Not Just An Ordinary Family

Chapter 41

Anuradha and Narain shared a smile and maintained a moment of silence.

Breaking the silence, Nila ran up to Anuradha from the side and hugged her, squealing, "Mama!"

Anuradha smiled in surprise and squatted down to the child's height.

"Mama smiling, Nila happy girl!" Nila kissed Anuradha's cheek.

Watching them, Narain stepped forward with a smile as the widest grin he had ever seen took over the features of Anuradha's face. She was so happy. And there lay her beauty - in her heartfelt smile, in her glowing cheeks and in her content eyes, lighting up her face so bright. But the utmost beauty lay in the fact that the smile was exclusively for Nila.

There is no need for you to wear any makeup; just this smile is enough to adorn your face. Narain watched in silence as Anuradha conversed with Nila.

"I go play some more, Mama!" Nila turned to run back to the play area.

"Aren't you tired yet, baby? Don't you want to go home? It's quite late."

"No, Mama, Nila not tired! I want to play some more."

"Okay, five more minutes then, baby."

Nila skipped away towards the other kids in the play area without wasting any more time.

Anuradha rose to her own height again and glanced at Narain. He was watching her with a smile. She smiled a bit before lowering her gaze to the ground before her. Sensing his gaze on her, she smiled a bit in surprise and glanced at him. He quickly averted his gaze.

Feeling her gaze linger on him as he stared straight ahead, he glanced at her through the corner of his eyes with a slight impish smile. She instantly turned her face away and smiled sheepishly as they had both been caught staring at each other.

When she was finally able to suppress her smile, while staring straight ahead like him, she remarked, "I didn't know that you play piano."

Narain smiled a bit but remained silent.

"But I'm curious. How did you play the poem I had composed?"

"You played it for Shiva and Shalini on their first wedding anniversary, remember? I was a little late to arrive for lunch so you thought that I had not heard it. But I had heard it from outside. I had been totally blown by the beauty of it that day. But I never thought I could play it on my own then.

Before mine and Swetha's first wedding anniversary, I had been very busy with my own work for a few weeks while she had been home, dealing with the discomforts of her pregnancy on her own. So on the day of our anniversary, I had taken leave and planned a few different surprises for her, in an effort to make up for the days when I hadn't been able to give her my time. I baked a cake for her, planned to take her out for dinner wherever she wanted to go and also gifted her a new saree. But she had prepared a special dinner for me at home and she didn't like the cake or the saree." The same saree you are wearing now.

Anuradha gasped and then covered it up with a fake cough. She didn't like his cake? How could anyone dislike his cake?

"What happened?" Narain glanced at her.

"Nothing. You say, she didn't like your cake?"

"Yeah, I mean, no. Not like that. It's just that she never eats anything sweet. So...." Narain trailed off.

Anuradha watched him in silence. His cakes are so yummy. She didn't like it and he's trying to cover up for the fact that she didn't like it. She could have at least pretended as though she liked it, couldn't she? Shalu said he stopped baking cakes after marriage till Nila's first birthday. So his wife was the reason for it, huh? If all the bakers in this world had wives like her who don't eat sweets, the world would have been deprived of cakes. That would be sad. Fortunately, he has continued making his yummy cakes, at least for Nila.