Basit

Loneliness, he knew well. It had been a close friend to him since childhood. It had chased him through the endless rooms in a house that lacked for nothing. Love, security, support, and shelter had all merged in that one figure-- his father. When those outsiders had come in with their talk of Salmaan getting married again, he had shuddered deep within. He had waited with bated breath, but his flickering trust in that one person had not been proved wrong. His father had remained his alone. An anchor holding him down in a world that threatened to sweep him away with its overwhelming melancholy.

Yet the world outside lay waiting, hostile and laid out with treacherous pitfalls. Whispers enlaced with taunts dressed up as goodwill and concern had followed him like a shadow.  It had thrown surprises at him too in a friend he could trust his life with. And he had thought that the loneliness that had lurked in the shadows of his mansion's dimly lit corners and tittered behind the effervescent curtains had left him for good. 

Till the moment came that left him just as shattered as he had been years back when The Woman had walked down that shadowy hallway, flicked open the door to the world outside, and then slammed it shut on his face. His anchor was no more but his death knell was sounded when the dry words of the legal document threatened to rake over his every wound, leaving him raw and bleeding within. 

But this world did not stop for the sake of one man's wounds. And he knew he had to set aside the raw emotions that hurled through him and fix the problem. What lay at stake was far more than his own pain. So he pulled up his boots and took the plunge, wading through the murky depths that awaited him in the name of marriage. Fumbling as he was in the darkness, he buried his nauseous rejection of the very concept of marital union for the sake of the bigger picture. But it was not to be. The rejection and abandonment that subconsciously he knew were inevitable happened so quickly that it barely felt as a pinprick.

But just as he had decided to embrace the crisis and the collapse of all that he held precious, for the second time in his life the world threw him another surprise in her. Another Woman. Before her he had finally laid out his harsh and bitter truth, and she was prepared to help him. He found himself to be as ready as he would ever be and he had indeed found the solution to his problems in her. 

The Fates watched him. Solution indeed! Did young Basit Salman Khan even know where the problem lay?