Vodka on the rocks

After twenty years [Ft. Raos, Deshmukhs and OCs]

"Aisha... I understand you are in a hurry but what I can't understand is what exactly are you hurrying for - reaching on time or taking away my time on this Earth."

"Mandaar kaka, this is a Ferrari. It is a crime to drive this under one twenty but only because of you I'm keeping the speed down yet you are complaining?"

"Beta, you are driving at hundred, I don't think that can be called as keeping the speed down by any meaning of that statement. I mean I get your impatience but at least take my poor frail heart into consideration?"

"Oh please! As if you didn't drive that sorry excuse of a bike at ninety yesterday. I mean I was slightly afraid whether all the parts would reach in proper condition."

"You will never let me forget that will you?"

Mandaar Deshmukh sulked and was about to lean on the passenger seat at the back and instantly held his heart and straightened up and caught the packet beside him restricting it from getting thrown out when the car took a sharp turn.

The woman of twenty three sitting in front on the driver seat whooped in mirth and looked back for a glance at the man she called uncle and Mandaar could swear her grey eyes were shining in mirth behind her brown aviators. She gave him her signature grin, pulling her red stained lips till the light hit her beautiful face.

"Never!"

She said chuckling and looking back at the road when the person sitting beside her slapped her arm good naturedly. Mandaar muttered what sounded like the Hanuman Chalisa under his breath and looked aside trying hard to bring his racing heart under control. He should have never agreed to sit in her car. And he wished everyone would drop teasing him about running like a madman yesterday when he got a call from his furious wife.

Then he turned towards the middle aged woman sitting on the front beside the girl and noticed with no small amount of awe how perfectly composed she looks. Calm as the heart of an ocean enjoying how the breeze kissed a few of her raven strands which had escaped from her simple hairdo.

"Pallavi how come you are so cool with all this?"

Pallavi Rao smirked good naturedly and leaned back on the head rest of her seat looking in the sun bleached road in front admiring the canopy of the green glade flying above them with equal speed making patterns of sun light and shade over her cream white skin.

"Mandaar... when you are used to a tornado, a strong gust of wind cannot ruffle you."

Aisha and Mandaar burst out laughing in tandem knowing very well who was the unmentioned tornado in her statement. Pallavi's smirk stretched into a smile and she raised her hand to Aisha's giving her a high fie just before she changed the gears and slowed down a considerable way off from their destination. Mandaar smirked and asked his niece mischievously.

"Oh ho ho Ms. Michael Schumacher! What happened? Direct transition from tornado to evening breeze?"

"Are you crazy kaka? Appa will kill me if he sees me flying this thing in front of the house at this speed."

Pallavi tutted mirthfully and tweaked her nose.

"You will fool no one with that sweetheart. You have your Appa wrapped around your pinky, entire Hyderabad knows that. He would rather find out a fault in the engine than his dear daughter."

She said exasperatedly and came out of the side door helping Mandaar with the numerous packets and other stuff he was taking out from the back seat. Aisha leaped up from her seat and nearly tripped forgetting she was wearing a saree and not her usual jeans making both the elders scold her immediately.