Tewari & Sons, 23, Chandni Chowk

Chapter 8: Matters of the Heart

"Chotey, where are you? Jun is making me fast unto death and what not. Where is your brotherly concern," Anjali Di said as usual infusing drama into the most mundane of events.

"Di, no need to be so dramatic. You did a one-day fast. And it wasn't even a full twenty-four hours, just a nine to five one. I bet your Karwa Chauth fasts go for longer than that," he said, taking his phone off the charging station as he needed to sit down while talking to his sister. Being brief on the phone was not one of his sister's best qualities. In fact, most of his most vivid memories of Di while he was growing up was how she always was on the phone. Strangely enough, though they lived in a large house, they had only one phone line, but with two handsets. The main phone, which was one of those black wire ones that belonged to his paternal grandfather was on the corridor on the ground floor that led to the living room. His mom was attached to all things that were related to her father and inspite of the fact that dad brought back from one of his overseas trips a fancy phone with caller id, call waiting and the works, mom insisted on using this old one. There was a cordless one that was on the first floor, in his parents bedroom initially, that Di managed to get shifted to her room when she acquired her first boyfriend. His parents both had mobile phones by this time. Most of his New-Ons classmates had mobile phones. Arnav was also bought one, expect that it was clearly told to him that it was technically not his.

Though a lot of people would think of Arnav as a rich and spoilt kid, who pretty much had anything he wanted, his parents were essentially middle-class products and did not want their son to turn into a spoilt child and a mobile phone seemed like a wrong thing to buy a fourteen-year-old. This especially at a time when there were all kinds of MMS scandals involving school-kids in Delhi. So the phone was given to Gullu Bhaiya and was in Arnav's possession when he went out of town for a tournament or sports meet. Basically, the only purpose of the phone was for his mother to keep tabs on him. But the technicality of the possession aside, the phone meant that he never relied on the landline at home and be bothered by Anjali Di's hogging of it. The only person most affected by this was Aakash, who inevitably missed calls from his parents and New-On-Ites who called him for help with schoolwork. All this because the phone remained engaged ninety nine percent of the time thanks to Di. This began a strangely passive-aggressive battle between Di and Aakash, courtesy Lavanya. Aakash was a popular kid in school because he was a friendly and an uncontroversial sort, but more so because he was very bright and tutored a number of his classmates. Arnav had seen on more than one occasion, Aakash staying back after school and helping someone or the other with maths and science. But perhaps because Aakash did not technically live in his own house, people seldom visited him, expect for Lavanya, who was at his home almost every other day. Each time she would come home, she would complain how she was not able to get Aakash on the phone. When she realised that this was because of Anjali Di, she left a note on the phone saying, be brief'. This began an exchange of notes between Anjali Di and Aakash on the subject of chadis that thankfully dad put to an end by buying Aakash a phone. Anjali Di was on an anti-capitalism phase at this point and refused to get herself a mobile phone. Funny thing is, today Di denies this episode entirely. But till date she does love to talk over the phone and thankfully capitalism does not get in the way of owning expensive smartphones today.

He was at Mumbai airport. He had been there for four and a half hours now. There was a fog situation in Delhi and flights were delayed. One would think that science had made enough advances for flights to not get delayed because of the inability of aircrafts to cut through fog, but evidently not. He had come on a three-day work-trip to Mumbai to meet the main sponsor with whom AR Designs were cohosting the Kalpavriksha fashion show. Payal had come along with him too, but after the first day of meeting with suits who only spoke about footfalls and synergies, she decided to head back to Delhi.