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— AVANTIKA —

“Samarth,” she poked his bicep. No response.

“Samarth!” She poked again and kept poking. His closed lids scrunched.

“What, Ava?”

“I want sex.”

His eyes tore open — “What?” He turned his head to the window, the curtains half-open after she had gotten up to freshen up and look at Nawanagar’s sunrise from his window. Their window.

“And you do too…” she reached under the duvet and found him ready.

“Ooh…” his eyes squeezed shut again. “How do you… never mind!” Long arms reached for her and she was straddling him in the next instant, the duvet fallen away.

“My sexual appetite is suddenly relentless,” she pushed her hair over one shoulder and bent down to kiss him.

“I am not complaining,” his fingers bunched in the hair at the back of her head, his hand pushing between them and into her shorts.

“You missed your pre-dawn bhajan session,” she nipped his jaw.

“You didn’t let me sleep before dawn.”

“I plan to not let you sleep a lot more,” she kissed her way down his throat to his chest, feeling his fingers work her like they always did. Better now, because he worked her like he was her husband or something. Avantika chuckled, trailing her mouth to his navel.

“Brahmi Kumari padharya chhe!” A loud holler froze her.

“Shit! Fuck!” She pushed off him and went under the duvet.

“Mama!” Brahmi rattled their door.

“Rawal? Maarani? Brahmi wants to come to you,” Hira ben’s softer voice shattered all her roaring sexual appetite.

“Go, open! I am not wearing anything!” Samarth panicked, going under the duvet.

“What open? Look at me!” She pointed to her tiny shorts and top that had ridden up.

“It’s just Hira ben…”

“And your guards.”

‘Right, yes.” He rolled out of bed and walked naked into his wardrobe. The door rattled again.

“I’m coming, I’m coming!” He emerged with his pyjama pants on, pulling a T-shirt over his head. He opened the door only a pinch, keeping her screened on their bed. Brahmi weaselled her way through the crack as he spoke to Hira ben.

“Mama…” she came running to her and folded like a little baby into her open arms. Avantika pulled the duvet over her and she curled tighter, laying her head over her chest. “Hi, baby, good morning.”

“Mmmm… morning,” her warm breath came out a little bummed.

“Did you sleep well with Dada Sarkar and Dadi Sarkar.”

“I missed you.”

She stroked her hair, combing her fingers through the strands. “I’m right here.”

Brahmi’s hands fisted in her top, her eyelashes fluttering over her skin.

“Hey,” Samarth came up beside her on the bed. “What’s wrong with you?”

“I miss home.”

“You don’t like it here?” He asked softly, his eyes meeting hers over Brahmi’s head.

No answer.

“Baby?” He shifted closer to them, pushing her hair behind her ear. “Did somebody say something to you?”

She shook her head.

“Then?”

“I miss Mama.”

“Not Papa?” He joked.

“In Loire I used to sleep with Mama.”

“Eh,” Avantika kissed her head. “You loved your room there.”

“Yaa but I could come to your room whenever I wanted.”

“You don’t like your room here?” Samarth sat up, his voice suddenly pitched playfully higher.

“I don’t have a room here,” Brahmi finally popped her head up from her chest to look at her father.

His mouth dropped open — “What is this then?” He waved at the space around them.

“This is my room?” The dejected little voice was slightly more hopeful.

“Come here,” he held his hand out. She crawled to him and he gathered in his arms, springing to his feet.

He padded inside his walk-in with her on his hip, and the sounds of ‘ooohs’ and ‘wows’ clued Avantika to the sights her daughter had witnessed.

Samarth had not only had her bag unpacked and set into one large wardrobe but also added a collection of new stuff in lavenders and whites and many other colours.

The beginning of the princessization of her daughter.

Avantika glanced up when the duo emerged, this time Brahmi’s face grinning, her arms tight around Samarth’s neck.

“This is your room, see?” He came back on the bed and deposited her between them, pushing a pillow between theirs. “Yours,” he fluffed it. She squealed and thumped down on it, rolling in the space between them. He caught her and ran a tickle down her tummy, making her giggle.

“You are also Brahmi Kumari,” he informed her. “The princess of Nawanagar.”

“Dadi Sarkar told me you are a king.”

“I am.”

He owned it solemnly. Avantika’s heart somersaulted.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because me being king isn’t special.”

“Then what is special?”

