Arnav saw the thunderstruck look on everyone's face.
'I did end up seeing Khushi's shocked expression after all' he thought, ruefully.
Dadi's jaw dropped and she retreated as if someone had physically pushed her away.
"Kya? Yeh tum kya keh rahe ho Chotey?" Di said, recovering first.
"Haan Di" he said, "Garima Aunty ne khud mujhe sab bata diya tha"
Di gasped and Arnav tried to ignore his conscience pricking.
He knew that Di had every right to know the truth. But in the light of her recent tragedy and with the big picture in mind, he had decided to keep the secret.
"In fact, ussi din jab unhone Dadi ko recognise kiya and she realized ki hum the great Mr. Malik ki family hain"
When Aunty had followed him out of the house to his car that day, he had assumed it had something to do with the fact that she had slapped Khushi. Arnav remembered not feeling very accommodating of her request to have a few words.
But what she said left him flabbergasted.
She begged him with her hands folded not to punish Khushi for a mistake she had made, irrespective of whether he believed that it had been inadvertent or not.
Her words had triggered a long lost memory. Of a mother and son in a garden and the feisty son threatening to crush the rose whose thorn had pricked his mother. He almost didn't recongize the mother and son but her words came back to him with surprising clarity,
"Kaante toh hamesha dard dete rahenge lekin uski sazaa phoolon ko mat do Chotey"
Telling Aunty he needed time to think, he'd driven home, his mother's words playing in his mind like a broken tape.
By the time he reached home, his conscience didn't permit him to hold Khushi at the helm of a crime she had no connection to. Quite contrarily, she was the one who had unwittingly broken all the ties to his terrible past by replacing them with bridges to the future. And besides, who was he to pass any verdict on others when most of his own crimes hadn't even been brought to trial.
She'd swept them all under the rug as one might when a child breaks a valuable object.
Unable to forgive himself for all the times he had disobeyed his mother's words, he had driven all the way back to her house that night. At Aunty's request though, he'd left her secret out of his heart-felt apology to Khushi.
"Chotey, agar aap pehle se sab jaanath hai toh aapne humme kaahe nahi bataya?" Nani said, coming up to his side.
"Nani main jaantha tha ki aap sab aise hi react karenge" Arnav said, "Already itna kuch hogaya, I didn't want to upset everyone again. In fact, maine hi Aunty se kaha tha ki kisise kuch na kahe"
"Toh tum yeh sab jaanne ke baad bhi'" Di trailed off, averting her gaze.
"Jaanne ke baad bhi kya Di?" Arnav said. "Maine aapse pehle ki kaha thi ki I don't believe in all this, shaadi ki rasme me sirf dono families ke zid pe kar raha hoon and because Khushi ko yeh sab acha lagta hai. As far as I'm concerned, we're already married. Main hi kya, legally bhi, hum dono shaadi-shuda hain"
Di was staring at him with her mouth open and Nani was crying again.
Turning to Khushi, he saw that she had let go of her mother and was looking at him as if she didn't recognise him.
"I'm sorry Khushi" he said, "Uss din hospital me maine tumse jhoot bola. Actually Aunty ne request kiya tha, she didn't want you to get upset specially jab shaadi ki rasame shuru hone wali thi"
Khushi's wiped away the lone tear trailing down her cheek and gave him a smile that almost stopped his heart.
He wouldn't have been able to look away if not for Mami's loud exclamation.
"Yeh lo!" she said, pointing at the two of them. "Yehi baaki reh gaya tha. Arnav bitwa is saying sorry to phati sadee. Yeh Gupta sisters humre dono bitwa pe aisan bilack magic kar dihin, eeko apni hi phamily ki kono fikar nahi, hello hi bye bye"
"Arnav aap hosh me toh hai?" Dadi said, recovering from her fog belatedly.
"Yeh sach jaanne ke baad bhi'"
"Sach" Arnav said, pausing to consider the word.
'For a change, ab sach bolte hai' Arnav remembered his own words intended to frighten Khushi into coming back home.
Looking from Mami's scornful expression to the one of betrayal on Nani and Di's face, he realized that it had been a mistake to keep it a secret.
To keep any secrets.
The problem with keeping the truth under wraps for too long was that it mutated to resemble lies and Arnav had had enough lies to last a lifetime.
The time had come, it seemed, for a change.
If everyone was so interested in the truth, then he would give them just that. And while he was at it, he might as well begin at the beginning.
If what the Gupta sisters had done was black magic, he wondered what Mami would have to say about what he had done to them.
He turned to her and said,
"Mami, aapko yaad hai ki aapne Akash aur Payal ki shaadi almost cancel kardi thi when you found out Payal ki pehli sagai toot gayi?"
"Hain?" she said, pulling her comical face of surprise.
For once, Arnav wasn't tempted to laugh.
"Aap jaanthi hai ki voh sagaai kyun toot gayi thi?"
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