Bombay Romance ♡ COMPLETED

[ 44 ] The Taj ■

'What happened to your hair?' Amarnath looks bewildered.

'I curled it,' Gauri pats her bouncy curls, a result of patiently spending the last six hours with twenty-four sponge curlers on her head. Amarnath blinks at it with child-like curiosity.

Can't he compliment me on how I look? Gauri fumes inwardly. I've to ask everything out loud!

'How do I look?' she smoothens the frills of her royal-blue satin midi. A single-strand pearl necklace sits around her neck, matching her pearl-strapped ballerina shoes.

'Cut your nails,' he says.

'What?' Gauri blinks.

'Cut your nails. You shouldn't grow them so long.'

Gauri has the urge to strangle him right there.

'Kihari exhibition hain?' he asks as they step into the gallery of the Taj Hotel, opposite the Gateway of India, flanking the Arabian Sea.

'Photography exhibition. Karan is my school friend. He attended this photography school in Rome and he's finally back in India after touring Italy, France and England.'

They enter a huge double-height gallery on the third floor, with walls lined with framed photographs. Small plates attached to the frames mention the pictures' locations. The first is a majestic 3' X 2' photograph of Buckingham Palace, London, against a spring sunrise.

'There's a coffee shop two streets away from the palace,' Gauri remembers. 'Their cold coffee with whipped cream was my favourite!'

'Cold coffee?' Amarnath repeats. People yell and make a scene at restaurants if the coffee has gone a little less hot. Imagine drinking coffee which has become cold! 

'God, I miss London days,' she mutters dreamily.

Next is a photograph of a club in Milan, Italy. It is a photograph of a dancer in a revealing bikini, grooving to rock music with a guitar. Spectators cheer in the background.

'Gauri ... I want to tell you something,' Amarnath looks at Gauri hesitantly.

'Hmm?' 

'I went to a club ... a few days back.'

Gauri looks surprised. Amarnath and a club? That's unusual. 

'There was a dancer there and she ... ' he looks at the photograph. 'She was dressed almost like this. And I had to sit through that dance ... but I'd gone to meet someone and my senior officer forced me to go there. I-I really didn't have any other intentions ... '

'Uh, could you just bend a little?' Gauri asks causally. And when Amarnath does, she quickly kisses him on the cheek.

He draws back and looks around. 'Gauri! People are around!'

'Then don't say such things when people are around,' she puts her hands around his arm possessively. 'I fall in love with you again when you say such things. That too, you're looking like some 60s film hero today,' she looks at his checkered coat.

'You mean I'm looking old?' he asks.

Gauri giggles and looks dreamily at the photograph of a guy on the Pont d'Iéna bridge kneeling in front of a blonde, with roses in his hands against the backdrop of the Eiffel Tower. 'Beautiful, right?'

'Road te iss tarah kaun karada hain?' Amarnath asks logically.

'Bilkul isi tarah karnaa hain,' she replies in a broken Punjabi accent.

Amarnath looks at her, laughing in surprise.

'Have you ever given me flowers like this?' she demands.