“Me being your Papa,” he bent and blew a raspberry on her cheek, making her laugh out loud and wind her arms around his neck. Samarth laid down beside her, taking her on his chest — “Remember I told you I was working with my Papa?”

“Mm hmm.”

“I was working with my Papa for our kingdom. Our people here.”

“Like who?”

“Like Harsh Kaka, like Hira ben, their families, and so many others. You saw them when we came to the palace from the airport? So many of them came out to see you.”

“They came to see Sharan Kaka.”

“And you.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

“So I will also grow up and work for them?”

“Would you like to?”

“I want to grow up and play polo.”

Samarth laughed.

“You can do both. Do you want to know how I work for our people?”

“Mmm hmm.”

“I help them make their lives easier, I help them find work to do, I make them smile on festivals…”

“Like I make my friends smile by dancing and making faces?”

“Not exactly like that but close.”

“And?”

“And? And the cricket stadium. You saw that?”

“Dada Sarkar looooves cricket.”

“He does.”

“And Mama too.”

“She is the best at it.”

“They showed me the trophies in the stadium.”

“And you know who made that stadium?”

“Who?”

“Dada Sarkar. So that all the children of Nawanagar who love cricket can come and play there if they don’t have the stumps or balls or pitch at home.”

“Hmm…”

“I made a polo school like that.”

“For all the kids who don’t have ponies?”

“Exactly.”

“Even I don’t have my pony yet!”

Samarth poked her side — “You’ve gotten a promise extracted out of Dada and Dadi Sarkar.”

Brahmi smirked, giving him a proud grin.

“It’ll come to you,” Samarth patted her back. “You have to be patient. It will come to you when you need it the most and you deserve it the most.”

“So, like,” she pushed the hair off her face. “When I grow up, I will make things like these?”

“And more. Do you want to do that?”

“Yay!”

“Yay!” He grabbed her and held her over himself, using his feet to balance her in the air.

She squealed. Avantika lay her head back on the cushioned headboard, looking at her husband and her daughter, the two people she never imagined she would ever see together playing in a bed.

Their bed. Not hers, not his. Theirs. The discovery of this joy was a joy in itself. She never wanted it to end.

————————————————————

There were many discoveries in the Palace of Nawanagar that she made on her first official morning here. Like — Rawal took the same breakfast every day.

Sev over poha.

Like, Rawal hadn’t been playing polo or riding as often in the last year.

Like, Bade Rawal was retired on paper but worked extensively with the State and the Central governments to fast-track work for the kingdom.

He had cultivated extensive contacts in his years at the Ministry of Environment and leveraged those on an almost weekly basis for things as mundane as inter-state taxes and things as complex as budget sanctions and DM appointments.

Like, Rajmata took care of draft languages for a lot of the internal bills that were introduced by the Palace in the council. She was a philosopher, a retired professor and a seasoned queen now.

“What can I do?” She asked Rajmata as she took her out for a walk to her ‘workspace’ — a pomegranate orchard behind the palace. A pergola was built in the centre of the fragrant forest, embellished with gorgeous marble and intricate carvings.

“What do you mean?” Rajmata asked, pushing a chair out for her on a round table in the centre of the pergola.

She set her folders and laptop down and pulled a chair beside hers.

Avantika glanced around, absorbing the sweet chirping of the birds.

They were louder there than anywhere else in the palace.

“I mean,” she covered her back with her saree pallu.

It was bright red with golden bandhni — a traditional Gujarati weave she had worn for their first pooja in the palace’s Dwarkadhish temple this morning.

“There isn’t any work I can do for the kingdom.

I am a designer. My profession is creating logos and design language and branding plans for luxury niches. Nothing like what you do.”

Rajmata’s eyebrows squeezed adorably, a stray curly strand coming undone from her bun — “You know, I asked something similar to Hira ben when I married and came here. She would tell me stories of the great queens of Nawanagar, and after every story, I would feel smaller and smaller. And then she told me something that just stuck. And stayed. She said — nobody comes learned from their mother’s womb.

I certainly didn’t. Lucky for you, you have grown up in an environment like this. ”

Avantika nodded, feeling like a student all of a sudden.

“And why isn’t branding important? In today’s day and age, I think branding is of the utmost importance — sometimes more than the product itself. You tell me, would any of your luxury clients get their product picked up without the work you did for them?”

“No,” she answered firmly, and proudly.