(Precribed Insanity) Chapter XI: Of Purple Toothed Heroes and Green Eyed Monsters

 

 

 

Arnav Singh Raizada was a man who was famously averse to any and all interruption, once he had his mind set on something. He could be in the middle of a sentence, and you could happen to interrupt him mid-way to tell a story of your own, and that story could go on for an hour, but by the end of that hour during which he’d stare at you with a cold, blank stare that would make you re-evaluate your entire existence (and also wish to die), he would tear his gaze away from your face and with a “-so I was saying…” continue what he had been saying originally before you, you impudent creature, decided to cut him short.

 

 

This introduction to Mr. Raizada’s aspect of personality became pertinent to elaborate upon here, because after watching the tape from Khushi’s fourth birthday, Arnav Singh Raizada had a highly disconcerting epiphany that he might have been interrupted for a good two decades in whatever task he had set his mind on at the tender age of eight. Hereafter are enlisted, the highlights that this situation presented before him:

 

 

1. He remembered that Khushi Kumari Gupta from his earliest flashes of memory, was once a very significant part of his life.
2. He couldn’t remember why the said Khushi Kumari Gupta was so significant part of his life.
3. He might have finally found the mysterious author of the hand-drawn ‘Forget me Not’ card scrawled in a child’s writing that had been lying around with him since forever (Honestly, he had a good mind to throw the thing right into the trash several times, but when there is ‘forget me not’ literally written on something, that too in a child’s writing, it would take an exceptionally callous and cold heart to not just forget it (thereby going against explicit instructions to not), but also to toss it into a trash can).
4. Said Khushi Kumari Gupta was also now all grown up, and had become a total whacko where he suspected her and her entire family to be under the influence of one or the other kind of potent drug.
5. She was exquisite though.
6. Ahem.

 

 

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It was with changed hearts, and blurred emotions, that two people sat amongst the rest at the dinner table, exchanging stolen glances every now and then. Every time Arnav would look at Khushi, she would begin to pay extra attention to the chicken biryani in her plate, and every time she managed to look back, he would suddenly be very interested in the kebabs on his. One time between the exchange of glances, Khushi choked on her food and got caught in a coughing fit, and Arnav all but rose from his chair to hand her water until Devyani Raizada’s super amused stare, pinned him back to his chair. Another time a chicken bone got under Arnav’s sensitive tooth and he winced a little, causing Khushi to leave her food and remind him to chew softly and double check if he needed painkillers. This time, even Anjali had a sly smile on her face and exchanged a quick look with Devyani. The two people involved, however, pretended all the while that they were just acting in the larger interest of humanity, and sailed towards the sunset on their boat of denial.

 

 

Dinner thus went on peacefully, until Khushi received a call at the table from an unknown number. Not wanting to be impolite, she disconnected with an apology and had just resumed her dinner when her phone began to buzz again. When the elders at the table insisted that she take the call, she excused herself and disappeared from the room for a good ten minutes. When she came back, she had an excited but stunned look on her face.

 

 

“Who was it Khushi? Is there an emergency?,” Payal asked with mild concern.

 

 

“Um..,” Khushi replied in a lost manner, “I just got a call from a celebrity’s manager.”

 

 

“What?!,” Payal exclaimed, “which celebrity?!”

 

 

“Nihaal Khurrana.”

 

 

Anjali gasped and covered her mouth with her hands. Payal’s eyes widened in disbelief before a full blown grin plastered itself across her face. Meanwhile, the rest of the table looked at Khushi with blank stares, not quite sharing the excitement.

 

 

“Um..who’s Nihaal Khurrana?,” Ashish Gupta asked, voicing the question on behalf of everybody else.

 

 

“Yeah, can’t recall his name. Not a bollywood celeb for sure,” Aakash said, chewing thoughtfully on his butter naan.

 

 

Arnav’s eyes meanwhile where fixed on Khushi’s face and the growing excitement on it, with bubbling apprehension in his chest.

 

 

“Nihaal Khurrana! NK!,” Anjali exclaimed, like the answer was an obvious general knowledge factoid, “the lead from ‘Kya hota hai Pyaar‘!”

 

 

“Is that a film?,” Devyani Raizada asked with mild curiosity.

 

 

“No Nani,” Anjali explained, “-It’s a daily soap. But it’s not your usual daily soap. I mean it’s a really good quality show in the romance genre. It’s quite a rage these days. And Nihaal Khurrana looks-“

 

 

At this point, Anjali’s voice trailed away into a dreamy sigh, and unable to put her appreciation for said Nihaal Khurrana in precise words in front of three elderly people, she shared a pointed look with Payal, who perfectly mirrored her sentiments sharing a look of mutual understanding.

