As soon as Pallavi had hung up on the call, Raghav hit the pillow besides him. Her sad voice was not going out of his mind.
"Mīru dēni gurin̄ci ālōcistunnāru? (What are you thinking?)" Lungiwala Raghav asked him.
"I am thinking about Pallavi. She stayed up till late night and I hurt her. When she called me back after seeing my missed calls, instead of apologizing to her for yelling at her, I yelled at her again. I really feel guilty for taking out work's frustration on her." Raghav admitted.
"Call her and apologize to her. Simple." Lungiwala Raghav said casually.
"I know she would say 'it's okay.' I don't want her to say that. I want her to feel that I am genuinely sorry." Raghav said.
"I have a plan." Lungiwala Raghav told his plan to Raghav and disappeared.
Raghav loved the idea and started working on it.
He took his notepad and some colored pens which he had both for writing the minutes of the meeting.
He wrote something on the paper and took a photo of him holding his ears.
He called Farhad.
"Anna, why have you called this late? I mean it must be night there?" Farhad inquired.
"That doesn't matter. I am sending you two photos, print them and stick them with each other. One is a letter, don't you dare read it! Print the photo and staple it to the letter. Put it in a nice envelope and send it to Pallavi." Raghav instructed.
"Will do it. Have you messed up something?" Farhad asked knowing his Anna very well.
"Why should I tell you? It's a couple's thing." Raghav said fumbling.
"Now that you have a girlfriend, you forgot your friend? That's great!!" Farhad said dramatically.
"Dost dost na raha, pyaar pyaar na raha." Farhad started singing in his ultra besur voice.
"Farhad, Chup kar!!! Mein batata hai tereko par abhi nahi. Abhi meine jo kaam diya hai woh kar." Raghav said laughing.
Farhad did as he was told. He sent the parcel to DSE.
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Krishna came to Pallavi with the parcel saying that some unknown person had sent it. She gave Pallavi the parcel saying that it was confidential.
Pallavi saw the envelope. It was a light pink color envelope.
"Why will someone use a pink envelope for some confidential document?" She thought to herself and opened the envelope.
She was shocked to see what was inside the envelope. It was a photo of Raghav holding his ears indicating he was sorry and was a letter. Raghav looked extremely cute and innocent in the photo. She then took out the letter and started reading it.
Dear Saree Ka Dukaan,
I am sorry that I yelled at you last night when you called me. I was just frustrated because I got to know that I will have to extend my stay there and I unknowingly took out the frustration on you. I did not intend to yell at you. I had called you multiple times to say sorry but you didn't pick up the call which increased my frustration. I forgot that we are in two different time zones. I know that I should have respected your love and care for me. I am really sorry for that. I also missed you the whole day. How I wish you were there besides me. Alas, it couldn't happen. But, I promise to make it up to you once I come back. Hope you forgive me.
Virtual hugs and kisses.
Yours lovingly,
Ghamandi Rao.
Pallavi read the letter and was happy that Raghav thought about her so much. She immediately texted him.
"It's okay Ghamandi Rao. Things like this keep on happening. I am happy that you thought about me.
All the best for your conference ❤️."
Raghav saw this message and video called her.
"Why did you call me at this time? Don't you want to sleep? You have a meeting to attend. You need proper rest. I have forgiven you. Don't worry about that." She spoke in one go, not letting him speak.
"Saree Ka Dukaan, I have slept enough on the plane so, I am not sleepy. I know you have forgiven me but still I need to talk to you. About the meeting, I will handle it. For me, talking to you is more important than anything else. Have I answered all your questions or are some questions still left?" He asked laughing.
"There are no questions left. Btw, how was your flight?" Pallavi asked.
"It was boring. I missed you a lot. I wish you were there so that we could cuddle up the entire flight." Raghav told her.
"Ohh my God, Raghav!! Do these things run in your mind always. Just before you boarded your flight, we did that in the car."
"That was making out. I am talking about cuddling each other. Those are two different things. Making out is what we did in the car while, cuddling is what happened when we were watching a movie in your room when I was pretending to be Mandar." He explained the difference to her.
"Okay Mr.Gyani Rao. I understood. Now will you please rest for a while. You need to look fresh otherwise, the money you spent on facial will go waste." He said chuckling.
"Okay okay. Btw, I can show you more of my gyaan once I come back there." He said and winked. She just blushed in response.
They hanged up. Pallavi focused on her work while Raghav went to take some rest.
Raghav had to reach the venue at around 9.30am. He woke up and had his breakfast. He then went to take a bath. He came out only in his towel wrapped around his waist. A naughty idea popped up in his mind to tease Pallavi. He clicked a mirror selfie and sent it to Pallavi. He then video called her when he saw 2 blue ticks on the photo. Pallavi picked up the video call and looked at him who was looking no less than a Greek God. She kept staring at him making him smirk. He then moved the camera a little far so that his entire upper body was visible to her.
"Pallavi, are you okay babes?" He asked innocently.
She did not reply to this as she was just looking at his upper body.
"Babes, I have sent you a picture of this, you can keep staring at that. Now that I've called you, Can you please speak to me?"
"You're looking hot." She said still in trance.
