Chapter 1

"Baby?" Arnav's lips moved to form the word but his vocal cords failed him.

"Arnavji, my baby... where is my baby?" Khushi looked around, frantic, clutching the neck of Arnav's jacket.

Arnav looked at Garima and Buaji, perplexed, baffled by the turn of events, totally lost.

"Titliyaa, don't upset yourself," Buaji said as she moved closer and tried to comfort a distraught Khushi.

Khushi, deaf to excuses and in no mood to be consoled, tried to leave the bed to look for her infant.

"Titliyaa, when... when you fell down the steps..." Buaji paused unable to continue.

Realisation dawned on Khushi's face. Tears filled her horrified eyes and dripped down her cheeks in a never-ending flow.

Arnav looked at Khushi and then at Buaji and Garima, his eyes asking questions he was afraid to know the answers to.

"Khushi," he breathed, unable to witness the devastation on her face.

"Arnavji, our baby," she cried as she collapsed against him, hugging him with all the strength in her slender arms.

Arnav felt his heart still, his breath freeze.

He sat immobile, his arms around Khushi as she sobbed and wailed in to the crook of his neck for their unborn child. His head whirled; his grief-stricken heart ached. The lump in his throat made it impossible for him to speak.

"Khushi... sshhh..." he managed to whisper a while later, rubbing her back gently, hoping she wouldn't fall sick under the burden of grief and heartache.

Her sobs, instead of weakening to whimpers increased in intensity. She cried convulsively against Arnav, her shoulders and frail body shaking, her frame unable to bear the pain of her loss.

Buaji ran for the phone while the Raizadas and Payal and Garima stood helpless in the room.

Anjali felt her chest hurt. So Khushiji too had lost her child. Just like her.

And while Khushiji had been losing her world in Lucknow, they had remained in Delhi, oblivious of the fate they had condemned her to. Where was justice on this earth? she asked herself and God. Was pain the wages of love? Only pain? Was a normal life too much to ask for the Raizadas?

Payal and Mami caught Nani before she collapsed on the ground.

"My poor Khussi bitiya," Nani whimpered as Mami, Payal & Anjali helped her in to the bedroom next door.

"Saasumma, don't cry," Mami said. "Hamre Arnav Bitwaa will make everything alright."

"What can he do?" Nani asked, weeping. "It is all gone. Everything is out of our hands now."

"Please don't upset yourself," Garima pleaded. "It is Devi Maiyya's will. What can we mere mortals do?"

"Our family is cursed, Garimaji," Nani wept. "Cursed. First my Anjali bitiyaa and now my poor Khussi bitiyaa."

Buaji called Munna.

"Munna, get the doctor here urgently. Tell him it is an emergency, Nandkisore. Your Khussi di is not well," she panted.

"I will kidnap one if necessary and get him there," Munna promised.

He and Krishna switched off the stoves, left the sweets and ran to the nearest clinic.

The doctor gave Khushi a tranquiliser and asked her family to leave her to rest. Slowly Khushi slipped in to deep sleep, a blessed oblivion.

Arnav was not so lucky.

Leaving Khushi to sleep, he joined his family in the next room.

"Buaji, tell me what happened. Please," he pleaded.

Buaji sighed as she lowered her heavy body in to a chair.

"When we returned to Lucknow, bitwaa, she was very upset, always in tears. She wouldn't eat, wouldn't drink, wouldn't sleep. I thought she would faint one day, Nandkisore. And she did collapse, a month after we settled in Lucknow. We rushed her to the clinic nearby," Buaji dried her eyes.

"The doctor said that her body was very weak and that she was pregnant," Garima continued.

Arnav swallowed hard, images of the night they had spent in the farmhouse running through his head.

"She smiled. For the first time in one month, she smiled, Nandkisore," Buaji said. "What could we do, bitwaa? An unmarried girl and pregnant, Hai Re Nandkisore!"

"We didn't know what to do, bitwaa. Our neighbours and relations in Lucknow thought that she was married as they had witnessed your elopement and griha pravesh during Payaliyaa's wedding. Only we knew that she was not married," Garima wept.

"And why she was not married. We didn't know if we should inform you, if you would want to know, Nandkisore," Buaji heaved a long sigh.

"Or how to inform you when you had abandoned her at the mandap," Garima added.

Buaji nodded. "It is a curse, bitwaa, when you marry off two girls in to one family. If there is some problem in one marriage, Nandkisore, it will kill the other marriage too."

"And the two families can never cut the bonds binding them. If we told you about the baby, it would harm Payaliyaa's life. If we didn't tell you, you would find out some day or the other. How many years could we hide the truth? The two families would have to meet when Payaliyaa became pregnant or gave birth. Diwali, holi, navratri, teej, karva chauth... there is some festival or the other every month. How long could we keep the truth from you?" Garima asked.

Nani and the others nodded.

"We decided that I should make a trip to Delhi and tell you about the baby, Nandkisore," Buaji said. "We booked the ticket. Three days before I was to leave, Khussi had her accident."

"She went to Ganga Ram's shop and bought an English newspaper," Garima explained. "She returned home with it, went up to her bedroom to read it and came down a few minutes later with it saying that she wanted tea. As she was walking down the steps, she fell. I don't know if she fainted or slipped, but she rolled down the stairs."

"And the blood. There was blood all over," Buaji swallowed. "Hai Re Nandkisore, what a terrible day it was."

Arnav turned to hide his wet eyes. "I... I wish..." he couldn't complete the sentence.

Nani sobbed weakly.

"When it was all over, she woke up and couldn't remember anything. Maybe it was wrong of us, bitwa, but we felt relieved. After a month and more of tears, her ignorant happiness seemed a blessing to us. We were grateful that she couldn't remember her fall and her baby," Garima said softly.

"We contacted Payaliyaa, Nandkisore, and asked her to come to Lucknow alone. We insisted that she should not tell you about Khussi's miscarriage. And together we made sure that Khushi did not remember anything," Buaji leaned against the chair, weary.

"As she had lost the baby, there was no need to tell you about her pregnancy. We cleared the house of anything that might remind her of you, prayed that she would never recover her lost past and hoped that you would forget her and marry someone else," Garima said.

"But you stayed with her even when she couldn't remember you, bitwaa. She used to watch the doorway of her room in the hospital, asking if anyone had come to meet her when she had been asleep. And once she came home, Hai Re Nandkisore, it was always about Payaliyaa and her in-laws," Buaji grimaced. "How many brothers-in-law does she have? Who are they? What are they doing? Can't we go to Delhi to meet them? Why didn't they come to see me when I was in the hospital? Her questions were driving us mad, bitwa. It was then that Garima and I realised the consequences of lying to her, of hiding the truth."

"I didn't know," Arnav muttered, his husky voice huskier than usual.

"I should have known. I should have known."