Compensation Update 💖

I’m writing after long and I am literally struggling with the concentration and focus needed for the act 🙈🙈😂

Trust me, writing is hard. And if you do write, never ever take a break. I mean it!
Writing needs discipline. It needs patience. And it takes effort to bring the flow back once you stopped for some time. 

Anyway, cutting the long story short, I couldn’t finish writing the first chapter of Spark & Spice, Season 3 🙈😅

But since I had promised an update today so I am posting a compensation update – an excerpt from Tangles & Ties! i know you’ll love it 💖💖

M.

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Fairytales are Real

Nandini peered outside through the window of the airplane to let the view sink in. She was so excited that she couldn’t hold the thrill.

The navigator on the screen before her told her the details about the route and the countries above which they flew or were going to cross ahead – Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Azerbaijan, Poland, Germany… To imagine flying over the countries she had only heard about or had friends residing in, appeared like a dream.

“Manik…” Excited she turned towards Manik, almost after fifteen minutes of her deep, careful study of the navigator and observation of the outside view. She was about to say something deep and philosophical but her bubble burst when she found Manik reclining on his seat, hands folded across his chest, long legs resting in a straight relaxed posture and head tilted up with an eye-mask over his eyes.

He appeared to be so peacefully asleep that she was almost irked.

“Manik… you are sleeping???!”

Without flinching even a muscle on his face, without removing his eye mask and without changing his posture, he replied in a drugged voice, “I’m officially on leave. And they haven’t given me any new project. So, I can’t be working!”

She was so irritated that she laughed, raising her hand in air in a questioning gesture. With her other hand, she removed his eye mask, “Do you really think I was worried why you are not working? And did you really mean to work even on your honeymoon, if things were normal at office?”

He pulled the mask from her hand, twitching his lips. She rolled her eyes, “So, you work all the time… and when you are not working, you will sleep??”

He swayed his jaw and teased her, “So what’s wrong in that?? I AM like that! I can’t stare outside the plane window and suddenly get excited about the mountain that I saw…”

She laughed more when he put his mask back on his eyes to sleep. So, pretending to sleep, he did notice that she was focused outside and was excited at the view. She didn’t know if he was irritated at her because she was living the travel with a kid’s enthusiasm, or because she was absorbed in something else, other than him.

She pulled the mask away, again, “There is nothing wrong in that either. Normal people get excited at such things…new places, new experiences…”

“So, maybe, I’m bored because it isn’t new for me…”

“You are bored? Like really?? How can anyone be bored in a journey, even if you have travelled a hundred times before?”

“I wasn’t excited even for the first time… I had this pressure of presentation and I was worried about the meeting and all…”

With her eyes twinkling in another level of enthusiasm, she said, “I wish I had such a job. So, which country have you travelled before?”

He shrugged lightly and almost in a faded voice as if trying to remember, he added one after the other, “England, France, Germany, US, Netherlands, Belgium, Spain…”

“Wow!! Awesome… do you have offices there?”

“No…no…” He brushed her query with a subtle grin, “It was all client related and I was sent as an ambassador from our company to negotiate and finalize deals.”

“That’s amazing! You’ve seen so many countries.”

He smirked, “I have not!! It was all business related travel. Airport to hotel…. hotel to meeting venue or conference hall of a company… back to hotel and then airport…back to India.”

“Nooooooo!!!! No wayyyyy!!” She opened her mouth wide, almost in a shocked state. “You do get evenings free… I mean, who travels all the way to such beautiful countries and doesn’t explore.”

“I do!” He grinned when he found her giving all those disbelieving expressions on his stories, “I don’t understand why people roam around to different places when they don’t even know much about their own city…and by the way, all cities are same… what fun it is to travel all the way to a different city, stay in an alien room away from your own home, eat unhealthy hotel food and then roam around like a hippie, clicking photographs with buildings. So funny!”

She rubbed her temple with her index finger and thumb, resting her elbow on her knee raised between them. “Seriously! I knew that you hated travelling but to this extent??”

“You thought that I was exaggerating…”

“You are exaggerating even now!” She gave him a fake smile.

“No, I’m not…”

“So, why did you come to this trip?”

“You said you wanted a holiday!” He shrugged carelessly, so naturally that it was an understood theory that she wanted to come so he planned it.

“Thank you so much! For making me feel like a bully. I actually managed to ‘force’ someone to take a holiday with me.”

He sniggered, “Sorry! I didn’t mean that…”

“Every time you use this word ‘forced’ between us, I feel like strangling you!” She clenched her jaw, making him nod and laugh to tease her more.