He had expected her to get lost in him but, her saying that he was hot was unexpected.
When he gave her a questioning look, she spoke again.
"When will you come back?" She asked.
"Soon, babe. Once I come back I ain't leaving you." He also became bold.
"Can't wait." She said winking at him and he hanged up in nervousness.
Raghav got ready in the outfit that Pallavi had bought. He again took a mirror selfie and sent it to her and Keerti.
Pallavi replied almost immediately as if she was waiting for his message.
"Looking cool 😎. But, I like the previous view better 😉." She replied.
"You'll get to see that soon 😉." He replied.
They ended the conversation and he left for the conference. The conference went well. He looked dapper in that outfit and it showed. A few female colleagues showed their interest in him. Raghav was enjoying their attention but ignored them. He was purposely adjusting his blazer making him look even more alluring. The females approached him but he politely rejected their proposals saying that he was committed. The ladies left with a small sad smile on their faces.
Raghav went back to his room around 4pm in the evening. He checked the Indian Time and saw that it would be 2.30 am in India. He decided to wait for a while till it's 6am in India, the time when Pallavi wakes up. He went to the cafeteria in the hotel to grab some snacks for himself. He had a chicken sandwich and went back to his room. He worked for a while, conducting a zoom meeting with his employees back in India to check upon certain things. They were working in the night shift. Raghav could see that they were quite sleepy. He was angered to see their carelessness.
"What is wrong with you guys? I had not asked you guys to do double shifts. I had cut down your morning shifts and given you night shifts so that I could coordinate with you all and here you are sleepy." Raghav shouted.
"Sir, we are sorry. It's just that our whole body cycle has changed so we are feeling sleepy. We will freshen up a bit and come. Is it okay?" One of the employees, Rohan asked.
"Hmm." Raghav said.
He had kept only two people to do night shifts as he did not want to disturb the work culture of the office.
These two employees were also given the liberty to work from home for their own convenience and yet they couldn't work without being sleepy. They finally came back after freshening up. All the three of them continued working.
It was 5 am in the morning in India and Pallavi had woken up. The first thing that she did was to video call Raghav.
"Hi, babes." He said smiling. His employees were shocked seeing him smile.
"Stop calling me that. Saree Ka Dukaan is fine." Pallavi said irritated.
"Such a romance killer you are."
"Haha!! See I laughed on your pathetic joke. How was your conference btw?" She asked.
"It was good. Some of the female colleagues were impressed by me and offered me something you know." He said and winked at her.
"You better have said No to them. Otherwise you know the consequences." She spoke angered by his words.
"Ofcourse I said no. Btw, I did not change this so that you could see me in this when we video call and you are threatening me!! So rude." He said making a puppy face.
"You are looking handsome. And why should I compliment you again when I had complimented you earlier." She questioned.
"That was different. That was a photo. This is a video. You can see more things in a video, you know? Should I show it to you?" By now she was blushing hard because of his words. The employees were more than shocked to see The Raghav Rao who appeared to be so rude and arrogant be so soft with someone. They wanted to keep listening to this but they knew it wasn't right. Gathering his courage Suraj spoke.
"Sir, your video and audio is on." He spoke.
Pallavi and Raghav both got embarrassed. Raghav facepalmed himself.
"Why didn't you tell me that your video was on. Are you nuts, Raghav? Don't you have any brains? You don't even know how embarrassed I am. Don't you know I don't like PDA and the same thing happened in front of your employees. Where did your Born Smart Brain go? Did you leave it here in India? Seems like it." Pallavi scolded Raghav.
"Saree Ka Dukaan, listen, I am sorry. I did not mean to do this. I just forgot that my video and audio is on. Don't get angry na. I promise, I would check it the next time." Raghav apologized.
"You won't repeat this next time but surely invent some new mistake to make." Pallavi taunted.
"I was being so nice to you and you are taunting me. It's not just my mistake, even you called me during my meeting. This is your mistake too." Raghav shot back.
"How will I know that you are in a meeting? I called you as soon as I woke up. This is what I get for being a caring girlfriend." Pallavi said and hanged up.
Raghav turned back to his employees.
"Couldn't you tell me in the chat box? Now, I have to go and pacify her. Me, The Raghav Rao will go and pacify that Saree Ka Dukaan." He whispered the last part to himself but they heard it and started laughing.
"Seems like you guys don't need this job. Dare if you tell this to anyone. I won't spare you." Raghav warned.
"Yes, Sir." Both Rohan and Suraj said together.
"Also, sir what will we tell people? We don't know her name as you kept on calling her babes and Saree Ka Dukaan and we even haven't seen her. Plus, nobody will believe that you are soft with people." Suraj spoke and earned a glare from Raghav.
"Sorry, sir. I was just kidding." He said smiling.
"It's okay." Raghav said smiling back.
Author's Note - I was eagerly waiting to post this chapter because of all the Raghvi moments in it. Hope it reminds you all about the nok jhok that both of them shared in the show. I, personally had a lot of fun in writing this. Btw, the last part is inspired from a real life incident that took place during one of my online lectures.
Do let me know what you feel about this chapter.
Date - 26th May 2022.
