Tewari & Sons, 23, Chandni Chowk

Chapter 2: Motichoor Ke Ladoo

"Arnav, I just got an invitation for something called a Satyanarayan Pooja from your sister," Payal said as she walked into Arnav's office at Raizada Designs. Arnav was on a call with one of his designers who was complaining about modifications that Raizada Designs had made on her original work. The designer in question, Niti Sarkar, a young, up and coming designer, was very unhappy. Arnav tried reasoning with her. His office had sent her a list of modifications that they needed in her original design and one of his in-house designers, in the interest of saving time had suggested that if she gave them a go ahead via email, they could take care of it at Raizada Designs itself. The changes very minor ones. Niti had agreed then, but yesterday when she had walked into one of the stores in Bombay that carried the Niti by RD label, she decided that the changes were more extensive than what she had agreed to.

"You have put my name on the design, my whole reputation is at stake," Niti had said dramatically. In the half an hour that Arnav had been on the phone with Niti he had sourced Niti's original sketches and compared it with the finished product. With the exception of an in-seam that the seamstress had put in place to improve the garment fit, everything else was the same when compared to the final design that she had approved.

He motioned Payal to sit down and mouthed N I T I to her. Payal put her palms around her neck, stuck her tongue out and pretended like a noose was around her neck. That is what most of his conversations with Niti always was. She was the most difficult designer that Arnav had to work with, but he worked with her because she was very talented. And Arnav respected her for that. He cared about Raizada Designs and associating with Niti was professionally rewarding albeit painful.

Payal was pacing up and down his office, checking her phone each time it beeped. Whatever it is that she read on her phone, seemed to annoy her. Seeing a sullen Payal was amusing. She had a short fuse and did not suffer fools well, especially those who sent her jokes on Whatsapp, made her want to break things.

"I am in Mumbai next week, do you want to discuss this then," Arnav finally interrupted Niti in the middle of her rant. Somewhat appeased, she agreed and hung up.

"The charming Miss Sarkar, eh? I must be the nicest person among all the designers you work with, yes?" Payal said, as she sat across him, drumming his table.

"Not really," Arnav said without even having the to think for too long about it. Payal was nice enough, but he wouldn't go as far as to describe her as the nicest. Payal merely shrugged.

"So Di has called you for the pooja? She was telling me that she would," Arnav said. Of course he omitted mentioning that Anjali Di planned to convince Payal into joining a Buddhist chanting group she went to, so that Payal would better manage her tongue and anger. Arnav wanted to tell Di that Payal did not need any fixing' and that it would be best if she were not to meddle, but he knew it was futile. This was Anjali Di, meddling was her favourite past-time.

"Yeah, she called me just a while ago," Payal said, once again scowling at her phone as it beeped, "But I had no idea Di was the devout type. Thought she was more of a rationalist, god-hating, Communist."

"I won't go as far as to say she is the devout type, but every person reaches that point in their life when they feel the need for appeasement. Di reached last year after Jiju got laid off from work," Arnav said, remembering how his perfectly rational sister went just a little bit cuckoo with her attachment for talismans around that time.

"Hmm. If she had married better and not that anarchist husband of hers, this pooja would have been altogether unnecessary," Payal's tone making it apparent that Anjali Di and her husband Arjoon were not her favourite people.

Arnav thought about what Payal said and he had to disagree with her. In fact, he thought that Anjali had made a rather good choice of life partner. Yes, Arjoon Bose was a guy who wore a beard longer than he could hold on to a job, but he made his Di happy.