 

 

Arnav and Aakash Singh Raizada both collectively felt their dinner rising back up their throat.

 

 

“Why did his manager call you Khushi?,” Payal asked the question Arnav was literally biting his tongue to refrain from asking himself.

 

 

“He needs a dentist,” Khushi explained, “Apparently, someone served him some weird detox juice on set that discolored his teeth and they are now a weird purplish shade that just refuses to leave, and he needs to urgently get it fixed before the next shoot which is some romance scene where his teeth are definitely needed. So the manager called me to ask if I could squeeze in his appointment for polishing and clean up tomorrow morning.”

 

 

“Oh I am so jealous!,” Anjali let out a whiny exclamation. “Why am I not a dentist?”

 

 

Khushi laughed. “I mean, I don’t watch the serial myself but I’ve heard his name several times before. He is a big deal in the television industry. Oh, and his cousin had an appointment with me last month, I remember she told me she was Nihaal Khurrana’s cousin in a very pretentious manner. Maybe she recommended me to him. Although it still baffles me why his manager would contact me of all people- there are much fancier dentists out there who exclusively cater to celebrities.”

 

 

“Well then maybe that’s the whole point,” Aakash said. “Maybe he wants to keep it low key. It couldn’t really be great for a romance lead to have it publicized that he’s having his purple teeth polished. And like you said, his cousin’s already visited you before.”

 

 

“Yes, that must be it,” Payal agreed. “Although I don’t think anything can effect Nihaal Khurrana’s machismo. Not even purple teeth.”

 

 

“Exactly,” Anjali nodded vehemently. “Not with that jawlin-,” she stopped mid-way when she saw her brothers give her nauseous looks.

 

 

“Gets appointments to have his teeth shiny and sparkly for a sappy romance soap opera. Macho alright.” Arnav said in a drawl.

 

 

Aakash, who was increasingly getting pissed seeing Payal’s enthusiasm over this stupid soap opera hero, felt a rush of love for his brother over his remark, and laughed out the loudest in the room.

 

 

“Well said, Bhai. Also what kind of a shit name is ‘Kya hota hai Pyaar‘. I would understand if it was ‘Kyun hota hai Pyaar‘ or ‘Kaise hota hai pyaar‘ but ‘Kya hota hai‘ sounds like the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard and a really fundamental question that no one who has their mind set on making a romance show should be asking.”

 

 

“Yes because the both of you are such obvious experts in this department,” Anjali said scornfully, and the demeanor of both brothers immediately sobered at the truthfulness of that jibe.

 

 

“Ooo..you think Bani will come?,” Payal asked Khushi with barely repressed excitement.

 

 

“The female lead?,” Khushi asked.

 

 

“Yes yes.” Anjali offered the confirmation, “Bani and Nihaal. Also called as ‘BaHaal’- their couple name.”

 

 

Arnav expressed his absolute resentment at a concept called ‘couple names’ existing in the universe, with a deep frown on his face.

 

 

“-Or ‘BanAl’. Which they probably are,” Aakash said mockingly, “Or ‘BaAl’. Or ‘Niba’ which sounds quite racist-”

 

 

“Okay enough Aakash,” Anjali cut him short with displeasure writ across her face. “BaHaal are the cutest, okay? Not a word against them. I ship them together, so shut up.”

 

 

“Di, I’m trying to eat here,” said Arnav, who having just stomached the concept of couple names was now having to hear his sister gush about “shipping” them together.

 

 

“I’m guessing this Nihaal boy is very handsome,” Garima said with an indulgent smile on her face. “I remember I used to ‘ship’ Amitabh Ji back in the days.

 

 

“You need two people to ‘ship’ Maa,” Payal patiently corrected her mother, “you ship someone with someone. If you only like one person, then it’s fangirling/fanboying.”

 

 

“What crap-” Arnav loudly announced his opinion.

 

 

“Chotte language.” Devyani glared at him.

.

 

“Anyway, anyway,” Khushi laughed, silencing the room, “He is coming to my clinic tomorrow, so we’ll see. Let’s have the caramel custard now. I have spent a lot of time making it.”

 

 

At this, Khushi got a raised eyebrow and a pointed look from Arnav, which turned her expression guilty but for only a second after which she said in a hushed whisper to him- “what? It’s not a lie. I did spend a lot of time making caramel custard. It’s another thing that this is not the end product.”

 

 

“Convenient,” he replied, and she told him instead to shush and eat.

 

 

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Dinner was done, and the Gupta’s were standing at the main gate of their house to see off the Raizadas. Khushi had received a lot of compliments for her caramel custard which she had gladly accepted without a single shame in the world. While Devyani, Aakash, and Anjali had gushed about it, Ashish and Garima had felt guilty for having underestimated their daughter and Payal had fixed her sister with skeptic, half opened eyes.

