14 Feb New Beginnings
This is Part VI of an ongoing series. To read the previous parts, click here.Anaisha heard the shouting from the kitchen and walked back. With downcast eyes, she said quietly, “I’m right here.” “There’s a lot you don’t know. Your mother... and then you had said that….” She started to explain. “Don’t bring Ma into this. She didn’t ask you to desert me like this.” Anaisha looked at him with sad eyes. Ravi was shocked. She didn’t just put the onus on his mother for her own actions. “I am not bringing her into this… I am not blaming her… neither am I trying to come between you and her. That’s why I’ve never told you before. Because you will not believe me!” Anaisha retorted angrily. Ravi stared at her, completely at a loss. “Vartika," she said pointedly.
This Valentine's Day is special to me. Nope, not because I've found Mr. Right. No such luck, so far!
He had had to modify the exercise regime here. The neighborhood gym wasn’t anything like the one at his place in Melbourne and he hadn’t wanted to use the run down, badly maintained machines. 
Image Courtesy Unsplash.com[/caption]
Indeed, it wasn’t for nothing that he had been ranked 8th on the list of “10 Most Eligible Bachelors” in the latest issue of Architect + Designer Digest. Not that he concurred; in his mind, he was very much taken.
He looked around casually, noting every flaw in the building’s construction. From outside, the residential block had looked well maintained - with its sufficient car parking, a small fountain in the main porch and ample playing area for the kids. His sharp mind and observant eye had even noted that the number of lifts was in correct proportion to the number of letterboxes in the basement. The number of car parking spaces was in excess, though. Obviously to account for the fact that each house these days had multiple car owners, he figured.
The people standing ahead of him were the ones he had been collaborating with, on a real estate project, for quite a while now. The group comprised of his business associates - owner of a furnishings showroom, the largest and best in the city; a renowned interior designer and his painter sister; a real estate and construction mogul and his socialite wife. These were the people who had invited him to dinner, at yet another friend’s house. He had been homesick and exhausted. Staying alone in a new city for 12 months straight; working non-stop day and night at a stretch had taken its toll. It had had its benefits too. The project they all had been slogging over, had begun to take visible shape. Construction was almost over, and the process of fitments and fixtures was soon to start. They were ahead of schedule and with ample budget to spare, too. The mall would surely be ready well ahead of time; for its inauguration in mid-December. The real estate company had wanted to open the mall before Valentine’s Day. Ravi had suggested it to be completed well before Christmas, to be able to cash in on the fervor of festive season and New Year. They were doing well, exactly as per plan, Ravi thought. He could now afford to breathe a bit and take things a little easy. His associates and now friends had been perceptive enough to realize he needed the break and kind enough to not leave him alone on the occasion of Diwali – when people working across the country would return home to enjoy the festival with their families. “It would be good for you to join us for Diwali,” Nayan, the pot-bellied interior designer had suggested.