Vodka on the rocks

Part - 7

Sri Venkateswara Swamy Vari Temple, Jubilee Hills, Hyderabad, 8:37 am

Pallavi smiled at the Pandit who handed her the prasad. She touched it to her forehead closing her eyes uttering a small prayer in her mind before eating it. 

"Venkateshwara, please aaj ke din kuch unhoni mat hone dijiyega."

She respectfully touched the Pandit's feet next and felt a bolt of electricity shoot through her spine at his blessings. The words she had heard only one time before now, just after exchanging her marriage vows with another man. 

"Akhand saubhagyavati bhava!"

She swallowed the lead like lump which had suddenly formed in her throat and hastily reverted back the film of tears which had come in her eyes before rising up again. 

"Harish, can you please make sure everyone in the Mansion and the showrooms get the prasad?"

Harish nodded eagerly. Sometimes Pallavi thought Harish looked like an overgrown golden retriever pup, always eager to please and would get thrilled at the littlest of praise and wither at the slightest of sharpness. It was oddly endearing.

"Don't get fooled by that gentle giant appearance Saree Ka Dukaan. Harish had once pounded a man into a pulp. The Police couldn't identity the mouth from the pelvic bone."

"Now don't get afraid needlessly, he will never touch a single strand of your hair and would not let anyone else do it too."

"And before you launch into a detailed lecture on moral science and ethics, let me tell you, that man was a serial rapist and involved with a drug racketing ring. He deserved it. There's a reason why Farhad had set him as my bodyguard and I call him Gorilla. It's not only because of his lovely dimension."

"What... no.. I am not body shaming. He is cuddly.. like a massive.. gigantic teddy bear. Who could probably crush anyone's bones into powder if he hugs them too hard."

Pallavi smiled at Harish and started walking down the stairs with him and her impressive set of security detail following at her at a respectful distance but not too far. It was a beautiful morning. She remembered waking up to a beatific scene. Her husband was sleeping with his face on her pillow, very close to her own head. 

She loved seeing him asleep, very early in the mornings. He looked incredibly peaceful, almost childlike, untainted by the world outside. No perpetual frown in those perfect brows, no restlessness on his chiselled face, no churning tornado in the depths of those tunnelled pits of his handsome eyes, no phantom pain plastered on his body. 

Pallavi had not an idea when this marriage had turned from a contract to something painfully real. A lie which she so desperately wanted to be the truth. 

At least from her side. 

Now she had no idea how she will be able to survive without him, when their mission would get finally get over. And she had no one to blame but herself. So she had resigned herself to drinking these rare sights of Raghav Rao to her fill, lock them inside her soul like a reserve for later. 

She had craned her neck a little and pressed her lips in a little affectionate kiss on his smooth forehead followed by a whisper against his warm skin there. 

"Vāḍhadivasācyā śubhēcchā priya... Happy birthday dear."

Then she had very reluctantly dragged herself off the incredibly comfortable bed, mentally going over the itinerary for the day missing how his eyes had flashed open when her back was turned, mischief in those onyx pupils... merged with a familiar emotion Pallavi has getting reflected in her own eyes a thousand times before.