 

 

The only person who was an exception, was Arnav Singh Raizada. You could call it a simple loss of appetite, or you could call it a loss of appetite exacerbated by the knowledge of a certain Nihaal-Khurrana-looks-too-good-for-an-idiot being treated by Khushi Kumari Gupta the following day, or you could blame it on something else, but fact remained that Arnav Singh Raizada hated the caramel custard from ‘Cakes & Shakes‘. It was nothing like the one he had eaten in the car, and he did not like it at all. It had nothing of that runny, silky texture of the previous one, and had an odd, brown syrup poured all over it. Disgusting.

 

 

So making up his mind to not eat the store bought custard, Arnav had excused himself and had made up his mind to instead finish off the remaining sent-from-heaven custard in the tupperware container in his car when he got the chance. The one that was untainted from discussions of stupid Indian soap opera heroes.

 

 

Devyani and Anjali were being explained by Ashish and Garima Gupta why the ‘A’ on their nameplate was slightly towards the horizontal side (“No”, Ashish Gupta had vehemently denied, he had certainly not pulled back the ‘A’ from Happy Ji’s board in the middle of the night- Garima Gupta looked at him with wounded disbelief as he said this), while Aakash and Payal were engaged in banter over something that looked less like banter and more like flirting to a third pair of eyes.

 

 

Arnav and Khushi stood at a little distance further, with Arnav fixing the clasp on his watch while Khushi tried to calm down MJ’s excitement and vehement tail wagging upon seeing her.

 

 

“MJ! Calm down, calm down! Good dog! Uff, so excited he gets,” she said, as MJ all but rose on his hind legs to greet her. “He hates the world at large, but for some reason he has this weird obsession with me.”

 

 

Arnav glared at MJ, and since Khushi was looking in the other direction, MJ  gnarled at him with bare teeth.  Arnav narrowed his eyes at him, but just when Khushi looked back, MJ let out a whiny, pleasing whimper, and wagged his tail at her causing Arnav to exclaim “what the-!” at the sheer hypocrisy of it all.

 

 

“Your second RC sitting is scheduled for tomorrow afternoon right?,” Khushi asked Arnav, bringing his hostile communication with MJ to a temporary pause. He looked at her and gave her a confirmatory nod of the head.

 

 

“Good,” she replied, “maybe if you’re on time, you’ll also get to meet NK.”

 

 

“Consider me thrilled,” he replied with acid in his voice.

 

 

“Why? Don’t you like him?”

 

 

“I don’t care about him.”

 

 

“Looks like you already don’t like him.”

 

 

“Looks like you already like him too much.”

 

 

“Why would I like him? I’m not like Jiji. I don’t watch his show.”

 

 

“Isn’t stopping you from being excited about polishing his purple teeth.”

 

 

“Well, that’s my job.”

 

 

“Good for you.”

 

 

“See, you don’t like him.”

 

 

“Like I said, I don’t care.”

 

 

“You know what, you don’t like him so much, that it makes me want to like him now.”

 

 

“Good for you. Might as well leave dentistry and ask him for a stint on his sappy idiotic show.”

 

 

“How do you know it’s a sappy idiotic show when you have never watched it? Or do you secretly watch his sappy idiotic show?”

 

 

“Over my dead body.”

 

 

“-And what is wrong with doing a stint on his show? I always thought I had artist potential.”

 

 

“…..”

 

 

“What was with that derisive snort? You think I couldn’t be an actress if I wanted to, Mr. Raizada?”

 

 

At this point, Khushi flipped her hair with hands on her hips and gave Arnav a good stare down. As she turned towards him, flaring her nostrils angrily and arching her eyebrow, her hair caught the wind and played on her forehead prettily, and her dupatta fluttered making red ripples around her on either end. At that point, Arnav Singh Raizada could believe that Khushi Kumari Gupta was a reincarnate of Marilyn Monroe herself if told as much.

 

 

As he continued to gaze at her with a lost expression, Khushi, who had been bracing herself for a retort, got confused, and feeling the effect of caffeine returning in her chest with a decided vengeance, cleared her throat and quickly looked away.

 

 

“Not that I want to be an actress, thank you very much. Dentistry is just fine,” she muttered, after making an elaborate show of tucking a strand of hair behind her ear.

 

 

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Arnav Singh Raizada lay on his bed, gazing at an invisible spot on the ceiling with images of red anarkalis swishing against banisters, red frocks and tiaras, dupatta fluttering in the wind, and eyes that looked ever so pretty when angry, floating unchecked inside his head.

