Perfect Mismatch

Ch 51 - Of tiffs and managing them

"Sidharth....main nahi bol sakti aise. Merese ye nahi hoga!", she raised her voice to match his. He hissed in anger again, biting his lower lip. 

"Kya nahi hoga? Tujhe bas gadhapanti kyun karni hoti hai hamesha?" he yelled at her. His hands were crossed around his chest, crushing his freshly ironed shirt, which he had pulled on for their brunch date. 

"Sidharth...gadhapanti kya hai isme? Main aise kaise mana kar dun? Woh itne bade star hain! Aur mana karne na karne se kya hoga! Ya toh tujhe bada problem ho rahi ho mere shoot jaldi na start hone se...waise personally tereko koi issue nahi hai, toh apna professional decision main khud le lungi na..." she scoffed at him, which irritated him to no end. 

They were all set to head for their monthly brunch - a ritual which they had unknowingly started out of boredom. Since he wanted to take her to all of his favorite places and discover hers, they would go out on brunches, at times alone or with Ma. The preparation for this activity included posting conflicting pictures or rather, misleading alibis on their social media account to prevent the world from going into a tizzy about them and their dates. A new tactic which they had employed was making their team post pictures which would make the world think that they were somewhere else, while hiding away silently. 

Before Sidharth could scream back at her, Ma entered with Ritu who had some apple juice on a tray. Sensing the tension in the room, she placed the tray on his bedside table and left in a jiffy. 

"Kya kar rahe ho tum log? Jana nahi hai tum dono ko? Aise ladke jaoge bahar? Subah se kuch khaya bhi nahi hai. Juice finish karo dono...aur Sid, tu.." Ma tried maintaining peace, but it had the opposite effect.

"Ma abhi ye juice nahi piya toh hum dono me se koi marr nahi raha hai na...", he vented the unjustified anger on Ma, who screamed back at him.

"Sidharth! Watch your tone", The first word echoed twice, since Shehnaaz also had an objection to his words.  Pissed at him, Ma glanced at Sana and calmly, told her to finish off the juice with a smile and slammed the door close on her way out. 

The cause of this tiff was a phone call where Mehul had called them together to decide on the dates for the shoot of their next music video. Uncertain about her 'big Punjabi break', she sought an additional day's time to get back to the production with the proposed dates. This situation was repeating itself for every new project since her Punjabi movie was hanging in the air without any commitments which should have already followed by now. 

Sidharth had started reminding her to speak to the production and sort things out but she felt too humbled and gave up after following up once or twice. When Sidharth told her to drop the movie, she was happy for a moment, thinking that he was also miffed at the delay it had caused to the wedding plans, but turned out that he was only pushing her to opt out of the project since the delay was undue and the production seemed very unprofessional. 

"Kar lia tumne jo karna tha? Khush ho tum ab?" he said, banging his fist at the table, making her brows raise immediately. 

"Khush ho matlab? Maine kia? Maine kia hai kuch?...", she screamed the second time in utter frustration. 

"Nahi...aap toh mahan hain! Main hi saala bevkoof baitha hun jo tumhara bhala soch raha hun! Aur waise bhi tumhare professional decisions tumhe hi mubaarak!", he said, slapping his hands to join them in defeat.

"Ye sahi hai....kare bhi tu...sunu bhi main...main hi galat ban jaun bas har time!" she sighed in defeat, but he was not going to listen.

"Nahi devi ji...aap mahaan hai! Aap kariye aapko jo karna hai. Right now, I can't even stay in the same room as you. I'm out of here", he said, picking up the keys.