Chapter 5 : Singhaniya Men

“Akshii…Akshii ….Akshi ….Akshi“ the sweet voice of her two favorite twins came in her room even before the door of the room was opened and they came in .

Akshita looked up from her bean bag towards the door only to see the twins dragging kartik and rohit along with them in the room. She kept laptop aside on which she was working for her hindi project and stood up.

“yeah, what is it ?” she studied her brother’s , her gaze dancing from her elder brothers then to the twins. Sure enough they had their wonderful plan for tonight.

“Akshi lets cook!” The devils said together as usual. She laughed at kartik and rohit’s expression and came down to luv- kush’s heights and pinched their cheeks and said ”okay but where is our cook?”

“here he is ….” standing up she looked behind them with a big smile on her face , there stood the sighaniya’s best cook and her chachu Tej ready with the apron.

well after every two weeks the singhaiya’s have this family dinner where the kids and the singhaniya men cook food in the garden at the back side of their mansion …. You can say a barbeque.

“aay hay captain…” Akshita said saluting him and winking at her elder cousins who she was sure had something planned for tonight but this. It wasn’t as if they don’t like it …. But they are more like girls when come to things.

Well you see most girls have this habit of doing nakhra (showing tantrums) … like ohh no I can’t do this what if my hand gets burn and all shit. In the singhaniya house this job was given to the sons but it would only be existing till grandpa reminds them that they are men.

Nevi would always say that this family dinner of the singhaniya is a ritual where Akshi’s grand pa makes her brothers realizes that they are men.

The twins took hold of rohit while she pushed kartik towards the door and straight to the garden where Tej had already made a chulha (cooking stove made of mud or sometimes bricks) with help of some bricks and dry leaves and sticks.

“so whats the menu? “ Akshi looked up to see Rupindar and Arvind standing there each of them tying their own apron. she stood up quickly and hugged her dad tightly.

“dad I missed you sooo much” the tears were on its way, which she was successful to keep at a bay… it had been a week that had had met Arvind last and it was soo good to see him again.“I missed you too princess.” He said while they untangled themselves from the hug.

“all love and hug for dad , nothing for Me..” rupinder teased . It has always been like this, these three brothers as well as their dad were jealous of each other reason being, Akshita and Trisha didn’t had any answer to their ultimate and most important question – who is her favorite?

Not wanting to start with another ruckus in the lovely night they were about to have, Akshi walked off to rupinder and hugged him as well “aweee jealous much, never mind you can give me dairy milk silk.”

“what ?why will I give you that?” he asked.

“let’s see first you two were again off to a business tour,then you guys are late today by complete 6 minutes and third reason whatever fits you perfect .” she forwarded her hand to him , he ducked his hand in his pocket and took out the big dairymilk silk .

“god you men spoil her so much …. Ey baby doll give the half of it to me, as it is you have become so fat.” Kartik said to whom she just showed her tongue and started to munch on her chocolate while making herself snug by leaning onto rohit’s back such that their backs were touching each other.

she continued to wolf her chocolate while rohit forged ahead with his work of cutting the onions.

"Akshi” Akshi heard a hushed voice from luv who just showed his fingers as one…. Two…. three. Albeit Akshi knew what was coming…

“ahhhh I can’t do this …. Akshi get up and do this ahhhh” rohit began to bellyache whereas Akshi and luv were busy as a beaver with laughing their ass off.

It’s a daily tear- jerking of Rohit to take the responsibility of cutting the onions but half way through it he will start crying and give the rest of the work to Akshi. She took the last bite of the delicious chocolate and took over his place.

Everyone was busy rather,half way with the cutting of vegetables when they heard a loud scream from the garden entrance.

“hawww you all started off without us …. This is not fair ….Uncle” Trisha screamed in her melodramatic voice.

“shut up trisha and start peeling the green peas for biryani.” Akshita enjoined and resumed cutting the onions which were about to finish.

Trisha instituted with the given work not before making a face of course, whilst yash went off to help Tej to light up the fire for cooking the rice.

“so akshi how was the first day any new friends?” rohit asked out of the blue making her go stiff thinking about the most irritating day of her life.

“Don’t ask.” she stated and continued with her work, but that was the worst thing to say … it has been a mentality of humans that they have to do the things that we are not told to do. Like if a person says don’t laugh then we have a much larger urge to laugh and we laugh out two times more. Similarly Akshi’s whole family started to bombard her with question.

