Page 5 of That Same Old Love

It was the first week of March and a couple of weeks after Mahi arrived to India.

Surprisingly, she had fallen into a routine.

Each morning, the newly hired domestic help and she cooked the meals for the day.

Then she set out to complete some outside chores or shopped or did groceries.

Later in the afternoon, she visited her aunt for an hour and came home.

Mahi went through her mental checklist and realized that there was nothing much left to do.

Her aunt’s final operation was scheduled next week and then after ten days, she would be discharged from the hospital.

Her aunt told her that she was going to stay with two of her acquaintances, who were also widowed like her.

Mahi had met the other ladies a few times and they appeared kind and friendly.

Rajeev was busy with his finals and visited his mother on alternate days. Mahi didn’t want to disturb him either. She just called him briefly to let him know that his mother was doing well.

It was sometime in the afternoon and Mahi was bored out of her mind with nothing much to do for the rest of the day. I have to find a job soon or I will go crazy.

Feeling like having an ice cream, she put out a chocolate ice cream container from the freezer on the dining table. It would take about ten more minutes before the rock hard ice cream melted to the right consistency. Meantime, she remembered something important that she had to do.

She had found the land papers that Samrat wanted to buy from her. Strangely he hadn’t contacted her about them, and neither had she seen him since the last two weeks.

And she did look into his house, into his bedroom through the upper balcony. The lights were turned off and she could only see some over-the-top motion sensors that were set up like laser beams all over his bedroom and most likely his entire house.

She grabbed the land papers and set out to his house to drop them off as a peace offering, and also to apologize again to him for her past actions. After that she had another boring evening to look forward to at her house.

“Good God! It’s only four in the afternoon,” she muttered, staring at her phone.

She somehow doubted that Samrat would be home and grabbed a sticky notepad to leave a message on his door. In their very brief exchanges last week, he hadn’t provided his phone number for her to contact him.

Maybe it was deliberately not provided .

When she opened Samrat’s gate, she was surprised to see a very young and very pretty girl waiting on his doorstep in a school uniform. The girl was listening to music on her headphones and was staring down at a device.

Mahi approached her slowly, not wanting to startle the young girl. But soon the girl felt her presence and looked up from her device.

Mahi frowned a little as she felt something very familiar about the young girl.

The girl stared and removed her headphones. “Who are you?”

“I’m Mahi. Samrat’s neighbor and uh… friend. I’m here to drop off something. Are you waiting for him as well?”

“I’m Srishti,” the girl replied. “I’m waiting for my uncle and to drop off something too. Something very important for him.”

“Have you been waiting here for long?” Mahi asked Srishti with a tentative smile.

Srishti had a bemused expression as though she was still trying to recall something. “Hmm… no. I’ve been here from the past fifteen minutes. I got dropped off from my school bus. According to my mother, my uncle was supposed to be here at home this afternoon. Maybe his flight has been delayed.”

“Samrat is out of town?”

“Yes. He flew to Hong Kong… I think for a couple of days for a show or something. I really hoped he would be back by now. I’m sort of starving and it’s so hot out here.”

Mahi stood there uncertainly. It was a minimum courtesy to offer Srishti to wait at her house, and then offer her something to eat and drink to cool off.

But she wasn’t sure how Srishti’s parents would react to that.

And before she could make any decision, she felt Srishti’s eyes assessing her shrewdly.

“Hmm, you said you were my uncle’s neighbor and friend. So can I wait in your house? You can call my uncle and let him know I’m waiting there.”

“I… uh… don’t have your uncle’s phone number, but sure, you can call him from my phone and… wait in my house.”

Srishti dialed her uncle’s number, but wasn’t able to reach him. “He’s not picking up.”

Mahi almost wanted Srishti to call her parents and ask them to pick her up from Samrat’s house, but she stopped herself from suggesting it, as she had nothing to hide, and wasn’t going to cause any harm to the young girl.

So Samrat will pick up Srishti from her house. Big deal .

Writing a quick note that Srishti will be at her home, she stuck it on the main door of Samrat’s house.

“Okay… let’s go to my place. I live right across the street and your uncle can pick you up from there.”

As soon as Srishti stepped inside along with Mahi, she heaved a sigh of relief at the cool air from the air conditioning.

Mahi offered her a glass of cold water. “I have some chocolate ice cream as well. Would you like some?”

“Oh definitely!”

Mahi brought out two bowls of ice cream along with some pieces of cut mango fruit and some banana chips.

While they were eating, “So what kind of music did you get for your uncle?” Mahi asked curiously.

Srishti told her about an extensive playlist, most of which Mahi didn’t identify.

“Sorry, I’m not that up to date with the popular music. Actually, not with popular Indian music,” said Mahi.

Srishti was curious. “Really, what kind do you like to listen to, then?”

“You can look at my collections on my phone.”

When Srishti went through Mahi’s playlist, she squealed. “Oh my God! We have the same taste in music. I love these songs, but I didn’t know adults listened to them as well!”

Mahi looked at her sheepishly. “Well this adult does. I used to live in the U.S. until a couple of weeks ago. I didn’t have the time or interest to follow up on the latest Indian music. So I just listened to whatever came on the radio and got hooked to that popular music.”

“Oh. That’s cool. Can I play these songs on your music system?”

Mahi synced up her music system with her phone and let Srishti play whatever she liked.

Srishti grinned. “You know my parents and uncle call most of these songs screeching and horrible noises. I’m glad to know there is hope that I won’t have a music taste like theirs when I grow up.”

Mahi smiled back.

Srishti stared at her with an uncertain look. “I have a strange favor to ask. But somehow you might be the only adult I know, who can possibly help me without jumping down on my throat… I think. I couldn’t look it up online because my parents check my internet browsing history.”

Mahi wasn’t sure what Srishti wanted. “What is it?”

“Do you know how to cheat in cards? Especially at poker? My cousins have been cheating me in cards and we even got suspended the whole of last week from school… because our teachers thought we were gambling. But we weren’t.

Gambling I mean. We have a rematch soon and I wanted to know the different ways one can cheat.

Not to really cheat others… but to know how others can possibly cheat me . ” Srishti got out quickly.

Mahi looked at Srishti who was staring at her with big appealing eyes, “Well, Srishti. You’ve come to the queen of poker.”

In the next few minutes, Mahi found her old poker set and began to show the different ways one could sneakily distribute the cards or even hide the cards during the play.