Advay's car was approaching the gate of Raizada mansion...The evening had grown dark...the world getting ready to sleep...Advay looked tired...ready to hit the bed but he knew, it wouldn't be soon...His telco was still on...
"Mamaji, what are you trying to say... we have been looking forward to this Europe trip...Meghna would have enjoyed it!"
"Nahi Beta! As I explained you, her mind is completely changed now...and this is new happiness in her life...I don't want to hinder it...I am very happy for her...for so long the girl has suffered in so many ways...almost similar to how my banno had suffered earlier before you married her...now Banno is happy in her life, Shikha has found her soulmate...Meghu also deserves it."
"I agree Mamaji... I agree completely... but this man?"
"Beta, he's changed... he's a different person now than what we knew before... he comes almost every day here...I see both of them...I speak to him...yet, I could be wrong...you are our trusted head now...I know you are very busy..company matters, your own family matters and further this...I know I am troubling you..."
"Don't ever say that, Mamaji" exclaimed Advay. Then his eyes focused far and his demeanour grew quiet, "I respect you hugely, Mamaji. When nobody else was ready, you volunteered in my marriage to tie Chandni's gathbandhan with me...You have always been a father figure in her life...when things were not sorted out between me and Chandni even after our marriage, your sister had given up on her but you didn't... you were always Chandni's support."
"Don't call that woman my sister, Dev beta...it feels like a bad word now...How many times I tried dissuading her from her vile deeds...how many times I tried cautioning Banno about her...but Banno was blind in her trust."
"That's true Mamaji...The mistakes which happened from Chandni were due to her naivety...even now she is so gullible...she trusts everything blindly."
Mamaji smiled, "She will always be like that, beta...I am not worried for her now because you and your family take full care of hers. I am worried for Meghna. I cannot trust anybody else other than you, beta...could you come and check him out?...if there's any wrong in his intention, we must discourage Meghna immediately before things get out of hand."
"Yes Mamaji... I agree...I'll let you know when I can come over."
Advay climbed the steps of his home fast... his face smiling in happy expectation of Chandni's loving arms... "Chaaandni!"he called out from the door expecting his swagwaali katto to come and greet him...
One look at her and his expression changed instantly...an immediate sense of panic gripping his heart...she looked dejected...devastated...lonely...lost...immeasurable pain in her entire being...he had lately never seen her like this...
"Chandooo? he gasped... She raised her eyes to him momentarily...anguish riddling her face...all the air felt punched out from his lungs... something was terribly wrong...he couldn't fathom what exactly ...he just knew there was something...Disastrous...he felt a punch to his guts leaving him just speechless...
"Your food is ready on the table...Pooja and Miku are there...please eat" She pleaded, her voice scratchy with pain.
"You?" the word left his mouth in a near whisper, wondering, instantly feeling her hurt... almost! He leaned forward wanting to hold her, hug her, comfort the pain... She side stepped him.
"I'll wait in our room." Her voice barely audible like there was tennis ball sized lump in her throat...... Fighting back a barrage of tears that started pooling in her eyes, she turned her face away and hurried to their room...Yet, he saw it!...The distress splashed across her face twisting an ice spear through his heart...
"Chandniii..." he called out in desperation. He wanted to physically stop her, go after her but something stopped him...a rare sense of trepidation!
Feeling dangerously unmoored, as if he was plummeting down a steep cliff with nothing to hold onto..., he rushed to dining table "Pooja, What happened to Chandni?"
"Bhaiyya, She is not feeling well... She did mention it....but somehow she looked pretty depressed ...I was in the office, so I didn't know...I asked her what the matter was but she just left... Come, sit and have your food."
" No!" Advay dashed in Chandni's direction almost colliding with Murli but ignoring completely.
Advay paused and pulled a deep breath in, just outside the door, calming his nerves to handle new demons inside...
'Maybe all my past girls had made her sad again...Naani said she would need time...I will deal with it'...
He gently pushed open the door...The air was poignant inside the room...gloom soaked deep in...Chandni was at the window her gaze fixed on far horizon... her eyes shimmery with the deluge of pain in her heart... she looked anguished ...beautiful!
"Chandni" he whispered.
Chandni turned...a disturbing determination on her face...a wave of uneasiness rolled over Advay as million thoughts invaded his mind.
"If I ask something from you, you'll give me... right, Dev?"
A heavy breath gushed out from Advay ... he realised he had been holding it till now...
"Of Course, Chandni!...Anything...just anything you want."
"Promise me, Dev." Chandni held out her palm.
Relief was fleeting...something was terribly wrong here...something indefinable but terribly wrong!
"Why do you need a promise? You trust me, right? Then why bring a pledge or oath between us?" Advay's unease was clear in his voice.
"For my sake, please marry Sasha or any girl you liked in the past...pleaaase...please do this for me."
Chandni spoke fast, words ripping from her heart...her eyes begging...her voice beseeching.
