Chapter 1

Excerpt

Arnav Singh Raizada was known as Arrogant Singh Raizada around the New York fashion industry. People, in general, didn't overlook him. Ladies, as a rule, found him irresistible. 10 years ago when he had left India to pursue higher studies in Harvard, he had known in his heart of hearts that he was never ever going back to that land again, where every pair of eyes had scrutinized him for susceptible signs of damage, as a result of having both his parents committing suicide & not to mention the added stigma of his father's adulterous ventures. Before he left, he had promised the only ray of sunshine in his life, his Di, that he would try to find a better space in this world for himself, where he wouldn't feel as haunted by the ghosts of his past as he did after they had both come to live with their Nani & Mama-Mami in Delhi. & after finishing his studies, when he had realized the poor state of the family business, he had decided to stay on where he was in attempt to try to spread the business & capture the growing demand for Indian fashion apparels in the western market.

He had already realized the day he had first walked upon his Ma-Dad quarrelling about that woman that, marriages were for fools & cowards. Women did it for security & in some cases, out of their desire to sponge off others while they continued to living their life comfortably. Men did it to have a sexual partner permitted & legalized by the law & the society & in some cases, out of their irrational urge to sow their seed in someone, so that their lineage could carry on in the world long after they were gone. & as far as Arnav was concerned, none of the cases applied to him. He found a society for himself, where sex was as available for someone like him as potholes in the roads of India & after knowing his father's reality & the genes he carried in his DNA, the inclination to reproduce was nil too. So, there were no chances of Arnav Singh Raizada ever getting hitched & the chances of him coming back to India were equally slim too. Hence, he had let his Di know, to her supreme disappointment, that he was thinking of settling down in USA for good & she should come & join him there, so that they could both try to live a somewhat peaceful existence there, outside the shadow of their notorious past.

Anjali Singh Raizada had understood her brother's point, but she had also point blank refused to leave India for good. & it was nearly 10 long years later, that Arnav got to finally know the reason why. So now, 10 years later he was coming back to India, the place which has given him nothing but pain, humiliation & heart-break, for his Di's sake. Not knowing, what surprising compensation the place had in store for him in the form of something quite familiar, but utterly unfamiliar now in its mature state.

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Khushi Kumari Gupta was known as Krazy-with-a-K Kumari Gupta around the New Delhi posh society of Chankyapuri. Khushi's home, which was actually made by her maternal grandfather, who was the chief of police when he bought the land around 1950's, was a large two story duplex. This area was a bit too posh & a lot more expensive than Khushi's parents could comfortably afford. & Khushi never understood why they couldn't have just stayed in Lucknow, till she & her siblings were still quite young & didn't need to live in Delhi because of their studies & jobs, & give this place up for rent to generate some extra income. & Khushi isn't quite sure why, but all Amma & Bauji would ever tell her that, when she was two years old, they just decided to up & leave their home & sweet shop Swastik Mishtanna Bhandar in Lucknow & come live in this house. Khushi's Bauji used to go to Lucknow to see over the operations of the shop, at least thrice each month, even a few years ago. But now after his stroke two years ago, he wasn't as fit anymore, that he could take the sufferance of the journey so frequently. So now the shop was overlooked by Khushi's Buaji mostly, with Khushi's brother, Rohan, visiting her whenever he could get away from his own job as the assistant director in HSBC bank's Greater Kailash branch. Khushi's sister, Payal, finished her MA in English literature from Delhi University just two months ago, & as she didn't show any enthusiasm towards attaining a job or something, her alliance was fixed with Karan, one of the many suitable & eligible bachelors, whose families kept bringing in Rishtas for Payal continuously. Surprisingly though, none such annoying disturbances came for Khushi. & she was mighty happy about things for once working in her favor & didn't mind it a bit.

Khushi had realized from a very young age that she was loved, thoroughly & unconditionally by everyone in her family. & mostly, she was the apple of their eyes for her Bauji & Rohan bhaiya. & for her, they were the heroes of her life. She practically worshipped the ground they both walked on. & Rohan was, without a doubt, her most favorite person in the world. These two men had shown her what being respectable meant. & now Khushi Kumari Gupta knew exactly what kind of a groom to ask from her Devi Maiyya in her prayers. Her life was actually good the way it was. She was happy. & if she noticed the occasional old Aunty's whispering while shooting glances at her, well, Khushi Kumari Gupta couldn't care less about them.

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Arnav's Nani lived in Chankyapuri, Delhi, in her home, Shantivan, which was actually a couple of blocks away from the house the Gupta's lived in, named Nikunja. Arnav & Anjali had both made friends with the Gupta siblings when they used to come to visit their Nani with their mother in their childhood. But the bond between Arnav & Rohan had always been more special for the kind of quite & deep friendship they both shared from the very beginning. & when Arnav & Anjali had come to live in Shantivan permanently after their world was turned upside down, Rohan had been one of the biggest support system for the confused, hurt & anguished Arnav.

As the days had went by, Arnav had grown more & more close to Rohan & Khushi had become more & more of a pest to him. She used to annoy the hell out of him with her antics & when she passed every limits, her mother would make her apologize to the poor orphaned boy she was so fond of. & Arnav could see, while Khushi's lips uttered 'sorry', her eyes flashed 'go to hell' to him. & it wasn't like he didn't know why she resented him. She thought he was taking her brother away form her. But he had just needed someone to confide in privately then & he didn't really welcome the presence of a pestering brat in his sessions with Rohan. Unfortunately for him, he wasn't someone to mask his resentment successfully. & from then on, it had been on! But frankly, Arnav had never actually given her much of an importance.

Khushi still resented the fact even today that, Arnav Singh Raizada couldn't even be bothered enough to retaliate to her pranks. He would just show sheer disdain when he found out she was behind the latest mishap in his life. & he hogged her brother for quite a stretched period too, before he went away. & Khushi didn't deny it to herself that, she had fancied herself as having a crush on Arnav after seeing his photos from Harvard & listening to his stories via everyone around, for a very brief period of time. But she wasn't a teenager anymore. & Arnav Singh Raizada wasn't even in the radius of her thought process anymore.

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So Arnav Singh Raizada was quite unprepared for the anchor that was waiting to tangle itself around his feet once he landed in India. & he knew, no one in Gupta family had an inkling of the reason for which he finally came back, although it was quite intimately related to them. Through Rohan. & he didn't expect the unease it was going to cause in their life, especially in the life of the self-proclaimed drama queen Khushi.

Khushi Kumari Gupta had no idea the storms Arnav was going to bring in to her life. Both in the form of his own gorgeous self & in the form of her dearest brother Rohan. To top it off, she didn't even know about the horrendous past she actually had, which made her quite un-marriagble stuff for any eligible groom with a respectable family worth any status in the high class snobbish society she mingled in.

& what none of them ever, in their wildest imagination, thought of, was the way in which they would both rock each other's worlds out of their respective orbits, once they were thrown against each other insistently, by the designs of the twisted universe.

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Part 1

Hey all, I am here with my new FF.. & just a few quick words, all the characters portrayed in the show IPKKND, are the same in this fiction too, with the only exception being in the situations under which they meet. Every one including NK, La, Shyam & Dadi has a role in this fiction.Although Dadi & Shyam are not likely to appear in more than three or four updates.

As always, I am clearly declaring, that I do get influenced by the comments put as reviews, & I do change the storyline, & in the past I have added a whole new chapter in the update also, after being inspired by the comments readers left me. So, any & all reviews are most welcome.