I chuckle.
In general, Rathores prefer curtains closed; we don’t like to be seen, except on occasion. ‘We are not on public display’ is father’s common retort whenever the drapes are drawn apart. This afternoon, he is holding back. It is twenty minutes now, and his cheeks are cooked to a piquant pink.
I’m an exception to that Rathore rule. I drift organically towards natural light.
I had come up with something to distract Father, and the sun became my abettor. He tosses Aaditha and marriage at me every three minutes.
‘She’s a lovely girl,’ Father says again. It didn’t take him long to snap back – three minutes short of thirty.
It has been ten days, and that rich, redolent scent of jasmine still swirls around me in circles.
Her hair! I exhale like it’s the only thing I know how to do. Thathypnotic cascade of black silk spilling around her shoulders.
I shut my eyes. I can still taste her, feel the echo of her mouth on mine. That kiss, it is the first thought that drags me out of sleep every damn morning. And yet she acts like it never happened. Like it didn’t shake the ground.
She teases, brushing my lips with hers, stokes me awake and steps back to view the havoc she has wrecked. Her smile, sweet, unholy perfection.
‘You must think about this, Veer.’ Father’s words interrupt my thoughts.
‘They are a respectable family. Prathap Gowda is a senior politician…’
‘Why does Prathap Gowda want this proposal to work so badly? What’s in it for him?’
The extremes I swing between – the pull, and the question that nags.
Father stares at me like I’ve lost my mind. ‘Are you seriously asking why any father would want his daughter to marry the crown prince?’
That also.
He scoffs, shaking his head. ‘Good god, Veer. We’re the Rathores. And they, they’re a fine family. Decent, dignified. A good match for us. The young lady runs a successful business. What more do you want?’
I nod, but the unease doesn’t leave me. Still, I let it go, for now.
Instead, I pick up my teacup. ‘So successful that she cannot see beyond her cappuccinos,’ I say.
Aaditha hadn’t picked up that I sipped my beverage from a teacup when there were extra coffee cups on the trolley at her home.
Father laughs. ‘That’s a nice way to put it.’
I shrug.
My gaze rests on the window that overlooks our eastern garden, which changes with the seasons with flower beds of the ornamental variety.
I have spent a part of my childhood in this room. It is where my grandfather, Maharaj Rawal Rathore Singh, retired to at the end of a day when he was in Delhi.
Grandfather looks down at us from an oil painting just above the grand fireplace. The only source of natural light for the room is the large, rectangular window, which at the moment is causing great distress to his son. This is where Grandfather drank his morning coffeewhen he was in Delhi. He was the only coffee drinker in our family until Father married. Mother and Navya have taken it to a whole different level.
What would Grandfather have made of the Aaditha Prathap situation?
How do we end it? she asked.
‘What are you looking for in a matrimonial match, Veer?’ Father is on a mission. ‘What qualities does young Aaditha lack that you’re looking for in a wife?’
What now, a shopping list?
If I could just go back in time and leave that kiss behind in that Kempe Crown corridor, I would be fine. I could move on as easily as she has.
‘Marriage is not a conversation I want to be having right now.’
