Chapter 32

When Arnav entered his home around 10.45pm, he was already in a very foul mood. Well, truth be told, he had been in a perpetually foul mood like a tiger with a bone in his foot for weeks now, but today was exceptionally worth mention despite that. He didn't know why, but from sometime around mid-day, he had started feeling uncannily uneasy about something. He constantly had the nagging feeling that something unappealing was going to happen, something unsavoringly horrible was going to take place. & not the prospect of having something bad happen, but the fact that, he was actually having any kind of feeling, riled Arnav Singh Raizada up. Because, he was ASR, & ASR didn't have bloody premonitions!

So when he saw his sister & grandmother discussing something with serious anxiety etched on their classy features, he heaved an exasperated sigh, because, he really wasn't craving any human company at that moment. Not the present company, at any case. & the human contact he sought' Arnav finally let out the sigh he was trying to heave as he thought dejectedly, the contact he sought, seemed to have been disconnected from him with a severe finality. & then he again became irritated with himself for even thinking about any of it, especially her, for the umpteenth time in the past couple of weeks.

He couldn't believe he was pining secretly over a girl, a mere girl! & he couldn't believe he wasn't paying heed to his own mind. The mind which had come to his rescue ever since his own fate had left his side. His mind kept telling him to just go, get another easy target, like that friend of hers, for example, & then move on in life as he had been doing for the past ten years. But his bloody heart just won't listen. & It also made him drive in an extra-slow speed past Nikunja at least 4times a day! f**king blood-pumping mass of blood & muscles. What did it think, that it was the master of him?!

Arnav flung his jacket which was casually draped over his forearm with unnecessary force over the sofa on the opposite side of where his Di & Nani had been sitting, making them both look up with startled eyes at the abrupt action. But they were so wrapped up in whatever they were talking about, that they didn't chastise him even mildly, their faces merely registering faint disapproval. This piqued Arnav's interest, & he scanned both the ladies with narrowed, appraising eyes. When both of them still continued looking decidedly uninterested in him, he was sure something had really been bugging them. So instead of fleeing up to his room like he had done studiously all throughout the past one week, he sat down with a tired expression on his face on a lounger beside them.

Anjali looked up at him questioningly, surprised that he had finally chosen to spend some time with family, so he shrugged & said in a brusque tone, "You tell me! What happened? Why are you two looking so gloomy... & worried?" When Anjali looked at Nani, looking unsure of what to say, Arnav snapped impatiently, "Come on, Di! What? Did something happen? Something to do with the preparations? Tell me & I'll smooth things over. Or I'll have Aman working on it & it will be sorted out before you even know it. Tell me, what?" Anjali shook her head promptly & said hurriedly, "No Chhote. It's not about the wedding. Wo, Rohan... Actually, Khushi..." & Anjali would never in her life know, how that hesitant little name from her lips shook her brother's whole world on its orbit.

Arnav fought to keep his face straight & devoid of reactions, as he asked in a low voice, "What about Khushi, Di?" Anjali looked over at Nani again, much to Arnav's impatient irritation, & when the older woman nodded her head encouragingly, she went on, "Well, I guess, Rohan would have told it to you himself, if you had been here at the time he, you know, sort of consulted you, before proposing to me for the very first time all those years ago... He told it to me then & there itself, Chhote, so don't ever think that he hid anything from me or something, OK?" Now Arnav started to get really uneasy, what was Di on about, & most importantly, what did Khushi have to do with all this? Unable to contain his anxiousness, he snapped a bit, "Di, just come to the point, will you?"

Anjali shook her head rapidly & rushed in a shaky voice, "You see, Khushi... Her father... She..." Anjali faltered, not sure where to start & how to start, then seeing the increasingly-darkening thundering expression on her brother's face, she quickly plunged in, "Khushi is Amma's, I mean, Garima Aunty's sister's daughter. Her sister's husband, I mean, Khushi's mother's husband, that is, her father... Her father murdered her mother & then killed himself. I don't really know the details of how Khushi came to then live with Rohan & the family, but the whole thing was quite scandalously infamous around the time, right Nani?" Nani nodded her head in agreement, & Arnav felt like his head had gone empty. He actually felt so light-headed as if he were full-on drunk.

Murder. Suicide. Orphaned. The words kept playing around in his head like a looping melody. f**k! Arnav squeezed his eyes shut, it was all too much for her. She was but a child at heart. She was baby Gupta. & when he himself was having a hard time wrapping it all around his head, how the hell would she? & suddenly Arnav felt an all consuming rage bubbling up inside his chest, as he remembered Mami's words at this very room all those weeks ago, 'As if her history wasn't enough to ensure that, any decent household won't want her to be their bahu!' Is this what she had been talking about?

Arnav felt like breaking something from the unbelievable rage he felt. Just because of this, since the time he had come to India, he had been hearing these ridiculous & outrageous gossips about her? Were people f**king stupid? What was her involvement in all this, except that she had the misfortune of being the child of a murderous father? No, Arnav set his jaw as he resolved silently, he would talk to Rohan & tell him about how people gossiped about Khushi behind her back. She would have to be protected from it all. He had barely survived the lash of people's tongue, & some would even say that had left him scarred for life! No, & no, she didn't need any of it on top of the pains that he had put her through. She would be so hurt! No, she shouldn't know about it all. Never-

Anajali's voice interrupted Arnav's train of thought, as she said in a sad lull, "& today, Khushi came to know all this by accident... Can you imagine the shock she must've felt? & Rohan was just devastated when he called me from his office asking me to rush to Nikunja. When I went there... Amma & Bauji... You couldn't even look at them, Nani, they were looking so broken! & Payal had been sitting on the floor outside Khushi's bedroom, from the time she had gone on to sleep there after she heard it all. & when Rohan came back, he went & joined Payal there too... & I tried to console Amma, but she was just hysterically inconsolable! & even Payal started crying once Rohan came... It was just heartbreaking to see them all like that!" Then she looked at her brother again, who was looking pale & very still all of a sudden, "Then I came back home to send some food with HP as no one was even thinking of things like food or anything over there. But they had to eat something, na? But HP couldn't bring any news back, Buaji took the food from him from the door itself." Anjali finished forlornly.

