Chapter 1 - Once Upon A Time (1)

My name is Jagadhaatreyi Malik Mehta – or, simply, Jags to my friends. Till about a month ago (oh, who am I kidding, it was twenty nine days, thirteen hours and thirty seven minutes ago), I would have been considered, by people at large (including myself), as the woman with a perfect life. Quite a bit of a fairytale, really. In fact, too much of a fairytale to be true – but the naive idiot that I was, I failed to see it. Happiness makes you stupid, you see.

Anyway, before I go on another whinging session, let me start at the beginning. It starts, as all clichéd romance tales do, with love at first sight. Yes, it did. Didn't I say it was a fairytale?

So, half a decade ago, I was all of nineteen, fairly smug about my life in general – I was at a college I wanted to be in, studying what I wanted to study, recognised by my teachers and peers as an "achiever" and not too bad to look at. I could be a charmer when I wanted to be – and when all feels right with your world, you tend to be. I had my best buddies, with whom I had grown up, and then I had my college buddies – a fun group.

The "fun group", obviously, wanted to have fun. And you can have so much fun in Mumbai, especially when you are in large, young groups. Imagine a gang of about twenty college students – more or less equally matched in terms of gender, pleasantly "buzzing" and out to have fun. This bunch turns up at one of the popular discotheques in town, and one "poor little rich kid" in the group happens to be "friends" with the owner of the said discotheque, so we not only get in for free, but also get a bunch of coupons for free drinks. When you are nineteen and living on pocket money, it doesn't get better than that, does it?

So we hit the dance floor. After an hour, we were bored of just dancing around and decide it would be fun to try and push each other off the dance floor. A few minutes of pushing and shoving later, I found myself falling, as if in slow motion, realising that the angle of my fall meant that I would most certainly end up with a concussed head, and possibly a broken arm. Brave soul that I am, I closed my eyes and braced myself for the impact.

Which never came. I was caught in a pair of sinewy arms, and a silk tie tickled my nose. Reflexively, my eyes snapped open, and I looked into the most gorgeous pair of eyes I had ever seen in my short life. Hazel, with flecks of green. Heterochromia iridium, my brain supplied. Beautiful. The raised eyebrow and flash of surprise in those eyes made me realise that my brain-mouth filter had, unfortunately, been off, and I had spoken out loud. The stranger pulled me to my feet, and I eyed him surreptitiously. A sartorial suit that looked expensive even to my inexperienced eye – fitting him like a glove, gleaming leather shoes, perfectly matched tie, (platinum??) cufflinks and tiepin studded with what looked suspiciously like real diamonds. Then I looked up at his face (he was a good five or six inches taller) and the world stopped moving.

The gorgeous eyes were set in an equally gorgeous, if slightly unusual, face. He had a lovely tan (it was only later that I learnt it was a tan; initially, I had assumed that lovely shade of bronze to be his natural colouring), a head of dark, unruly curls, a straight, regal nose and perfectly shaped lips. My gaze went up to those eyes again, framed by eyelashes a woman would easily kill or die for. The tapering, weak chin didn't matter. This man, with those eyes and that slanted smirk, was attraction personified.

I suddenly knew what poor, dear Cinderella must have felt when she first clapped her eyes on Prince Charming.

"Are you all right?" a deep voice asked.

The world moved again, unbalancing me and I lurched forward. Prince Charming caught me again. By now, my solicitous group of friends had gathered around.

All possible variants of "are you ok" were flung at me. I nodded slowly and moved away from Prince Charming, embarrassed.

"Thank you, Mr – er..." I began.

Prince Charming opened his mouth, but a squeal of "Furry bhaiya?" from one of my gang members interrupted him. He winced. The squealer, another "poor little rich kid", flung herself at him, with a breathy, "When did you get back from Zurich?"

He smiled and pulled away from the hug. Oh, that smile! "Hello, Raina," he drawled (slightly anglicized, posh accent – probably educated at one of those horrendously expensive boarding schools tucked away at scenic hill stations, likely followed by a European, probably British, college – also indicated by the gorgeous blonde by his side who looked like she had just walked out of a fashion magazine). "Good to see you." He glanced at me. "Is your friend all right?"

"I'm fine," I mumbled. "Sorry, guys."

"Oh no, I'm sorry I pushed you too hard," Nirvesh, a rather flamboyant, but highly entertaining art student, replied.

I smiled absently. "Not your fault. I'm fine."

"Guys!" Raina squealed again. "Meet my cousin, Firdaus Rana Mehta!" A dramatic sweep of her arm accompanied the declaration.

The name should probably have meant something to me (and later on, it came to mean everything), but, back then, even as several of my newfound friends gasped, clearly recognising the name, I had never heard of the man. I promised myself a Google search as soon as I was back at the hostel.

Prince Charming looked highly uncomfortable. The silence was a little awkward. The blonde had disappeared, presumably to get a drink.

"Erm...thanks, Mr Mehta." I broke the silence. "You saved me a concussion and a possible fracture."

Nirvesh let out a pained groan and Firdaus Rana Mehta cocked an eyebrow. "Med student?" he asked me. "I didn't think your lot had the time to party."

I shook my head. "Literature," I said.

He blinked, clearly surprised. I smirked to myself – no need to mention that I had run away from medical school after four months of what had felt like hell.

"Come on, guys, we need to go back now," Kunal, the level-headed, self-proclaimed leader of our group, called out.

We left the discotheque hurriedly.

It was only next morning, after a series of dreams of green-flecked hazel eyes, that I realised he didn't even know my name.