Free The Runaway Bridegroom by Sundari Venkatraman Page A

evening it had been! The party had been exciting and so had been the ride to Ranveer’s home in his company. After realising that he lived alone, Chanda had expected to remain awake the whole night. But she had gone to sleep the moment her head touched her pillow. And she had woken up after - Chanda turned to look at the small table clock next to the bed - seven hours of uninterrupted sleep.
       It was 9 am and the silence was simply blissful. It was a luxury unavailable at the hostel where there was constant chatter as someone or the other of her roommates was awake all the time. They were either talking to one another or were on the phone chatting up with someone. Chanda moved back to relax against the bed head, enjoying the silence for a few more minutes.
       She slowly got out of the bed and walked to the bathroom to get ready for the day. She had a shower and tied the bathrobe tightly around her slim body after towelling herself dry.
       Should she borrow some more clothes or wear her evening dress? Chanda decided that now that she had taken one set of clothes from this lady, she might as well borrow one more. She walked to the floor length wardrobe and checked out the clothes hanging there. She found a short skirt in checkered cotton. It was in blue and white. She searched some more before finding a white collarless t-shirt. She wore them and found that the short skirt was not so short after all. It reached an inch below her knees. Chanda brushed her hair till it shone, applied some cream on her face, a touch of brown lip gloss and left the room to look for Ranveer.
     
    UNLIKE CHANDA, RANVEER had had a terrible night. He hadn’t been able to sleep a wink with Chanda put up in a bedroom so close to his own, right under his roof.
       He had been up since 7 am and walked out of his bedroom when he heard movement outside. Chanda was up and she was looking so bright-eyed and bushy-tailed that Ranveer could only feel envy.
       Chanda was startled to see the dark circles around Ranveer’s eyes and wondered at it. But she was too shy to ask him about it. She thought that maybe that’s what happened after a drink too many. She gave him a hesitant smile, not able to sense his mood.
       Ranveer smiled back before he said, “Good Morning Chanda! Did you sleep well?”
       “Good Morning Ranveer! Yeah, I did, very well,” answered Chanda enthusiastically.
       They both walked down the staircase by mutual consent and Chanda followed Ranveer into the kitchen as he set out to make coffee.
       She watched in fascination as he filled the electric filter with coffee grounds, added water and switched it on. He seemed to know his way around the kitchen as he removed mugs from the cupboard and set a tray with sugar and spoons. He removed milk from the fridge and kept it to boil on the gas stove. This was a totally different facet to Ranveer, the boss.
       Chanda was hungry. She asked him, “Shall I make something to eat?”
       Ranveer turned to look at her. “Of course, do you eat eggs? I have those and bread. I can make an omelette—”
       Chanda raised a hand to stop him in mid flow. She couldn’t imagine a guy making her food. That would be so strange. None of the men at home knew anything in the kitchen - not her father, none of her brothers.
       She said, “I can make the omelettes, Ranveer.” She hesitated before saying, “I hope you don’t mind,” a wary look on her face. Maybe he wouldn’t like her to do anything in his kitchen.
       Ranveer shrugged his broad shoulders before saying, “Of course not. You go on. You’ll find all you need in the fridge. If you want to use onions, they are there,” he pointed to the cane basket kept in the corner. There were onions, potatoes and garlic in it. ‘Not bad at all, for a bachelor pad’, thought Chanda.
       With quick and easy movements, suggesting that a kitchen was not unfamiliar territory, Chanda set out to work on her speciality -