Chapter 22 After a sticky jam comes a free road

It was a teenie weenie, yellow polka dot bikini that she wore for the first time today, the old sixties, Bubblegum pop song wafted from the cd and energized the mood and the interiors of Fortuner, except the grumpy driver who was forced to sit behind the wheels today. Akhil was driving, and Ashmi was whistling to the tune of the song. ‘Gurgaon traffic is exasperating,’ he said.

‘That driver had to take leave today,’ he yelled all worked up.  The moron even refuses to intimate me before he takes leave. Ashmi broke in a giggle at the mere mention of the word ‘moron’.  It reminded her of Paras’ infamous one liner, ‘that moron served me three biscuits and now I have to eat all three.’

 ‘You find it funny,’ Akhil  shouted, furious by now. ‘Nopes,’ she told him.

‘The road rage is killing me,’ he said. 

‘Darling, relax,’ she tried to comfort him, knowing fully well, that this would not happen.

 ‘How can I relax when the traffic refuses to budge?’, he protested.

‘The list of people whom we have to give Diwali gifts today must be finished,’ he told with an emphasis on must.

‘Darling, you need to learn to loosen up, may be that’s the reason your blood pressure refuses to  respond to medicines,’ she told him in a voice reserved for patients by a doctor.

‘The traffic will crawl when it gets an opportunity,’ she said.

‘And when will that come?’ he asked her impatiently, as if she is a traffic hawaldar and had all the answers.

Ashmi smiled inwardly, unclasped her seat belt, moved ahead and kissed him on his mouth.

Akhil is dumbstruck, as if a lightening just struck him. Two teenage boys whistle loudly, indicating for others to have a look at the couple in Toyota Fortuner. Akhil was completely at loss of words, angry but he was enjoying the moment too. Suddenly by divine intervention the buggi that had gone upside down on the highway gets towed away and the traffic cleared. Akhil speeds off but not before someone comments from a lowered window, ‘Why didn’t you kiss him before, the traffic would have cleared earlier?’

 Ashmi chose to ignore the comment and Akhil began to stew in anger and decided to take it out on the road. He pushed the pedal and Ashmi typed her status update.

Lesson learned from life: After a sticky jam comes a free road J

Mathias checked his notifications and the new status update from Ashmi caught his attention. He noticed that she is online. He sent her a message. ‘Hi..dear.’ ‘What’s up?’

 ‘Nothing, just giving Diwali gifts,’ she answered  back, while Akhil is sitting all constrained in his seat, trying to keep maximum distance from him, lest she should kiss him again.

‘And where is my gift? He asked.

What do you want?  she wrote back. ‘You know that, isn’t it?’

‘How much messaging will you do?’ Akhil asked certainly irritated by now. Already that comment from a bystander had irked him.

‘Of late, you message a lot,’ he noted. He still hadn’t come out of the shock of kiss.

‘What made you behave in such an uncivilized manner?’ he questioned. ‘Kissing you is uncivilized,’ she retorted

‘You never thought so, when we were dating and tried to steal one, whenever, there was an opportunity,’ she said.

‘Well, those were different days,’ he answered back.

‘I guess so,’ she reluctantly agreed trying to come to terms with the changed realities of life, as he parked the car in the driveway of her elder sister.  They were on gift distribution spree and had started with the first stop of the pilgrimage, the so-called temple for Akhil.

The couple went inside lugging an expensive cut glass flower vase and a box full of sweets, which had been especially bought from Haldiram’s as his elder sister, had indicated once that she preferred sweets only from Haldiram’s. Ashmi noticed with frustration that every conceivable household appliance in the room was covered with a cover, reminding her of the old Rin ad. His sister came in and both of them bent down to seek her blessings. Akhil enquired the whereabouts of his brother-in-law.

‘He has gone to distribute Diwali gifts to the workers at the factory,’ she informed him. ‘The traffic gets so congested during the day time, hence he went in the morning itself,’ she explained to no one who was sitting there or interested enough to know. Veering the conversation to altogether to a different tangent, her sister-in-law asked, ‘You haven’t sent me chai ka masala for ages.’

‘Didi, I don’t make it anymore,’ she said. Didi was shocked. 

‘You don’t make chai ka masala any more,’ she repeated. Masala chai was Ashmi’s trademark property. She had introduced the whole clan to it. When she got married she didn’t like the bland taste of the beverage and thought to spice it up, through her trademark infusion. Fennel seeds, small cardamom, orange peel, tulsi leaves and cloves were sun dried and pounded in the old fashioned pestle and mortar to get that unique chai ka masala. Additions kept happening in the family and they were introduced to that chai ka masala and her tribe of patrons was growing. Only difference was that these patrons wouldn’t pay. Akhil would get so upset when he would see her pounding those spices in pestle and mortar to make that chai ka masala for her clan. 

‘What do you mean?’ ‘Akhil, is she saying the truth?’ Didi sought reaffirmation of the fact now.

 ‘Yes, didi,’ the two words spluttered out of his mouth meekly. He chose to conceal the fact that she had even sold off the pestle and mortar to the kabaddiwala the last month.

Didi sighed.  ‘Akhil, do you get tea in the morning?’ Didi enquired curious now.

‘Now I and Akhil drink green tea in the morning. By-the-way I am learning salsa also,’ she said.

Didi could have fallen on the floor then and there. Akhil interjected in between to change the subject.

Didi’s son who just passed by commented, ‘Mami, ‘that’s great!’ ‘ Mamu, so you too learning to dance with her.’

‘Why should he?’  Didi answered for Akhil in a possessive way.

‘Because Mami is learning salsa and it is a partner dance,’ the young lad told them with an expression, as if he was talking to people from Mars.

Then to fortify his argument, the ten-year-old lad looked at Ashmi expectantly.

Ashmi who was learning Salsa with Mathias immediately realized the slip of her tongue and clarified, ‘Am not learning salsa, rather I am learning dancing, that’s what I said.’

 The lad seemed to disagree with the explanation offered by Ashmi, but chose to let it go as his mobile beeped.

Akhil nodded while relishing the tea and rusk served by didi. It’s lunch time, so you two eat before you leave. Akhil was in a mood to relent, but Ashmi nudged him to get up and go as there was a load full of Diwali gifts to be given before the day ended. He got up reluctantly saying that it was  a long day and they better be on the road.

‘I also think, that I heard salsa,’ Akhil said as an afterthought, as she got inside the Fortuner.

‘Are you going to classes with me,’ she questioned him, now visibly upset at her slip of tongue. If you don’t come with me, then how can I learn it? she clarified.

‘Why don’t you join me to the dance class, this Sunday,’ she challenged him, hoping fervently that he would not agree. ‘No dear, there is no need to be upset,’ he told her as he stepped on the gas at the same time. I was just asking.  You wouldn’ t hear a word from me on the subject again, he assured her.

The Fortuner lunged forward and braked abruptly as the lights decided to turn red all of a sudden, Ashmi pulled out a note of ten and gave it away to a street urchin to pay her obeisance to the God who had heard her prayers and responded immediately to it.