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(Prequel to The Malhotra
Bride)
BLURB
It’s instantaneous attraction when Tanuja Bhatia from Delhi
meets Raj Malhotra from Bombay at the Bombay Central
Station.
The mutual attraction soon blossoms into love over the next
couple of meetings.
Tanuja and her simple father fail to see the crisis brewing in
their own home. Her not-so-nice stepmother Gurinder is totally against the idea
of Tanuja meeting her Prince Charming which would make her step-sister Harpreet
seriously envious. By the way, Harpreet’s main aim in life is to simply make
her half-sister miserable.
While Raj’s parents and
Tanuja’s father try to arrange a marriage between the two with a help of a
mutual friend, the evil stepmother comes up with a plan of her own—to marry her
stepdaughter off to Sonu, a good-for-nothing
idiot.
Can Her Prince Charming lift Tanuja out of this life of
drudgery and boredom and give her the happiness she
deserves?
*A prequel to THE MALHOTRA BRIDE, this book is also available
in paperback in India.
Read
an Excerpt:
Tanuja stood at
the entrance to
the bogie, guarding the luggage as the train slowed down to
enter Bombay
Central Station, excitement in her heart as her eyes
devoured the sights. It
had been a long time since the Bhatia family had gone on a
holiday, all
together. It had always been her stepmother and her
half-sisters who went on
bi-annual trips, leaving Tanuja and her father at home. But,
of course, both of
them appreciated the peaceful times while the other three
were gone. In fact,
Tanuja considered those interludes the best holidays
ever.
Just before the
train stopped,
she caught sight of a tall man in pristine white trousers
and half-shirt, holding
a placard which read, ‘Talveer Bhatia’. Her charcoal black
eyes went wide when
they met the dark brown of the man’s bold gaze, a soft blush
tainting her
cheeks before she turned away to address her father who was
standing behind the
three suitcases. “Papa, the car driver’s here, I think. See
that man over
there,” she pointed a slim index finger in the direction of
the man as her
father craned his neck to look out, “he’s holding a
cardboard placard with your
name on it.”
Talveer nodded
his head at his eldest
daughter, a soft smile on his tired face. “Let’s get the
luggage out,” he said,
watching Tanuja get off on to the platform. The
father-daughter duo shook their
heads at the porters who offered to take their luggage as
Talveer handed the
suitcases one-by-one to Tanuja.
“Have you got
all the suitcases
out?” asked Gurinder in her usual harsh voice, a frown on
her face as she
glared at her step-daughter and husband.
“Yes, aunty,”
said Tanuja, taking
the large bag that Gurinder was holding in her hands, before
helping her out of
the train.
Harpreet and
Jaspreet giggled as
they watched their plump mother struggle to step down onto
the platform, not
bothering to help her. They each held a tote bag carrying
their make-up
articles and other fancy stuff which they naively believed
were absolute
necessities in Bombay.
Talveer lifted
his head to see
Raj Malhotra walking in their direction with the placard,
waving to him. “I’m
Talveer Bhatia. Are you the driver who has come to pick us
up from Malhotra
Cabs?”
“Yes sir. My
name is Raj,” said
Raj, shaking Talveer’s hand, forgetting that drivers may be
considered too
menial to shake hands with customers who hired cars from
their company, his
gaze taking in the family of five even as it lingered for a
few seconds longer on
Tanuja’s beautiful face.
Gurinder glared
at him. “You are
the driver who will be driving us to
Mahabaleshwar?”
“Haanji ma’am.”
“Apni aukat mein raho. What’s with the shaking hands? Can’t you do a
namaste?
Kyunji,” as she frowningly glanced at her husband, “can’t you tell
the man that instead of shaking his
hand?”
Tanuja felt highly embarrassed by
Gurinder’s harsh words. What was wrong if the man had shaken
her father’s hand?
Why did her stepmother have to shout for such a trivial
thing?
Before her
father could open his
mouth, the driver said, “I’m sorry, ma’am. Please forgive
me. It won’t happen
again.”
Gurinder looked
the man up and
down before ordering, “
Chalo, take
all the suitcases and let’s go to the waiting
room.”
Without asking a
question, Raj lifted
two heavy suitcases in both his hands before turning in the
direction of the
first-class waiting room. Tanuja bent down to take the third
one, giving him a
shy nod, a small smile touching her lips. Her mouth had the
appearance of a
rosebud to the man who walked ahead of
her.
It took the
Bhatia family about
an hour to get ready. Raj waited patiently as he read the
day’s newspaper
before Talveer walked out from the men’s waiting room.
