Fear & Love

Thirty Nine

Gita couldn't concentrate on her work. Her mind went back to the night when Anand talked about his mother. There didn't seem to be a trace of hatred as she had expected. No anger or malice in his tone while he mentioned her. She had always thought that his mother is a very sensitive topic for him, which it is and he would hate to talk about her. But instead he was very calm about it.

From the time Gita remembers meeting his family, Anand's mother was never in the picture. Infact, noone even mentioned her name during functions even by mistake. It was only when she turned little older that she got to hear all kinds of stories. They believed Nandini Dixit ran away with her lover leaving behind her husband and children. There were talks about her extra marital affair and the last she heard about her was when she remarried a small time industrialist.

It was none of her business to be intrusive in the matter of a woman she had never met. But from the stories, she assumed Anand hates his mother. Even Isha has never mentioned her before.
For Thackerays, it was the only blotch on their name. The family who was all about flourishing empire made a scandal when there was a divorce in the family. Divorce was an uncommon practice at that time and the members of the Thackeray family felt humiliated due to this.

Considering how important "reputation" is for Anand, she thought he would hate his mother for ruining his family's name.
After her work was done, she contemplated calling Isha and asking her about their mother but kept the call thinking of how stupid it is to ask Isha. They are good friends but at no level of friendship, it is right to ask about an eloping mother unless they want to talk about it.

On the other hand, asking about it to her husband didn't seem awkward. She had grown close to Anand in the past few months. She loves that Anand is starting to open up to her. She had noticed how he tries to come home early or keeps two - three hours free on Sunday evenings.

Her most favourite thing to do was to cook with him. Whenever he had little time on his hands on a weekend, he would try to teach her to cook. In the beginning, Anand told her there was no need for her to learn cooking as the basics would suffice for her survival and for the delicious and gourmet part, they have their chefs and staff. But Gita's smart mind worked!  If she could convince him to teach her cooking,she will get more time to spend with him. And so she convinced her busy and usually cold husband to teach her cooking in his free time. She never had the slightest idea that a rich brat like Anand knew to cook so well. Anand mentioned how he used to cook during his university days abroad and had even worked as a kitchen runner in a Michelin star chef's hotel.

But nobody should get such a blunt husband! While telling her stories about the recipes he saw and tried, he also told her about customers and the female attention that he got, sometimes even the male attention. He mentioned it so nonchalantly that she knew he wasn't teasing her or making her jealous. It was just some random stories to him.

She didn't know how she felt about it. Ofcourse, he was a fine specimen and was bound to get attention and compliments but she wanted to know if he had given someone his attention.  She had no issues with someone harboring feelings for him but she wanted to know his take. He has never mentioned about his ex girlfriends or people he had dated. Before marriage was the only time when she had asked him about his involvement with others to which he denied having someone in his life, like that is the most obvious thing and shouldn't be even questioned.
Her intention to ask about his love interest never came from any jealousy or doubts but she was just curious to know more. She stopped herself from asking him fearing it would ruin his mood and this beautiful time she gets to spend with him will stop.

Few months back, before her wedding, she thought she would be in a marriage that was one sided effort and love but now she knows his heart is growing softer for her. Big news is, he has a heart! Yes, whatever the newspapers believes or the relatives says, she knows he is not cruel. How can he be heartless when he has made efforts to make her feel comfortable at this new place? If he was so unbothered about people, he would never try to come early at her request, or teach her cooking and do gardening. Sometimes, she just wanted to pinch his cheeks and kiss him at his cute little acts. She knew, he would just tell her to let go of his cheeks and only the kiss would be accepted. Kiss and some more acts.