“Okay… sorry… I was dying to take this break! WE…we needed a holiday together and so we have come … fine?”

“Better!” She squeezed her eyes and thought for a moment, “Anyway… Why did you choose the Netherlands as our honeymoon destination, when we could have gone anywhere in Europe? I’ve heard that they have relaxed laws for drugs and prostitution. Everything is easily available there.”

“We can choose to ignore what we find uncomfortable. It’s true that some parts of the Netherlands have a bad reputation, including Amsterdam, regarding all those news articles about drugs and flesh trade being legalized and open there. But if you look beyond that, I’ve read that the country is beautiful and has a rich history… more than that I don’t know much… I chose it as I have a friend in the embassy and she ensured that she will get the visa formalities done as soon as possible. We couldn’t have got a visa for entry in any other country on that short a notice.”

“She??” Nandini lifted her brow suspiciously.

He laughed hysterically and took a moment to compose himself, “Claps for you… Of all that essay that I spoke about overlooking negatives and that getting a visa was difficult and someone helped me… you ignored everything and just focused on one word – ‘she’?”

Nandini smiled sheepishly and turned away, “Loser, you are!”

“You are no less!” He chuckled, “There is one more reason to choose Amsterdam.”

“What?” She asked.

“In a city like Paris or Rome, you would have taken me around to hundreds of heritage buildings and museums and touristy places all of the day. Amsterdam has slightly less to offer compared to those. I can officially relax and sleep and we can stay holed up in the room!”

“You don’t know me, mister. I can make even a village hot and happening as a tourist hotspot. And THIS is Amsterdam!”

She teased him with smile accompanying a lift of one brow, making him sigh in helplessness.

……………………………………

By the time, they reached the Schiphol Airport, it was late evening.

Christmas was around the corner, hardly a week to go… and it was evident in the beautiful lighting all through the airport and then outside in the city, the Christmas tree decorations, the buzzing markets, and the crowd. The weather was colder than India at this time of the year.

Nandini murmured, “It appears as if we have stepped out of the airplane and landed straight inside a fairytale!”

Manik looked at her and gave her a tired stare, “Will it be rude if I say that it is such a cliche line and so boring!”

She giggled, “Yes!! Very…very rude!! You are not supposed to break someone’s bubble. I do find it like a fairytale.”

“Fairytales are over-rated, Nandu… Life is not a dreamy, silly adventure…”

“Fairytales are real, Manik! I believe that they do come true… if you wish hard enough…”

Thoughtfully, he looked at her and then asked after a moment’s pause, “Did you ever wish for your life to be a part of a fairytale?”

“Always!!!” She chirped, “Yeah…I’ve been through shit but it won’t stop me from hoping that someday, some moment will be so beautiful that it will put fairytales to shame…”

“Aww… so cute!”

“Shut up…okay! You are not allowed to mock at me!” She chuckled, whacking him.

“I don’t intend to do that… I’m already tired. I want to go to sleep!”

“What are you even? You slept all the way …those 10 hours in the flight…How can someone sleep so much??!!!”

He yawned, “It seems you don’t like people sleeping.”

“I like people talking to me… giving me company in reading and discussing new experiences… enjoying things that I love…”

“You don’t like sleeping?”

“No… I hate it when people waste their life away sleeping to glory when the rest of the world is enjoying and is on an adventure…”

Another tired yawn followed him, “Awww… Nandu…How romantic!”

She whacked his arm with her phone and asked, “How far is the hotel? It seems like an eternity since I boarded this taxi.”

“It is far… far from the main Amsterdam. Actually, I wanted to avoid all those squalid areas that you were worried about…so…” He scrunched his nose.

“How thoughtful!” She slipped her hand around his elbow and looked around to observe the beautiful landscapes and greenery.

After a really long drive, almost one and a half hour away, they stopped and then he assisted her with the luggage to take a boat through a long canal.

“Boat?” She raised her brows, excited nevertheless.

“Yeah…from here, only boats can take us ahead.”

“Which part of Netherlands is this?”

He settled their luggage inside the boat after talking to the staff about the hotel instructions. Giving a hand to Nandini, he continued to inform her, “It is Giethoorn. A city with no roads and only canals. People call it Venice of the Netherlands but it is much cleaner and beautiful than Venice… Also…”

“Also…what?” She asked as she stepped inside the boat and settled beside him, clearly excited at this unexpected surprise.

Sheepishly, he informed her…

“It is also called ‘The Fairytale Village of Netherlands’…!”

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