China Shopping and One-Track Minds
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Author's Note: I can't seem to get enough of DDLJ.
As a dear reviewer mentioned, I need another movie to write about. But I can't help myself. There are so many moments in DDLJ!! I seriously need to get a life. Well, until that unlikely day, I'll be writing Bollywood fanfiction, I guess.
This is set after Raj and Simran get married and I promise, it's not going to go in a Saathiya/Chalte Chalte direction. There are references made to various subplots in a few of my other DDLJ fics, so best read those first, though it is not essential.
Perhaps not as long as my other fics, but nonetheless enjoy!
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'Ow!' He stared at his steadily reddening hand. Man, he thought, she is not meant to be able to hit that hard.
'What was that for?' he asked indignantly.
She rolled her eyes. 'I already told you not to touch anything, Raj!'
He looked at the gleaming china plate. 'But – but it's so shiny!' For a minute, he stared at the pattern the fluorescent light was making on it, mesmerized. He slowly reached out his hand to touch the shiny-ness…
…only to have his hand smacked again.
'Look with your eyes, not with your hands, Raj,' recited Simran, using the saying that her mother had told her. She had never expected to use it on anyone but a very small child, but Raj – or his maturity level at any rate – was roughly the same as that of any seven-year-old.
'Hands aren't for looking, Simran,' he said in mild exasperation. Then his voice lowered in pitch and volume and took on a suggestive tone. 'They're for touching…' His own hands snaked around her waist.
'Raj,' she said, moving purposefully – and yes, somewhat reluctantly – out of his embrace, 'we have come here for china shopping, and china shopping only.'
He pouted. 'Pops has got heaps he's wanting to give away. It's a waste of time. Time that could be well-spent doing other things…' He looked at her hopefully.
She glared. 'Raj, first of all, try to develop a multi-track mind. And second, don't you want our china to be uniquely us? A symbol of our love and union and all that? And isn't this what newlyweds do, anyway?'
He sighed in boredom. 'I don't care what kind of plate I have as long as there's food on it. Actually, come to think of it, I don't even need the plate – just the food.'
'You're disgusting,' she said fondly. She pointed to a bright yellow plate. 'What do you think of this one?'
Ugh. He smiled widely. 'It's lovely, wonderful – in fact, let's buy it!' He motioned to the shop assistant.
When he turned back to Simran, he saw her standing with her hands on her hips, eyebrow raised. He gulped. 'What?' he asked tentatively.
'You didn't even like it, did you?'
'Uhm…'
'Here's the china of your choice, madam.' The assistant had a boxed set of the bright yellow plates.
'Oh, we haven't chosen anything yet,' she said hurriedly.
The assistant smiled politely and shot a dirty look at Raj, who was already drifting towards another shiny plate, hand outstretched.
'Raj, we're meant to be choosing these plates together,' she reminded him.
Raj froze and guiltily withdrew his hand from the shiny-ness. 'Uhm…' he looked around. Pointing at a nice sort of smoky, marble-looking plate, he said, 'How about this one?'
Simran looked at the plate carefully. The grey wispy pattern on it reminded her of the puffs of grey smoke full of carcinogens.
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After all the formal rituals had been completed, she and Raj posed for photos with every relative they ever knew they had and some others besides. There were a few people that Simran suspected had seen that there was a wedding going on and had just come in for the free food. Oh well. She was feeling generous today.
There was a buffet table and people were milling around, eating, drinking and chatting. In a corner, Preeti and Rocky – Raj had introduced them to each other – seemed to be getting along very well.
Her father had of course invited his close friend, which meant that Preeti and even Kuljit were here.
Speaking of Kuljit…
He was standing in a corner near the buffet table, leaning against a pillar, smoking a cigarette. It was quite clear that he was only there in the first place because his father had dragged him along.
Sometimes she felt guilty and wondered if she should be the big person and try to be friends. It must've been pretty hard on the guy.
She walked up to him, probably so drunk on her own happiness that she thought that he might even be responsive and then everyone could all be one big happy family. How dreadfully naïve of her.
'What?' he said tonelessly.
She snapped out of her little dream world of everybody getting along with each other. Okay, so the guy had had a pretty hard time with his fiancée going with another guy and he had been forced to go to their wedding as well, but come on. She had always been under the impression that he had never really liked her anyway.
But he could at least be civil. She controlled her tongue with great difficulty, not saying half the things she wanted to say.
'Can you please stop smoking, or at least smoke outside?'
Okay, so she wasn't quite friendly herself. But she had said it politely enough.
He shrugged. 'What's it to you? There's already a heap of smoke in here from that stupid fire.'
She struggled to keep her voice level and calm. 'Actually, 'that stupid fire' is on the other side of the room away from the food and it's just wood-smoke. Your cigarette smoke is full of carcinogens and carbon monoxide, which besides being bad for the environment is also very detrimental to your health.'
He raised an eyebrow. 'So now I have to hear a –'
'Is there a problem?' Raj stepped up beside Simran with a carefully casual look on his face.
'Not at all,' said Kuljit in an equally casual tone betrayed by the wariness in his eyes, stubbing the cigarette out with his shoe.
Simran shot a grateful look at Raj and they both nodded politely to Kuljit and walked away.
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She smiled to herself in satisfaction. However, she didn't particularly want to eat food off a plate with cigarette-smoke-like decorations on it.