& Arnav wasn't even listening to her anymore. There was just one thought in his mind, he had to, had to, see her. He just had to. Not for her. She had a very loving family who would take very good care of her came hell or high water. But he had had to see her. For himself. He just had to see her for once to assure himself that everything was right in his world.

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Khushi woke up about four hours later in her room feeling unbelievably lethargic, her lips covered with her own drool. She furrowed her brows as she wiped her lips & tried to open her eyes properly. She had a surprisingly dreamless, blank session of sleep, & as a result she was feeling considerably blank herself. But she had a shockingly heavy feeling in her heart. As if something irreversibly damaging had happened. She rubbed her face with her hands to bring some blood circulation back to her facial muscles & slowly sat up on the bed. & in a flash, it all came back like a deadly blow from a sand bag.

Suddenly Khushi took in an abrupt gulp of breath & then clamped her mouth shut with her palm as a mourning cry threatened to escape through her lips. Amma-Bauji are not her Amma-Bauji? Payal-Rohan are siblings, & she's not one of them? She's not a Gupta? She only got this family by a horrid/beautiful chance of fate & by a result of their benevolence, but it could have all been so different if any one of the things in her past had been changed? Khushi clutched her head in her hands desperately & bowing down completely, she prayed to Devi Maiyya to just undo the events of the day. She didn't want any of it to be true. She just wanted everything to be as it was yesterday.

All of a sudden, she felt a caressing hand stroking over her head, & she looked up to see the drawn face of her otherwise jovial brother, & then as she remembered something else, she asked before she could stop herself, "Is Jiji your sole sister, & I am only your cousin then?" & instantly, instead of getting an answer, she was crushed into a painfully tight embrace as Rohan pressed her against his chest until he gradually felt Khushi relaxing against him, & then her whole body started shaking in irregular spasms as she broke in a sobbing session like crashing waves over Rohan's chest.

A little more than a few minutes later though, even before Khushi's sobs had subsided, Rohan got hold of Khushi's head, & held it away from his chest so that he could look at her face. But it was Khushi who got a dull shock when she saw the stormy look & unshed tears in Rohan's red eyes. Then she was forced to look away as she heard him speak in a rough voice, "I can't, OK? I know you have got to let it all out, but I can't! I can't see you like this... Look, Bach- I don't know what makes whom someone's brother... I don't know if it takes you to be born out of the same parents, or if you have to tie Rakhi onto someone's wrist for years after years to be his sister, but... Do you know something? My earliest memory of you is the day you had your first shot of measles. You were all of weeks old then, & Maasi had brought you over on her way back home... & you were just gargling with laughter, Bachchi! I had never seen, a baby that young laugh like that, before, or yet again! & Amma was telling Maasi not to go by your laughter then & how you would have a fever later from the shot, & I asked Amma about who you were? & she just said off-handedly, in between talking to Maasi, 'why, your baby sister!' & that was it for me. It's the same thing she had told me when she brought Payal home, & I swear on Amma-Bauji, Bachchi, from that day on, there had been no difference between you & Payal for me... Except, maybe for the fact that, you had been always been my dearest."

Khushi looked at him for a long moment, completely at a loss of speech, then she hugged him again & blinked her eyes rapidly, trying really hard not to cry. She never cried like this before him up until now & she could see the affect it was having on Rohan, & she didn't want to make it all as hard on Rohan as it was for her. She pressed her cheek over his chest & tried to summon all of her self-restraint to the fore, pushing all of her history to the back of her mind. Just then she heard Rohan speak in a gentle tone, "Will you come downstairs for a bit? Have dinner with all of us? Amma-Bauji, Payal, Buaji has been waiting for you to wake up. Anjali is there too. Even Arnav has been pestering me with his constant questions-" He stopped short as Khushi abruptly pulled out of his arms & looked at him with tired, but surprised eyes.

"He's here?! He-" Khushi stopped before she asked the question that had been bubbling on her lips, of course he knew! There were no secrets anymore between Nikunja & Shantivan, were there? Khushi gulped down the lump in her throat & said in a tired voice, "I don't really wanna face so many people, Bhaiya... Why don't you say goodbye to them for tonight & I'll come down after sometime, once I have freshened up, to have dinner with you all? Will that be alright?" She said in an honestly pleading voice. Rohan scanned her face thoroughly for a couple of seconds, then he nodded & got off the bed & went out of her room in snail-paced movements.

Khushi looked at the space where he had just been sitting, then she dropped her head on the pillow again, as exhausted tears leaked out of the corners of her eyes. She brought her hands up to almost rub her eyes out as she thought defeatedly, how much of a looser was she, that her whole world had been turned upside down, & she had been reduced to a rootless, orphan seed of a murderer, & all she could think of was how a ruthless, damn-care, selfish bas***d could make everything in her dark world rosy again just by professing his undying love to her, which she knew, by the way, was never gonna happen...

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Part 31