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Nilay stepped out of the lounge with her by his side, only to be met with the raised eyebrows of his brother, who was found in Mumbai on the rare occasion of his birthday and nothing else.
“I didn’t know you had company,” Sanket muttered, nervous as usual around women. They both looked way more alike than they cared for, but where Nilay had inherited their mother’s sociable nature, Sanket had taken after their father in his aloof, borderline anti-social tendencies.
“Let me introduce, then. Ritu, this is Sanket. My brother.”
“Elder brother,” Sanket reiterated.
“Five years older,” Nilay supplied helpfully. “Sanket, this is Dr. Ritu Kapadia.”
“Gave up on men?” Sanket asked. Anti-social, asocial, right there. He did not mean it in derision, but one needed to spend a lifetime with him to know that.
“What are you here for?” Nilay was just as brusque.
“Daddy is also here.”
“In the building?”
He didn’t want that man to see Ritu. Or talk to her. Or even know about her.
“No, he is at the hotel. We flew in for the Rolls-Royce exhibition. We are going for a tour of the farms next. Daddy wanted to see you.”
“What for?”
“Mummy’s barsi is coming.”
“I will do it on my own. Like I do every year.”
“This is the 25th year.”
“So?”
“He wants to do it together.”
“No.”
Sanket glanced from him to Ritu, then back at him — “Can we talk in private?”
“I’ll get going,” Ritu stuttered, moving away from him. His arm slipped around her waist, anchoring her to his side. She stiffened.
“I will drop you home.”
“Let her wait outside,” his brother pushed.
“I will decide who stays and who leaves my office. You came with a question, I supplied your answer. I think we know who I want to leave.”
“Nilay, I am not a fan of listening to your taunts and rants. Stop acting like a woman and face the problems for once.”
He felt Ritu’s temper in the crook of his arm.
“If you are done, I suggest you leave. I have to get on with my day as well.”
Sanket sighed. He wasn’t a bad person. But he had grown up absorbing so much of their father, that he had unknowingly become his shadow. Nilay knew they could have good conversations over the phone once or twice a year. But sometimes, their father’s dictatorship bled into their midst. Like today. And that dictatorial tendency meant an ego as big as a mountain. Nilay stared as his brother turned around and left. He himself was guilty of holding that mountain of an ego. And now it was a three-way clash.
“How dare he!” Ritu fumed beside him.
“He shouldn’t have said that about women, I’m sorry…”
