed now, isn't it?"

"It did, thanks to Babaji"

"Maybe you'd change your opinion about Vikram as well"

"I doubt. Is that his name, by the way?"

"Yeah"

"How do you know so much about him?"

Neelima felt self-conscious. Well she didn't know a lot obviously but she had seen him around enough and maybe that's why... Oh whom was she kidding, she harbored a secret crush and hence she knew enough about him. But Geet needn't know about that.

"I don't know much. You just know little about him"

"I'm glad" she said making Neelima laugh.

"But look at Babaji, just when I thought his highness Maan Khurana's insults were getting easy to tackle, here comes a man with worse insults." She said darkly. But something made Neelima snap her eyebrows.

"What did you say?"

"Huh?"

"Repeat what you said"

"...a man with worse insults?"

"No, not that. What did you call him as"

"Maan Khurana" Geet said, bemused.

"Khurana" Neelima replied and suddenly it all fell in place. The portrait, the dark intense eyes of Maan's father, the strange resemblance and now the same shared surname.

It looked like too much of coincidence.

Could there be a possibility that Vikram Khurana be related to Maan Khurana?

Neelima looked at Geet's confused face and smiled.

What a twisted sense of humor, does Geet's Babaji has!