Tanuja was the first to
get ready and she also walked out to the platform on seeing
her father. She
couldn’t help being fascinated by the handsome driver as she
studied him from
the corner of her eyes from time to time, not saying
anything while she watched
her father chat with him.
“I am also from
Delhi, Talveerji,” said Raj,
answering the other man
when asked.
Talveer smiled
widely. “I did
wonder about the accent,” he said, patting the younger man
on his shoulder.
They chatted
some more about
their hometown but mainly in Hindi. “If you are educated,
how come you are
working as a driver?” There was curiosity in Talveer’s dark
gaze as he looked
up at the driver who towered over him by many
inches.
Raj was careful
enough to speak
English exactly the way his drivers spoke. Shrugging, he
said, “I am setting up
my own business.” Okay, it was a slight variation from the
truth as his garment
factory was already set up and running smoothly. But he
couldn’t very well tell
the client that. “In the meanwhile, this is a good way to
make money, without
having to work under someone.” It was with difficulty that
he managed to keep
his gaze on Talveer Bhatia and not let it stray to the young
woman who, he
presumed, must be the man’s daughter. She was simply too
beautiful for words.
Talveer nodded
his head
vigorously, thoroughly approving of the other man’s sentiments.
“So what
business are you setting up?”
“Manufacturing
of garments,
Talveer
ji.” No, he had no
plans to
tell them the magnitude of his business, that he had
invested almost ten lakh
rupees and only twenty percent of the total had been raised
through a bank
loan. The rest was entirely from his own savings. Raj had
slogged from the day
he arrived in Bombay five years ago. He had refused to use
his father’s money
and had earned his own money starting from scratch. He had
led a comfortable
life but it wasn’t half as luxurious as the one he was used
to at his home in
Delhi. He had converted all the leftover money to gold. When
he began
purchasing gold in 1971, six months after he moved to
Bombay, the price for ten
grams had been less than Rs. 200. Over the last five years,
the price had risen
dramatically to Rs. 540. He had also persuaded his father to
buy small
bungalows in Mahabaleshwar and
Matheran.
So, at the age
of twenty-six,
where a lot of young boys are still whiling away their time,
Raj had set up his
very own garment unit. And there was also the flat that he
had purchased in
Matunga, where he lived now.
Talveer nodded,
even as his eyes
kept turning towards the women’s waiting room, wondering
about his wife and
daughters. He looked at his eldest born and said, “Tanu, why
don’t you go and
find out if everyone is ready?”
“Theek hai, Papa,” said
Tanuja in a soft voice before walking
towards the waiting room, her steps dragging. As if the
three of them would
care.
“Madam, it would
be nice if you
could tell them that we have to travel for eight hours
before reaching our
destination.” Raj called out to Tanuja’s retreating
back.
She stopped in her tracks,
wondering if she had heard right. Had he called her ‘madam’?
She turned around
with a smile, her cheeks dimpling when her gaze caught his
dark one, a dark
wing-shaped eyebrow raised in query. “Were you talking to
me?”
“Ji! It will take
us eight hours to reach Mahabaleshwar,” said Raj,
looking into her black gaze and rapidly found himself
drowning in them, unable
to stop the answering smile on his
face.
Why was he
addressing her as if
she was fifty years old? Tanuja realised that she didn’t
like it at all. But
then, she didn’t want to say anything in front of her
father. She nodded her
head before turning away from him to continue towards the
waiting room door.
After ensuring
her father’s gaze
was turned away from him, Raj looked at her retreating
figure encased in a
salwar kameez which faithfully hugged
her slender body. She could have passed off for an
apsara from heaven, he
thought.
Grab your copy @
About the
author
Sundari Venkatraman is an indie author who has 42 titles (38
books and 4 collections) to her name, all Top 100 Bestsellers on Amazon India,
Amazon USA, Amazon UK, Amazon Canada and Amazon Australia in both romance as
well as Asian Drama categories. Her latest hot romances have all been on #1
Bestseller slot in Amazon India for over a month.
Even as a kid, Sundari absolutely loved the ‘lived happily ever
after’ syndrome as she grew up reading all the fairy tales she could lay her
hands on, Phantom comics, Mandrake comics and the like. It was always about
good triumphing over evil and a happy end.
Soon, into her teens, Sundari switched her attention from fairy
tales to Mills & Boon. While she loved reading both of these, she
kept visualising what would have happened if there were similar situations
happening in India; to a local hero and heroine. Her imagination took flight
and she always lived in a rosy cocoon of romance over the
years.
Then came the writing – a true bolt out of the blue! And
Sundari Venkatraman has never looked back.
You can stalk her
@
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