Free Bollywood Fiancé for a Day by Ruchi Vasudeva Page B

back on a pillar.
    The trees in the garden threw dark shadows as electric light from the porch fell on them. A small summer breeze made the wisps of hair escaping from her topknot stir on her neck. The sounds of singing and the beat of a
dholki
came from inside. It had resumed when she left the room. She blinked away silly tears. It should stop being so hurtful but it didn’t.
    Every time she went where the relatives were gathered, a hush seemed to fall over the room. Instead of the wronged one she was beginning to feel like the culprit. How could she make them understand that? Saira pointedly ignored her except when she absolutely couldn’t. Her aunts spoke to her in overly honeyed tones till she felt she’d scream.
    When the call for playing the inevitable
antakshari
of film songs went round, she’d quietly slipped away. She raised her knees and looked down at the intricate henna design on her hands. One of her girl cousins had dabbed on a lemon and sugar mix to make the dark green
mehndi
paste stick to her palms—for better colour, she’d claimed. Inside, her sister was getting the bridal mehndi done but, instead of taking part in the excitement, she was left out here. Alone.
    She sighed.
    One more thing lay heavy on her mind. The matter of her supposed engagement.
    She still couldn’t believe she’d made that crazy pact with Zaheer Saxena just a few hours ago. Had the overload of patients finally driven her out of her mind? She wasn’t the impulsive kind. It felt unreal, so much so that she hadn’t had the nerve to mention it to anyone, much less prepare the ground to her parents for Zaheer’s coming. Deep inside, she knew why. Her reluctance stemmed from anticipation of the incredulous reaction it was bound to generate. It had been tempting at the time but, really, who’d be convinced she’d captivated a superduper perfectly chiselled hunk like him? Munish, with his modestly thick waistline, had been described as ‘just right’ for her. As though their bulk as well as their horoscopes had to match for the marriage to be made in heaven.
    Zaheer Saxena was simply…electric. For all that laid-back charm, the hazel eyes held an unsettling keenness. Even without his Bollywood connection, people would be hard put to believe he’d fallen head over heels for her, banana peels being absent, and she simply didn’t have the spirit to carry out the farce in front of that hawk-eyed duo of her paternal aunts.
    Maybe she should text him to say that it had all been a joke on her part. But what if he’d already forgotten about it, an inexorable punishing voice mocked. What if the joke was on her?
    God, she had to stop going to pieces like this. Zaheer Saxena was no fool. And what he’d told her about Mia Khan definitely rang true. Everyone knew Mia had left no stone unturned in projecting herself and Zaheer as the ultimate happening couple of the film industry after their last release together. The romantic number
Hum Ko Milna Tha Yesterday
, shortened to
HKMTY
, had brought long Hindi film titles back into vogue. Teens and young adults were emulating the apparel of the film’s stars and its songs still topped the charts. Mia had looked all set to announce their wedding date but, shockingly, the announcement instead had come of her marriage to Armaan Khan. Bollywood diehards like Vishakha and her friends still speculated about it.
    So no surprise there if Mia was after him again.
    And now he wanted her, Vishakha, to act as a barrier between them.
    She moaned silently. She was hopeless at pretending. Saira was more suited to this kind of charade. In fact Saira would have enjoyed this, fitted right into this adventure like a fish taking to water.
    A shadow fell on the dark green design on her hands and she looked up.
    â€˜Don’t girls usually have their fiancé’s name inscribed in the
mehndi
?’ Tall as ever, so that her neck threatened to