There comes a time in everyone's life when all they want to do is just run. Leave everything as it is and run away as fast as possible. That was how I felt when I stood in front of Escale Towers, craning my neck to see where they ended. This was where the rich and elite of Delhi lived, planning world domination or whatever the ultra-rich did in their free time.
"Ma, do I have to live here?" I asked, groaning. "I can live in a hostel with my fellow students."
"You know we don't believe in hostels," my mother said, pulling her sweater tighter around her. "Those girls drink and stuff. We want a daughter who is an MBA graduate, not an alcoholic."
"Wow, ma. No one can stereotype like you," I said, resisting the urge to roll my eyes. It would bring on only more lectures. My father paid the auto driver and he drove away leaving black smoke and our coughing family in his wake.
"Dad, please say something. This is our last chance. We can still turn around and tell Sahu uncle that I will stay in a hostel." I appealed to my father who shrugged with a sheepish expression on his face.
"Sorry, Janvi. You know it's too late. Ravi and Seema are letting you live in their flat that costs crores. We don't withdraw in the last second and insult their friendship and generosity." My father said, effectively trumping me with his reason. Of course, I couldn't disappoint Ravi uncle and Seema aunty. I have known them since the day I was born. Ravi Sahu uncle and my father were best friends since college. While my father had become a middle-level government employee after college, Ravi uncle inherited their family business and increased the revenue a hundredfold. He was also featured in Forbes list of the top ten richest and most influential men in India a year ago.
Although there was a gigantic difference between our economic and social conditions, my father and Ravi uncle managed to stay good friends. They were there in every important event of my life, bestowing me with gifts and blessings. My parents played a similar role in their lives.
When I secured an MBA seat at the prestigious SK University in New Delhi, my mother was reluctant to send me there. The only people we knew in Delhi were the Sahus. Ravi uncle had just taken retirement from his thirty-year career to enjoy the rest of his years with his wife, Seema aunty. With them vacationing all around the world, my parents didn't know where to keep me.
When my father told Ravi uncle about this debacle, he had the perfect solution as he always did.
"We have an empty flat at Escale. Janvi can live there."
Perfect, wasn't it? An excellent place to live free of rent. But there was this thing. This little thing made me want to call off the whole deal.
"I still can't believe how perfect this whole arrangement is," my mother was saying to my father. "Janvi is going to live in this perfectly safe and beautiful building and our Arun is right across the door to help her if she needs anything."
There. My mother said the name of he-who-must-not-be-named. Arun Sahu. The bane of my existence. The man I was trying not to think of right now. Just like Ravi uncle and Seema aunty, Arun Sahu was there for every important event of my life. But, while my heart filled with happiness when I saw the elder Sahus, it boiled like lava when I saw Arun Sahu.
Arun and I were natural enemies. Like dogs and cats, frogs and snakes and deers and lions, mother nature had intended for Arun and me to hate each other just from sight. All we did was glare, snap and insult each other. Seema would kill her son if he ever raised his hand on a girl and that was the only reason why we didn't beat up each other already.
I didn't remember when our enmity had exactly started but both sets of parents agreed that it might have started when I broke his precious camera when I was three and he was seven. It grew when he 'accidentally' stepped on my dollhouse and when I put his homework in a shredder and when he told my sixth class crush that I was obsessed with him and when I revealed his cigarette stash to his mother…
Well, the list went on. It went on and on until patching up our relationship had become as impossible as patching up the Ozone layer. Our fathers were a little disappointed that we didn't grow up to be best friends like them, but I had a feeling that they were immensely entertained by our fights.
The last five years had been some of the most peaceful years of my life because Arun had left for Harvard for his higher studies. He studied business management there. Worked in Sahu Group of Industries' US division. He arrived last year to take over the business from his retiring father. My parents had visited him when he returned to India. They wanted me to accompany them, but fortunately, my exams were scheduled just then and I was saved from facing Mr Rudeness.
Arun Sahu shunned his parents' townhouse for a flat in Escale as he wanted to live on his own. Now, the most unfortunate thing was, the flat I was going to live in from today was directly across from his. I couldn't imagine a worse fate than living across from Arun Sahu and seeing his face every day. On the subject of his face, I hadn't seen it since he was twenty-one. He was a wiry and serious boy then. I wondered how he would be now. Just as ugly, I hoped. Men like Arun Sahu didn't deserve to be handsome.
Immersed in thoughts of my doom, I didn't notice when we had entered the elevator and shot up to the twelfth floor where my new flat was. The elevators dinged open and my parents and I exited, lugging my luggage with us.
The hallway was five feet wide and decorated with colourful plastic flowers that were hung on the wall in designer pots. It was also fragrant and warm in cold Delhi. In one sentence, it felt like a hallway to heaven with its white walls and sunlight slanting through the balcony.
There were only two doors in the large hallway. One door bore a golden plate with Arun Sahu's etched on it in calligraphy. So, we turned to the other door, behind which was the flat I was going to spend my next two years in.
"Do you have the key?" I asked my father, eager to get into the apartment before the other door opened and the devil incarnate stepped out.
"No, Arun is supposed to give us the key." My father said, taking out his cell phone to give him a call.
I groaned, tapping my foot on the floor. Seemed like the price of entering my new apartment was seeing my archenemy's face. And he wasn't even here. Was this what he learned all these years in the US? Not being punctual?
That was when the door in front of me opened, revealing a tall man standing in the doorway.
"Aunty, uncle, Janvi, so glad to see you all," Arun said, smiling.
My mouth almost fell open. There was no justice in this world. Arun Sahu was freaking handsome.