Prescribed Insanity

Chapter 11: Of Purple Toothed Heroes and Green Eyed Monsters

Arnav Singh Raizada was a man who was famously averse to any and all interruption once he had his mind set on something. He could be in the middle of a sentence, and you could happen to interrupt him mid-way to tell a story of your own, and that story could go on for an hour, but by the end of that hour during which he'd stare at you with a cold, blank stare that would make you re-evaluate your entire existence (and also wish to die), he would tear his gaze away from your face and with a "-so I was saying..." continue what he had been saying originally before you, you impudent creature, decided to cut him short.

This introduction to Mr. Raizada's aspect of personality became pertinent to note here, because after watching the tape from Khushi's fourth birthday, Arnav Singh Raizada had a highly disconcerting epiphany that he might have been interrupted for a good two decades in whatever task he had set his mind on at the tender age of eight. Hereafter are enlisted, the highlights that this situation presented before him:

He remembered that Khushi Kumari Gupta from his earliest flashes of memory, was once a very significant part of his life.He couldn't remember why the said Khushi Kumari Gupta was so significant part of his life.He might have finally found the mysterious author of the hand-drawn 'Forget me Not' card scrawled in a child's writing that had been lying around with him since forever (Honestly, he had a good mind to throw the thing right into the trash several times, but when there is 'forget me not' literally written on something, that too in a child's writing, it would take an exceptionally callous and cold heart to not just forget it (thereby going against explicit instructions to not), but also to toss it into a trash can).Said Khushi Kumari Gupta was also now all grown up, and had become a total whacko where he suspected her and her entire family to be under the influence of one or the other kind of potent drug.She was exquisite though.Ahem.

It was with changed hearts, and blurred emotions, that two people sat amongst the rest at the dinner table, exchanging stolen glances every now and then. Every time that Arnav would look at Khushi, she would begin to pay extra attention to the chicken biryani on her plate, and every time she managed to look back, he would suddenly be very interested in the kebabs on his. One time between the exchange of glances, Khushi choked on her food and got caught in a coughing fit, and Arnav all but rose from his chair to hand her water until Devyani Raizada's super amused stare pinned him back to his chair. Another time a chicken bone got under Arnav's sensitive tooth and he winced a little, causing Khushi to leave her food and remind him to chew softly and double check if he needed painkillers. This time, even Anjali had a sly smile on her face and exchanged a quick look with Devyani. The two people involved, however, pretended all the while that they were just acting in the larger interest of humanity, and sailed towards the sunset on their boat of denial.

Dinner thus went on peacefully, until Khushi received a call at the table from an unknown number. Not wanting to be impolite, she disconnected with an apology and had just resumed her dinner when her phone began to buzz again. When the elders at the table insisted that she take the call, she excused herself and disappeared from the room for a good ten minutes. When she came back, she had an excited but stunned look on her face.

"Who was it Khushi? Is there an emergency?" Payal asked with mild concern.

"Um.." Khushi replied in a lost manner, "I just got a call from a celebrity's manager."

"What?!" Payal exclaimed, "which celebrity?!"

"Nihaal Khurrana."

Anjali gasped and covered her mouth with her hands. Payal's eyes widened in disbelief before a full blown grin plastered itself across her face. Meanwhile, the rest of the table looked at Khushi with blank stares, not quite sharing the excitement.