The Wrong Number

16

"Hi."

Alankrita stared at Ruhan, who was standing at her door, looking completely out of it, holding a Tupperware box in his hands. He must have seen her eyes move to the box and explained, "My mother made carrot halwa," he said, "I accidentally told her your mother was making quiche."

She took the box from him and said, "Wow that was really nice of her. Uh, would you like to come in?"
"No I plan to stay out here and freeze to death," he said, and walked past her into her foyer. "Excuse you," she muttered through her teeth, and shut the front door. Ruhan was standing in the middle of the room, looking oddly shy. Alankrita gestured to the study, saying, "Why don't you go wait there; I'll give this to my mum and we'll get started in a minute." He nodded and walked to the study, and as soon as his back was turned Alankrita grimaced. The evening was going as awfully as she'd predicted.

She took the box to the kitchen, where her mother was peering into the OTG, and set it on the island counter. Her mother looked up to see the box and asked, "What is that?" and, before Alankrita could answer, was removing her oven mitts to take its lid off. "Oh!" she said, picking up a gooey looking orange cube, "Is this halwa?" before putting it in her mouth.

"He brought some carrot halwa over," Alankrita said quietly, watching her mother chew. She raised her eyebrows, and when she had swallowed asked, "He's here? So sweet of him to do that! Bring him here, I want to see him," she said, smiling. Alankrita violently shook her head, and was going to say something when she was interrupted by a voice from the hallway.

"Uh, excuse me."

Both of them turned to Ruhan, who cleared his throat and said in a very quiet voice, "Can I have some water?"

Alankrita stared at him, trying to understand why he was acting like he had a stick up his rump, for a few seconds before nodding and picking up a tumbler. Meanwhile, her mother decided make her guest feel comfortable. "It's so nice to meet you," she said, and much to both Alankrita and Ruhan's embarrassment, place both hands on his shoulders and gave them a quick squeeze. "Uh, H-hi aunty," he said shakily as she patted him, his cheeks tinted pink. She reached for his head and marvelled, "You're so tall! Very nice, do you play basketball?"

"Yeah," Ruhan replied, with a small smile. Like a car-crash, Alankrita wanted to look away from the two of them but didn't seem to be able to. She felt wetness on her wrist and realised the tumbler she was filling with water was overflowing, and quickly turned the tap off.

"What's your name?" her mother asked, still sunny. Ruhan seemed to have gotten over his initial shock and said, "Ruhan. Ruhan Das." The woman laughed at this and joked, "Das, is it? You wouldn't happen to be related to Bhargav Das, would you?" Ruhan smiled a little and said, "Actually, aunty, he's my father."

There was a moment of silence as she smiled what he'd said and then another as she understood he'd actually meant it. Then, laughing and subsequently making Ruhan flinch, she turned to Alankrita and indiscreetly winked, saying, "Nice catch Alloo."

Ruhan, who was not used to her mother's eccentrics like she was, looked like a fish out of water. Alankrita took this as her cue to intervene. "Ma, I didn't tell you because I knew you would try to psychoanalyze him," she said, swooping into the scene and handing Ruhan his tumbler of water, "Now we have to go work on our project, okay bye," and pulled Ruhan into the study behind her.

She closed the door leaving just enough room so that it was still considerably open, and took a seat next to Ruhan at the large desk that occupied most of the space in the study. There was a short silence as the two of them apprehended each other. "So... Your mother's really nice," he said, not meeting her eye. She mumbled a 'yeah' and started flipping through the pages of her physics textbook till she reached the chapter that was their project topic. "Now that you're here, we might as well get started," she declared, and started circling numericals for him to solve.