“Why what happened?” rohit asked again.

“Did anyone troubled you?” bade papa and dad interrogated her.

“Had a break up?” Kartik had reached a different height of interrogation earning a glare from everyone and a slap on his back from rupinder.

“Akshi, who was that guy who dropped you at the car?” Trisha sister asked. This was followed by a numerous fake coughs from kartik and rohit and not to forget from the garden gate from where dhruv, neev, Abhimanyu, shiv and swapnil her other cousins were coming.

“Shut up guys and he was a new guy a big headache, you won’t believe he is so damn irritating.”Akshi snapped at everyone and began to cut the onions brutally as if they were Abhishek

“Ohh you are talking about Abhi. He is a great guy quite funny, way too similar to Sidharth bhaiya.” Dhruv said, and it was confirmed that he was a biggest idiot. Siddharth was a sore topic for everyone in the house, like the ones which would get tears with the mere mention of the name. Suddenly there was a pin drop silence everywhere.

“So what did he do to you?” Rohit asked trying to break the uncomfortable silence. “What all he didn’t do ask me that.” Akshi replied and stood up to give the onions to Tej who smiled at her and asked her to sit down an watch how he cooks, which she had always been doing since her childhood.

She took a brick and sat on it watching how Tej cooked the yummiest dinner.

“So what all he didn’t do?” Rupinder asked in a teasing tone. God knows why but Akshi’s family always has this habit of irritating her by asking questions which she never liked.

“okay first he named me battery..”

“What?” before she could say anything her cousins interrupted her and started laughing.

“Shut up will you?” But whom was she kidding? They started to laugh even more. See told you about doing opposite things.

“No seriously see even he knows that you can’t see things properly get your eyes checked babydoll.” Shiv teased her. Akshi threw a stone at him which he caught easily.

Someone please remind me that why can’t I keep my stupidity in my pockets, he is a guy who is the cricket captain of his school. She thought

“ehhhh Uncle “ she whined and looked at Tej who was as well laughing. she stood up to go from there when she felt a hand pull her and again she landed up on rohit’s lap who held her tightly .

“Awe akshu okay no more teasing, now last question do you know why did he called you battery?” Akshi stood up from his lap and sat beside him and huffed and said.

“On one condition no one is going to laugh..” she looked at everyone to which they held up their pinkies and I took a deep breath and continued “he calls me battery because I said that he is okay looking whereas according to him he is damn hot and sexy and every girl falls for him, and if I don’t find him hot and happening then either I am lesbo, which I am not or else I must get my eyes checked.”

There was a complete silence around them. Everyone was looking at her as if she has got two heads. It was Dhruv who started laughing first followed by everyone.

“okay I am out of here.” she said and again stood up to leave only to be again pulled down but this time it was kartik . she glared at him and everyone who tried to suppress their laughter.

“you are serious, you literally said that he looks okay on his face” dhruv asked while fishing out something from his pockets … which was none other than his phone. she rolled her eyes at him and got up and sat beside Tej who patted her back for god knows what. Akshita gave him a confused look and checked the almost cooked rice.

“Well who the hell that guy really is ?” Neev asked. She glared at him and continued to do her work .

“ohh I have his pic I just met him before coming here we shared contacts his whats app pic is there …here look at this, and akshi he is really not that bad.” Dhruv said earning another glare from her, but what shocked her most was that all my cousins stood up quickly leaving there work and dived on dhruv’s phone only to see that monkey’s face.

“Akshi Dude he isn’t that bad, are you sure you are not lesbo ?” kartik asked. This was the last straw for her. she stood up and walked to him and took hold of his hair and pulled them and then messed them up. And mind you, you can touch anything of any guy but don’t you dare touch their hair its their priced possession.

As soon as he was out of that shock he started to running behind her , whilst she ran off towards the gate while looking behind only to bump into someone.

she looked up to see her dadaji, vishambhar singhaniya standing there and glaring at kartik.

“kartik what is going on here?” Vishambhar asked kartik , who stood there with his head hung low.

“nothing dadu we were just teasing each other. Come lets go we have cooked food.” Akshi took hold of his hand and started to pull him towards the sitting arrangement.

“don’t even think that this is over” kartik whispered in her ears whilst she showed her tongue to him as they sat down - dhurv with his guitar Akshita with her camera and the elders with the glass of wine