Advay stilled, and very slowly, all colour drained from his face. 'It's about my past...but why is she taking such extreme?'
He moved towards her...wanting to reach out...desperately needing to appease her mood...all his love in voice, he called out, "Chaaandniii...??"
Chandni stepped back...fighting the instinct to let him swathe her...her gaze fell to the floor...she'd cave in...fall apart if she looked in his eyes.
"I will never be able to give you a child...your dream...your deepest desire...this family and haveli's need!" Her voice rose with passion and then suddenly dropped gulping her own private pain, "My past trauma was not just emotional, the physical impact has left me barren."
Her voice broke...Advay lunged but Chandni stopped him with outstretched palm.
Advay was confused, what's that? Then shock began to seep in along with a knock out confusion... 'what is she saying?'
"I got my periods today...I should have been pregnant by now but I am not... I will never be...all our nights gone to vain..." her voice faltered again with her rationalising effort.
Advay's shock started to simmer into anger as everything started clicking into place. He closed his eyes trying to contain his temper and losing the battle.
"Chandni, are you gone out of your mind...this is just one time...we must wait!"
Something inside Advay struggling terribly to cope.
"Nahi Dev...I have been thinking the whole day...hope is a sad thing...it only brings hurt in the end..."
Chandni was in complete denial...a force in her voice...Her face contorting...and with that his heart in anger!
Anger mixed with intense pain, almost injury, gathered in his eyes.
"Toh?"
Rile in his eyes, his equilibrium waned completely and he lunged forward holding her hands in a desperate grip and hissing through gritted teeth, his voice with an almost metallic knife like feel to it,
"So, you want me to marry someone to get a child? And you decided this all on your own? This is the only solution you think of?"
Fire and hurt combating for turf in her eyes, "Why not?...You need a child...the family needs a junior Mahant...it's been tradition to marry again...My baba had remarried, then why can't you??... Rather, the earlier the better!"
Her words ripped through him, world crashed around him... A 'never before' like pain in his heart...excruciating and way beyond fixable...
"Main Tumhari kismat hoon Chandni! I am your fate! Apni kismet se bhaga nahi karate...told you before also!"
(never try to run from destiny)
Advay seethed...the pain was cutting...like almost a mortal blow...There was blood everywhere.
"Aapne yeh bhi kaha tha ki maine aap ki jindagi barbaad kar dee...and it's true...I have destroyed your life already...not any further...I won't allow it!"
(You had also said that I destroyed your life)
Her eyes seemed to bore into him, pained, angry yet entreating.
A layered cascade of voices raced through his mind...all their heated discussions much earlier... building up torment in his heart, the sense of impending doom. His lips pursed, his nostrils flared, his grip tightened on her arms hurting her...
All sorts of emotions he was trying hard to control but they would not listen...an inferno began within.
"YOU ARE MY LIFE! Reason for my very existence...either in hate or in love, it's been you, you and YOU only! The rest are all just extensions...additions when you and I are together as one."
His tense taut body seemed to want to hurtle into her... and she stood stunned... a tense exchange...
The same emotion called love drowning two people!
"I love you, too Dev! I want you to have full complete life...if not with me then with someone else."
She defied, holding onto her last hope to make him see her reason.
"There cannot ever be anyone else...I can't touch another woman...forget fathering a child...by even mentioning this, you have hurt me, Chandni!"
Words ripped through him...exposing his bleeding heart...
"You think like this again and you'll truly lose me."
He hurled her away and started walking out...flight in full rage same as the one when he had left her angrily in childhood. The same ancient anger finding its territory back inside him...struggling to find expression...perhaps also an expunging...
Chandni remembered that fateful night when she had naively asked him about his mother being a witch...
Her heart felt ripped out, trampled on and shoved back into her chest ...a battered mess.
With his words and his every step away...putting distance between them... Becoming empty space...She felt somewhere between grief and devastation...
The most painful thing as she had experienced then! Her life had fallen apart then!
Suddenly, she felt empty, battered, lonely and lost. The only person that could make any of this better was the person who made it all happen. 'I am never ever going to recover from this.'
"Dev, please don't leave like this... please don't go away...mujhse Galati ho gayee." pleaded Chandni desperately trying to stop him.
(it was my mistake)
Winds raced through the window and howled, an omen in them, a feeling of all hell breaking loose. In the tightly packed pain in his eyes was the message of a world ending.
"Yeh Galati nahi, Chandni...Gunah hai! (This is not a mistake, it's a CRIME)" hissed Advay...His tone arctic but scalding angry scorn emanating from his eyes...
Rage...Advay's friend as well as his foe, his all time mate...right from that day from hell ...when his parents were torn from him, suddenly and terribly...his world was burnt away along with his mother...Little Dev had survived that calamity only with rage inside...Advay needed that same rage again when once again as his newly formed world was burning!!... At the hands of the same girl...the same girl whom he loved the most in the world!
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