"What the hell is this?"
The silence that met the question was answer enough for him!
"You are supposed to be decorating a wedding hall. There is more color and pomp in a hastily pulled together office party than what I see here!!"
"Who...?"
"Do not use your man-aesthetics to judge other people's sense of artistic expressions", came the barb at him like a tooth-crushing cuss word.
He tried to contain the low growl building in his chest at the mere sound of her voice but wasn't too successful, considering the scared faces of the people around him.
So he took deep breaths, and with every breath, he reminded himself, that it was his best friend, DD's wedding, and that was the only thing that mattered - and not the bride's obnoxious best friend cum his nemesis at work, Ananya Mehta.
"Mehta", he spat the greeting through grinding teeth.
"Khanna", she returned similarly.
"It is a wedding. The decorations should be bright, colorful, cheerful!"
"It is bright, colorful, and cheerful."
"Where? All I see is a sea of white."
"Are you color blind? Can't you see the decor in pastels? Oh, wait! I forgot! How stupid of me!"
He felt a sense of foreboding at her words. He could see an insult to himself coming from a mile away.
"You are a man and men only see in primary colors and black and white!"
And here it was - the unhidden slander.
"What nonsense!", he responded defensively, even as he tried to dig up in his mind what the hell 'pastels' meant.
"Don't trouble your man-brain looking for the meaning of the word 'pastel'. It means, soft and delicate shade of a color."
"I knew that!", he retorted indignantly.
"Really? Give me an example", came the sarcastic response.
Even if he could think of one on the spot, looking at the smirky, disparaging face of his opponent, wiped his head clear of all things soft and filled it with the dark, menacing shade of red!
"Ha! See, you know nothing! Since you know nothing, kindly don't interfere and let others do the job they are assigned to do.
While you go do whatever a best man is supposed to do."
"What does that mean?"
"It means - Mind Your Own Damn Business!!! The color palette for the wedding decor has been jointly decided by both DD and Sona. So you, with your deeply-rooted-in-the-glitzy 70s opinions and ideas - buzz off!"
"You...!!" Neil pointed a shaking-with-extreme-anger finger at the damn pest of a woman! But the reality of the situation and the surroundings kept the boiling-like-lava words inside his chest.
She stood there with her arms folded like she had all the time in the world to see him making a fool of himself. That doused the anger inside of him faster than drenching him with ice-cold water would have.
With a miffed, "humph", Neil went away to whine to his best friend, the groom, while valiantly trying to shut out the mocking laughter following his hurried departure!
After saving the wedding decor from the thick-headed brut, Ananya too went her way.
Unknown to the two, the wedding planner had called Sona the moment she heard Neil roar.
Everyone in the wedding party knew of the feuding duo, but besides crying bitter tears and bitching with their teeth closed, they could do nothing but continue to do their work with a smile on their face and pray they wouldn't encounter either of them, till the wedding was over!
**Note to self - read the entire chapter before and after you publish lest you miss an entire paragraph!!
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The Big Fat Indian Wedding
RomanceWhen Cybercrime Unit Chief, Neil Khanna, was asked to be the Best man at his best friend's wedding, he had never, ever, in a million years thought that he'd have to work together with his professional nemesis, Ethical Hacker, Ananya Mehta, who, in...
