Chapter 4

Loving & Loved

It wasn’t a loving marriage she wasn’t a loved child, but Mrunal acted and talked recklessly in her teens and 20s and projected a pampered well loved façade

Madhao Rao’s passing coincided with Sagar and Amruta affair and the breakdown of the marriage

Mrunal drank alcohol uninhibitedly at parties and tried pot and smoked occasionally when she shared cigarettes with friends and never returned home many nights.

Was ultra gorgeous, was young, and was wealthy, If Aai and Baba didn’t love her she was going to find it outside.

Both parents living in their definition of now….. neither worried about Mrunalini Ghatge’s tomorrow.

They didn’t check on her like other parents did

They didn’t stay up like other parents did

They didn’t pace the floor and drive down to the venue and slap her like movie Dads did

Her mother was too overwhelmed by her own disappointments to worry about where the grown daughter was and what she was up to

Sagar was so gorgeous and wealthy, he was living like a teen most days

Two completely incompatible people staying together until he chose to undo it so publicly with Amruta

Endless partying and not being home was her escape chute

She lied to friends when they asked if her parents had a curfew for her

Partly from craving validation from her Aai, and partly to fit in among her female friends

She told them fantastic stories about how her parents only wanted a grand Bollywood like wedding for her at  Greece or Rome or Italy

Went on to 2nd base and even 3rd base with many young men

Aatreya was her home run (more detail on the steamy encounter)

Fast forward to today, she was raising Jaidrith Ghatge by herself with no parents and no husband

One constant has been she still ached to gain her mother’s acceptance and love.

It was a picture perfect family of wealthy healthy gorgeous people, but no one was happy. Everyone had reasons to bail… well except Mrunal

She wanted in

But no one wanted to stay in

“Can we go some place nice?” she lay in Jai’s bed as he sat in a corner and played on his PS-4

He didn’t pay her any attention

He looked exactly like her too tall too slender and had her eyes

“If you eat your lunch for the next month everyday we can go” she offered an incentive to a boy who didn’t care for lunch nor cared for vacations

He wanted to be left alone with his electronics

He was smart, articulate and funny, but was too afraid of change and feared people

It was like ALL of Mrunal’s darkest secret fears had manifested in her womb and molded Jai.

Her mother didn’t visit her in the hospital, until her father dragged her sorry a—to it

Sagar did so because he didn’t want Mrunal to find out WHO he was in bed with, quite literally, Falguni had suspicions though

“Tumhe laaj aanali aahe, tumachyakadun khupa apeykshya hotya” (U have shamed me I had so many expectations from you)

Her mother actually told her for the first time ever that she even expected something out of her

Not once in 23 years she had heard that line

She heard it over text two hours after labor & delivery