NEW DELHI, JAN 15: There is no awkward silence in Narender's home. The Chaddha joint family three of the four brothers, their wives, a sister, the children are helping themselves from trays of puri and subzi in a late noon brunch.With a plate in hand, Narender munches while keeping his eyes trained on his two children who are playing with their cousins. He is hardly the shattered, neurotic person one had expected. One can even ask him in jest if he still keeps a razor in his pocket and if Ilyasi's outbursts about his being a crazy, obsessive fan don't tempt him to slash his wrists. He holds up his wrists and asks: ``Can you see any marks?'' Both wrists are clear. There is a faded mark below the thumb on the left wrist. He says it was an old burn.``I showed my wrists to the police and they seemed satisfied,'' he says. Narender says that all the stories that Suhaib told the media are a pack of lies. ``I was not showering him with gifts. The first time I gave him anything was a shirt, priced at about Rs 2000, and he paid for it. In fact, he paid for most of the things he got from our shop,'' he says.``Even the now famous liquor set was not exactly a gift. He called me on January 4 asking me if I could get him any fancy mobile instrument. He had also asked me if I had anything new in my shop for Id. I mentioned the miniature liquor bottle set. He asked me to bring that along too. He bought the phone on credit and I asked him to keep the liquor set. When his wife sent the liquor set back to the shop through a servant, Ilyasi called up to say that he would pay for that too,'' says Narender.``Suhaib is lying when he says that I kept calling him. You can trace all the conversations between us and you would know that he made as many calls as I did. '' ``In fact my meeting on January 4 and 5 came after six months,'' he says.Narender denies that he ever called up on Ilyasi's residence phones. ``I always called on his mobile and one does not talk for more than three or four minutes on the cellphone. If his mother-in-law says that I used to call up and hurl abuses at her or anybody else, then somebody should ask her how had she identified the person on the line as me,'' he says.Narender also dismisses the story about letters written in blood. ``I have not written a single word to him. I challenge him to identify my handwriting.'' Narender and his brothers then tell you that he did his postgraduation in science from Kanpur University and later did a course in computers. He was working in a computer firm when he met his wife Sunita, an MBA in Kanpur.They got married and ever since have been helping with the family business in Delhi. ``I never went to his home but Suhaib came here four or five times. He would say that he loves Punjabi food. And if my wife had anything against the friendship then she would not have cooked for him.''On the allegation of the two having a homosexual relationship, Narender says: ``I did not so much as touch his hand.''
