My Imperfect Sadu Singh Oberoi

Chapter 2

The traffic in Mumbai roads was unusually calmer than how it was supposed to be in the rest of the days. Siddhant was waiting for the green signal at one of the hectic four junctions while on his way to the Oberoi Mansion when he saw a young girl selling roses from car to car. He looked at her staring at him intently. He realized that it might be because of his branded car. She might have faced rejections from people in such cars. It was no surprise to Siddhant. His fingers involuntarily moved towards the power window switch and pushed it down. As the window of the passenger seat rolled down, Siddhant pulled his most convincing non-business smile for her. She looked up at him and came to his car, with a gleam of hope shining through her eyes.

“Why are you not at school?” He asked.

“My mummy is sick. I’m helping her to sell this.” The little girl replied and lowered her head.

“Okay, how much for these whole bunch?”

“10 rupees for one. I have 20. So 200 rupees, right?” She asked, being slightly unsure.

Siddhant chuckled as he nodded and quickly took his wallet out and handed over a 2000 rupee note to her. She took a quick glance at the note and looked back at him with a long face.

“But, I don’t have the change for this much of money” She sulked.

“You are selling them for 10 rupees each, right? I’m buying them for 100 rupees each. So, its 2000 rupees for 20. Can we have a deal?”

“But, it is not fair! This deal is a loss for you!” She retorted.

“Well, I’m getting these roses for my special someone as a surprise. And, upon receiving this, the smile I would see on her face will be priceless, so this deal is definitely not a loss for me. But, anyhow, you have the final call!”

The little girl smiled wide and nodded. She gladly accepted the money and gave him the roses. Siddhant watched her skipping her steps happily.

Abella who saw this from the auto she was riding in and smiled seeing how well he tackled the situation. Suddenly, an instinct kicked in and she took a picture of him. She zoomed into the picture, just to have a better look of him.

“Jesus, his eyes are so beautiful!” She exclaimed.

“What are you looking at?” Shanaya asked curiously peeking into Abella’s phone. However, she couldn’t see anything but her own reflection as Abella was quick to hit the power button, making the screen go black.

“Nothing special, just another quality that I want in my Prince Charming” Abella grinned, showing her irregularly aligned teeth.

“You and your Prince Charming obsession! I can never understand it!” Shanaya sighed and continued, “Anyways, you continue while I stalk some hot guys on i********:”.

Abella plainly ignored her as she was lost in her own thoughts. The guy in the picture looked a lot like how she imagined her Prince Charming to be. An instinct kicked in. Some sort of sixth sense that she had seen him somewhere before, but she couldn’t recall where. Eventually she gave that thought up when they arrived in her college. Besides, she was never going to meet him ever again, would she?

Meanwhile on the other side, Siddhant, being completely oblivious of the dilemma he had stirred in the young girl entered Oberoi Mansion hiding his face with the bouquet of roses he bought earlier. Dadi saw him sneaking in stealthily and smiled. She, of course had recognised him immediately. Regardless of his face being visible to her, she can always differenSiyate Siddhant from others even with her eyes closed.

“Billu! What are you doing sneaking around like this?” Asked Dadi.

“Dadi?! How do you always know?” Siddhant cribbed a little, stomping his right foot on the ground.

Dadi smiled at his reaction and opened her arms for hug. Siddhant faked anger and turned his face to the side. Dadi then pulled his right ear making him let go all the fake anger. He gave her the roses pecked on her forehead, while pulling her into a warm hug.

“You guys are having a moment without me?” Pranav who just got down asked his brother and Dadi.

“Aww, come here!” Siddhant pulled him into a group hug and disturbed Pranav's shoulder length hair.

“Not my hair” Pranav exclaimed as he pulled a ninja pose.

“Okay, Ninja Singh Oberoi” said Dadi and Siddhant in unison.

*

Abella and Shanaya arrived a little late to their last lecture. Their professor, Mr. Arora had insulted them a little in front of the whole class for being late and then excused the both of them.

“This is exactly why I wanted to bunk today's class! You could have let me be, right? But no, you had to come up with that ‘prestantious’ reason of Mumma arriving here” Abella whispered to Shanaya while taking notes.

“Today class is the last lecture and we will be getting our internship employment today and you were planning to skip this class only, right?” Shanaya asked sarcastically.

“What? Seriously? It’s our last class? That’s great! In fact, this is the most ‘prestantious’ thing I’m hearing today! Our final year project has totally messed me up like ape s**t! Now, I will happily complete my internship, graduate and never meet that Gasconade Arora anymore! Life is going to sail smoothly henceforth!” Abella began to daydream but only to be broken by Shanaya in a few minutes.

“We don't have to face him but our fate lies on him. He will decide our internship places. Pray the lord that he won't take revenge on the both of us. Imagine if we're being sent away to Ahaana Authentics. Then graduating this year will definitely be impossible!” Shanaya uttered with a straight face.

“You're right! That place is a nightmare even for the best of the best. No one could cope more than 2 weeks there. I heard that this year they are sending 5 of us going there.”

Just then, Mr. Arora announced their internship details. Abella and Shanaya were in the same place. They were extremely delighted about it but once the place of internship was announced the both of them looked at each other and uttered the same thing.

"We are in bobsy-die!”

On the other hand, Siddhant and Pranav had managed to crack an important deal successfully. Everyone there congratulated them.

“Okay everyone, we have worked hard, now let's party hard!”

Pranav invited the whole team for an after-party that he had planned in just a few minutes after they signed the deal. All of the staffs were enthralled and rejoiced upon finding out about the party. Siddhant was about to leave and retire for the night but stopped when Pranav made a puppy face, which melted his heart. Hence, Siddhant had no other choice but to obey his little brother’s wish.

That night, Abella sat by her balcony, on a beautiful handmade hammock while going through her scrapbook entitled "My Mr. Perfect". She had been working on it ever since she was 18. It had a lot of pictures from clothes to food to guys with little scribbles below each picture. She flipped through the pages one by one until she reached an empty page. She took out the printed picture of Siddhant that she had taken earlier and pasted it. Below the picture, she quickly wrote the first impression she had of that situation.

‘He should be compassionate and emphatic to others. He should also bring me little surprises whenever possible!’

After writing it, she decorated that particular page with some dried flowers. After being satisfied with the decorations, she closed the book and clutched it tightly to her heart with a wide, blushing smile smeared on her face.

Just then, her gaze fell on a shooting star. Abella gasped at it and quickly made a wish. All that Abella could wish for is “I wish I could meet HIM soon”.

As fate would have it, Siddhant’s gaze also fell on the same shooting star from the outdoor bar where the celebration for his business deal was going on. All he did was smile and wish "I wish that whoever's wish on this shooting star should come true".