Raj smiled, coming out of a reverie of his own. 'I like it,' he said. 'We should buy this one.'
Something told her he was actually being genuine this time, not just trying to make a quick purchase so they could leave.
'What? You like it? Why?'
He gave her a strange look. 'Yeah, sure. It sort of reminded of – d'you remember on our wedding day how…'
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'I've got you a flower!' He held out the overly clichéd red rose with all the excitement of a little kid on Mother's Day.
'Uhm… that's nice of you, Raj, but there are enough flowers around here.'
'No, but this flower's special! It has lots of petals.'
'Your point being…'
'We can play that flower game! It's more fun with more petals!'
'Flower game?'
'You know, your flower game?'
She laughed as she remembered, but she couldn't resist teasing him. 'You want to play a game with flowers?'
He pouted. 'This game is fun.' He started pulling off petals. 'Come on, I'm dying to tell you how much I love you!'
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Simran wondered whether she should learn an important lesson about looking at the positive side of things rather than the negative.
However, the only thing that struck her was that Raj really did have a one-track mind. She burst out laughing.
'That game was fun,' he said defensively, ears reddening.
'Raj,' she reminded him, 'you don't even need flower petals to play that "game".'
'Yes, you do,' he persisted. 'It gives it a sense of promise, because you have to fill out all the petals.'
She snorted. 'Right. But how on earth does this plate remind you of that?'
He scratched his head, trying to locate where his thoughts had been before they had drifted into the rather pleasant recollection. 'Uhm… well, I think it first reminded me of the smoke from that ceremonial fire thingy, then it reminded me of how I was fooling around and pretending I had asthma to annoy you, then you gave me That Look – the one where you think I'm an immature idiot – and then I stopped… and then I got bored when the bald guy with the shawl was chanting endless hymns in a dead language – which I of course fully respect – and I started thinking about what we could do when we were free to get away from – with all due respect – the bald dude and then I remembered our flower game afterwards – it was fun,' he protested heatedly as she snickered.
'You can stop laughing now,' he said in a disgruntled voice. 'Fine, if you're going to be that way. From now on, I'll play the game by myself.'
This only made her laugh harder. 'Try snogging yourself after you pull off each petal, Raj. I'm sure you'll find it a blast.'
He cleared his throat embarrassedly. 'So,' he said, hastily changing the subject, 'do you want to buy this plate?'
She weighed it up in her mind. Cons, she would think of Kuljit and cigarette smoke when she ate. Pros, she would think of a ceremonial fire, Raj pretending asthma, bald dudes chanting in dead languages, Raj being bored, flower petals, games, snogging Raj. Pros, she would be able to rag Raj about his extremely masculine fixation with flower games every mealtime. Pros, they could finish their purchase and perhaps she and Raj could play another 'flower game'.
'Sure,' she said, grinning evilly. Raj didn't know what was coming.
'Thank the Lord!' He hurried off to get the shop assistant to pack the plate set so that they could – finally – leave.
There was a distant crash on the other side of the shop and a sheepish-looking Raj arrived with a disgruntled assistant who was holding their plate set in one hand and the remains of a rather nice crystal bowl in the other.
Simran smiled and told the assistant that they would take the plates and the crystal bowl and assured Raj, that no, he would not have to sleep on the couch tonight and yes, she did still love him.
Raj didn't know what to make of this uncharacteristic lenience, but he decided to keep his mouth shut and enjoy it, not knowing that the reason Simran seemed occupied was because she was trying to decide which flower had more petals, a rose or a carnation.
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Author's Note 2: How was it? Stupid? Too random? Not random enough? Does anybody read Author's Notes? Is there a meaning to life? Should I spare the world and get over Bollywood fanfiction? Should I stop asking questions right about now?
Please review.
Now I know I always say right about now that I'm bored and I feel like conducting a survey, but this time I'm entertained and feel like conducting a survey.
What is your favourite Bollywood movie and why? Who is your favourite Bollywood actor and why? Who is your favourite Bollywood actress and why?
I shall include mine:
Favourite movie: Duh, DDLJ, of course! Full name of movie for those who want to watch it: Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge. As for why, it has got the best characterization, it presents Europe as Europe, it has SRK and Kajol together, it is funny, cute, romantic and it has the best songs ever.
Favourite actor: Can't decide between Aamir and Shahrukh. Both are versatile, dedicated actors who excel in their profession. I'd say Shahrukh is more of an entertainer, though. But his movies are fun to write fics on and generally fun to watch too. I can't imagine doing a Lagaan or Rang De Basanti fic. What would I write about?
Anyway, lately Abhishek Bachchan has improved a lot as well. And Saif has the best comic timing ever.
Favourite actress(es): Madhuri Dixit (she's gorgeous, she can act, she can dance, she can even sing okay – nuff said), Kajol (can act darn well, looks really pretty, is in a hell of a lot of my favourite movies), Juhi Chawla (can act really, really well, is gorgeous, is the actress with the BEST comic timing - seriously, she is hilarious), Preity Zinta (very cute, looks like a friendly person, can act), Rani Mukherji (really pretty, can act), Aishwarya Rai (gorgeous – especially in Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam, can act, especially in HDDCS), Vidya Balan (Parineeta was awesome and she was really good for a newcomer) and Sushmita Sen (I've only seen Main Hoon Na, but still).
So yeah. Review. (I would've said read and review, but if you're down here, you've hopefully read it already) Thanks.
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