Once Upon A Hullabaloo!

CHAPTER 20

Thakkar family was a typical Upper-Middle class Gujarati family and they had welcomed me with the similar etiquette. By the time we reached Ahmedabad, it was concluded that Omanah was a well bred girl with a respectable cultural background.

We had been engaged in an interesting conversation right since the time she had woken up in the car to the point where she had drifted off to sleep again. Before I left for the journey, Vivaan's talk had made me determined to make the maximum of this trip and grab the essence of the other half of my stranded heritage as much as I can.

Omanah had been brought up in the same culture and hence she was well qualified to quench my curiosity. But I didn't even realize when my cultural queries was tossed out of the window and were replaced by the desire to discover the woman next to me.

Omanah Thakkar was a subtle bag of surprise- the sober outer-packaging could fool anyone into disinterest. The ones who were patient enough to unwrap it were the ones to be bowled over with astonishment.

She had managed to surprise me with her humming to my unusual taste of music, with her twisted roadway of career choice and lastly by her unfulfilled passion of writing. I misread her lack of attempts to be an insecurity but her unwavering faith in herself made me want to take back the consolation pep-talk I had offered.

She was a strong woman.

We had made a stop for lunch at a traditional dhaba on the roadside and excitement pumped into me. Sure,on mom's insistence we had had a family trip to Gujarat a couple of times but the raw touch of the culture always withered away behind the shimmering luxuries of star studded hotels and restaurants  preferred by my family.  

My life in London had been the latest topic of conversation and I had tried being honest about almost everything, avoiding the appalling past that had been dominating then. 

"It's surprising how you didn't catch up on the British accent inspite of the long stay there." She attempted a casual tone to hide her obvious disappointment.

It was beguiling how Omanah unkowingly made a fickle attempt to find little traits of novel-romances in the situation that we were in. 

"It was a conscious doing." I grinned and decided to tease her particular strand, "I looked like a pretentious douche while interacting with the employees in my office here with that accent. I worked hard to get the Indian touch back."

She raised an eyebrow at me, absolutely unconvinced about the whole thing.

I continued"And then there is always that distracting ladies' attention that comes along with it.Top it with my irresistible looks and it is a heart-breaking disaster!"

As soon as the words left my mouth, I realized that I was flirting with Omanah Thakkar- The one thing that I had certainly planned to leave out before agreeing to this trip. It had been very long since the last time I had flirted with a woman and it turned out, my inherited Gulati-charms hadn't faded away yet.

"Living in a bubble Mr.Gulati?" She rolled her eyes but I didn't miss the faint blush of pink on her cheeks

"I call it belief, you call it bubble."  I winked rasing that tone of pink a little higher.

Through the lunch, I discovered that the story spinning yarn in her mind are always churning and it made me curious as to what tale did Kshitij-Omanah's past tell.

We debated and discussed our first meet and finally went along with my idea. She practically hijacked the milestones of our relationship and went on to elaborately narrate the fictitious incidents of our "apparent" year long relationship.