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He was definitely bluffing because I could see that the GPS was still working fine and this guy must have pressed something to escape the path navigation.
He looked like he wanted to continue as he opened his mouth but shut it immediately when my mom gave him a nasty glare.
"Do we look like we have come from Madagascar?" My mother smiled sickly sweetly. The sudden change in her expression stopped my heart.
Oh no! Not the sweet monster mom! She would smile sweetly before chewing nastily.
"Madhe-gaz-kar? Oh, where that, Madum-ji?" The driver looked at us with those big eyes. I swear, I could see the cash symbol flashing in them.
"Abroad," my sister beat my mother by replying, "Do you think that we have come from abroad so that you can make a fool out of us?"
There, my sister swooped in with a beat. Guess, my sister wasn’t feeling less annoyed than my mother at the moment as she grumbled glaring at him, “I swear, I smelt the swindler air from him right when we got into the taxi. He thinks three ladies would not be able to do anything against his gimmicks?”
The driver blinked while opening and closing his mouth some three consecutive times, and ended up looking like a dying fish. Perhaps my sister’s better English was harder for him to process.
"Kya samajh kar aaye the? Sardar bahot khush hoga? Shabashi dega? Kyoon?"I leaned forward mimicking the dialogue from the famous movie of the twentieth century just to add more entertainment to the live show. That made the driver gulp loudly, at last grasping the situation.
Oh yeah, he was finally understanding in which waters he was standing.
"M-madum-ji-" And he wasn't allowed to defend himself too...
"Mister,hum yahan Hyderabad main paley bade hain. Yeh jo ganda sa khel tum khel rahe ho, yeh sab pata hai, so you better drop us where we were supposed to be dropped without creating any more drama, unless you want us to complain about you to the company. I will share all the details about you and your taxi to my friend circle saying how you take advantage of the three lonely women and rob them of the money," my sister opened her big mouth interrupting him.
And voila! Here we go with the Oscar award winning best acting skills goes to Ritika Kundra! The driver was out of the race with just that little speech alone.
Now coming to her confident claim of being born and brought up in Hyderabad. Well, no, not really. We were in fact born and raised in Delhi but shifted to Hyderabad due to my studies. My parents were one of those over-protective types you see... They rather shift their entire lives to an environment they weren’t familiar with rather than let me go and live in the hostel alone.
The driver opened his mouth to protest, but Ritika snapped again not letting him speak, "And we aren't paying you even an extrapaisa," she quickly added, leaving the poor guy dumbstruck.
As if realising that no matter what he was going to say, it would only bring in more trouble for him, the driver shut his mouth, turned to face front and started to drive again. At least this time it wasn't at ten miles per hour.
After three more minutes, he stopped the car before a medium-sized three-story mansion, beside an empty plot. There weren't any lofty compounds like the other mansions around this one. And most of the left side of the mansion had been made up of window walls. The frontal white wall had a creeper climbing over its side.
It was of modern contemporary style, and also the ′almost newest house′ in Jubilee Hills. Jubilee Hills, one of the luxurious localities in West Hyderabad, and to live here was like living like royalty.
I climbed down the car and gawked at the structure before me admiringly. I was in awe, and I couldn’t care less that my appreciation of the beautiful structure would be taken as something else. Stretching my aching arms up in the air from sitting in that damned car for so long, I couldn't help but let out an unladylike yawn.
It was just recently that my aunt had bought this house and moved in. My aunt, Lasika Batra was the sweetest woman out there and her husband, Aadarsh Batra, had a startup that had shortly started to gain recognition.
"But madum-ji! It not fair!" The driver's voice interrupted my chain of thoughts. I saw my mom placing a few hundred bucks on the passenger seat stating, "That is how much it would have cost us if you hadn't intended for your money-making scheme."
"But madum-" my sister stopped him in the middle, "If you argue more, I will take a hundred away and call your manager complaining about you. It's not like we have never traveled before, and other drivers are actually sweet and honest, unlike you."
On hearing that his fare was going to be reduced by half, the driver immediately picked the money, ignited the car and drove away, like a lion was chasing after him.
Ask my family to threaten anyone, and no one could beat them at it.
"Niharika! My darling sister!" Aunt Lasika's voice grabbed our attention. She was already pelting down our way. And my mom dropped her handbags on the ground before hugging her little sister chuckling loudly.
"Lasika! I am so glad that you are finally here!" My mom almost squealed the latter half of her statement. My aunt and her family had decided to move to this city many years after us. She was desperately in need of a change after the stress they had been through when Uncle Aadarsh had lost his job, and my mom suggested that Hyderabad was a really good place to start over. After a long time of convincing, they had finally agreed to give it a try.
The sisters continued to chat as I busied myself to look around the area. It wasn't frequent for commoners like us to roam around these posh streets. The houses were all very pretty. Except for the structure across the main road by the empty plot which happened to be beside my aunt's house.
High compounds surrounded the structure almost till the second floor, swallowing the entire first and ground floor behind it. Above the wall was the beautiful lush green trailing rosemary that decorated it exotically, by spilling from the top of it. Apart from the wall was a watchman's station made halfway up of glass walls. And three sturdy looking guards sat inside, I don't know why but one of them cast a mean glare in my direction as if I had asked him to surrender his position to me.
A shiver ran down my spine, for I would never want to ever get in trouble with those overly healthy looking folks. Ignoring him, I discreetly observed the remaining structure, there was nothing much remaining there except for the gates which were two in count. On one side, there were huge double gates that even a truck could get in and on another side was a single gate for people to go in and out. Both the gates were tall, almost competing with the compound walls for the height.
"Rynah! My dearest!" Lasika aunty's voice was faster at grabbing my attention before she engulfed me in a bear hug.