 

 

Beside him on his side table, sat an empty tupperware container with a ‘Just Chill’ paperweight kept inside one of the drawers.

 

 

Right in the middle of pleasant fantasies, an ugly thought reared its head inside his brain, and Arnav fished out his cellphone from his pocket. Opening Google, he tapped the words ‘Nihaal Khurrana’ on it, and waited for the results. At the very top of the page, were a string of YouTube suggestions:

 

 

Nihaal and Bani: Love Scene #45

 

 

BaHaal cute off screen moments

 

 

Nihaal Khurrana goes shirtless for new ad shoot

 

 

BaHaal Scene # 72: They almost do it

 

 

What the-!

 

 

Almost do what dammit?

 

 

As he scrolled through suggestion after suggestion, Arnav felt nausea returning to him with a decided vengeance, and irritably threw his phone towards the other end of the bed. Crossing his hands over his chest, he returned to staring at the spot on the ceiling albeit with significantly different sentiments this time.

 

 

Yeah, he hated the guy.

 

 

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Khushi Kumari Gupta stared at the tiny stars on the ceiling of her room, while lying upon her bed that night. She had pasted them there with the aid of a very long broom in the house, and a very reluctantly cooperative Payal Gupta, when she was in the seventh grade. Now, at the ages of twenty-six and twenty-eight respectively, both sisters found those same glow-in-the-dark stars incredibly tacky and honestly wanted to get rid of them with all their hearts but the memory of the sheer effort that had taken in pasting them up there, and the sheer effort that would take to now pull them off, acted as a significant deterrent to the exercise. And so, the stars glowed right up there on the ceiling, mockingly twinkling at them every night in a – hah! losers! kind of way.

 

 

This time, Khushi’s attention was not on the stars, however. On her mind, was a certain Arnav Singh Raizada who earlier that day, she had been forced to see in an all new light. She tried with all possible strain to her mind to remember anything from when she was four years old- any possible memory of an eight year old hero she looked up to, but her mind drew a blank. Four years on the planet is an age where you have not even lived with your parents long enough to immediately begin suspecting that you are adopted every time they shout at you. It is too little to remember every significant thing right into your 20s.

 

 

She frowned in disappointment at the little help she was getting from her memory. Still, memory or no memory, fact remained that her mother might have been right all this while about her being pretty close to a certain Arnav Singh Raizada as a child. He did stick right by her side throughout the video tape, he did wrestle her gift back from a bratty child who had pulled it away from her hands, she did single him out in a whole room full of adult people to do it for her.

 

 

That had to account for something, right?

 

 

And okay, okay, so he did grow into what she had not long back called a “pole of obnoxiousness” and he did sport a perpetual expression of someone who wakes up thinking it’s Sunday only to open their eyes and realize that it is, in fact, Monday morning. And he did mock her professional skills on more occasions than one, initially. Hah. Idiot. Like he could get a more patient dentist on this planet for him if he tried. Any dentist with half her patience would have picked a sledgehammer and-

 

 

Wait. Wait. That was not the point of this exercise.

 

 

Point was, that once upon a time, Arnav Singh Raizada had been okay-ish enough to have her stick to his side all the livelong time. And even now, he was a man who would occasionally do semi-decent things like compliment her culinary skills, block people’s cars for her, and willingly eat custard that she made. Things, which for a person like her, were about sufficient to hand out at least an offer of friendship.

 

 

There was nothing wrong with trying to be friends with someone who was close to you as a child.

 

 

Children after all, are innocent, and have impeccable judgment in people.

 

 

Khushi Kumari Gupta decided, therefore, underneath twinkling stars, that it would not be such a bad idea to offer a hand in friendship to Mr. Raizada going forward.

 

 

(His hands on her wrist that evening had done things to her heart that should only be done by hammers to bells and he was also almost ridiculously good looking with his porcupine hair but she wouldn’t think about all of that right now).

 

 

As the clock struck midnight, Khushi sighed and stared at the glowing stars, when one of which, to her great horror, was blocked by a lizard who didn’t particularly care about the aesthetic of home decor. Widening her eyes, Khushi jumped out of the bed and bolted for the door to call for Ashish Gupta who prided himself in being the best lizard remover on the street (Ashish Gupta took pride in weird things, as has been made sufficiently clear before).  It was an interesting start to what was going to be an eventful day ahead.

 

 

 

 

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Happy New Year everybody! Wishing all of you an amazing year ahead filled with joy, love, and loads of luck.

 

This chapter took its sweet time coming, I know. A lot of things happened in between to make sure of that. Anyhoo, we’re back now 😀 Here’s to starting 2020 on a crazy note!