Arranged marriage was an age-old story that Khushi, the youngest of the infamous Gupta family, who revolutionized and dominated the trading market for generations, knew well.
For it was the only thing she heard growing up.
But that neither prepared...
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- September 2013 -
Arnav watched smugly as the girl in front of him laughed whole-heartedly, clutching her stomach in ache. She was the same one he saw on the first day of college, the same one who had coldly refused to sit beside him and the same one his best friend, Ryan, said was out of his league.
"You are hilarious," Myra said, taking deep breaths to calm herself down, though a wide grin was still plastered on her face.
Arnav beamed. Although they had more or less the same classes for over a year now, he didn't have an occasion to talk to her until two weeks ago, when they were –by sheer dumb luck– assigned to work on a project together for one of their business management courses.
And that was all the push Arnav needed to make sure they sat together in every class, had lunch together every day and recently, to walk her back to her hostel every evening. The second year of his undergraduate studies just couldn't get any better.
Ryan, of course, thought that Arnav had lost his marbles, for Myra didn't seem even remotely interested in him. But Arnav knew that if she really didn't care for him, then she wouldn't have agreed to spend time with him away from campus on the pretext of "working on the assignment".
Myra suddenly sobered up. "We should get going on this stupid project though... it's due next week."
Arnav rolled his eyes and slumped back on his chair. They were sitting in a café not far from her hostel.
"Do you not care if you fail?" Myra asked, more surprised than disappointed. "I never see you pay attention in any class."
"What's the point? I am not going to be doing this for life..."
"Why not?"
Arnav crossed his arms. "I'm going to be a chef."
Myra stared at him for a whole minute before breaking down into a laughing fit once again. Perhaps like his father, she too had decided not to have faith in him even before he tried.
"You are joking, right?" she asked in between giggles.
"Nope."
She finally caught on to the seriousness of his voice. "You want to cook for the rest of your life?!"
"Yes. I am pretty good at it actually."
"But... but you can't..." She struggled to find the right words. "You can't just cook... I mean you need a job... "
Arnav leaned forward. "Chefs work. And they get paid too."
She was still quite skeptical. "So then why are you here? Why are you doing this?"
"My dad," Arnav explained with a sigh. "He thinks being a chef is not good enough. He'd rather I sit in an office and spend the rest of my life ordering people around."
