PriRa OS ~ Towards Her

Towards Her

“Congratulations, Ram!”

“Here comes our man!”

“Mubarakan, bhai!”

Ram Kapoor's gang of friends, Adi, Vrinda, Kunal and Vicky, crowded around him with cheers and greetings the moment he entered the venue for the night's celebration. The party was in honour of Ram Kapoor who had managed to add another accolade to his repertoire of many achievements tonight. His company had won first place in the Stellar Innovation awards for consistently delivering innovative solutions to their customers.

“Ram, where’s Priya?” Vrinda asked scanning the entrance behind her friend for his wife.

“She said she won’t be able to make it as there’s some emergency with Sara,” Ram replied as he picked up a cheese croquet from the appetizer platter being offered by the server doing the rounds.

“Anything serious, bhai?” Kunal queried.

“Nope. I offered to go along but Priya said she’d manage,” Ram replied.

Adi didn’t miss the feeling of disappointment that washed over the group, and especially, his wife, Vrinda, at the news. While they understood Priya and Ram's priorities being their families over each other, they did hope that some day, these two amazing souls would find love in their lives, once again.

Ram and Priya had literally married for their families – to make it smooth for their siblings, as absurd as it may sound, because both Ram and Priya had closed the doors to their hearts forever. Ram, because he hadn’t been able to forget his first and only love, even after she moved on and got married; and Priya, because she had her heart shattered to smithereens by the men in her life – her father and her ex-boyfriend. Vrinda had organized this party in the hope that they could get Ram and Priya to spend some private moments together but, with Priya missing, it had all come down to naught now.

“It’s okay, baby, we’ll try something again,” Adi whispered beside his wife in an effort to console her, while Kunal and Vicky chatted with Ram.

“Guess we will have to,” Vrinda replied dejectedly.

“Mr. Kapoor!” Ram turned to find Mr. Khurana heading their way. He excused himself to go talk to the man who’d stopped by to congratulate him on the win.

“Guys, cheer up! With these faces, we look like we’re here to attend a funeral,” Vicky joked seeing Vrinda's face.

“At least, Shashi and Vedika are not here, else we’d have to again endure the ordeal of Ram's wistful looks towards the couple,” muttered Vrinda.

Though Ram's ex-girlfriend, Vedika, was now married to Shashi, everyone knew that Ram still loved Vedika. Ram had never made a secret of it and, interestingly, Shashi didn’t have a problem with it – the scoundrel, in fact, made it a point to rub it in Ram's face every opportunity he got. Always praising Vedika and his luck for being blessed with a wife like her. Ram's friends had hoped he’d eventually move on, but with each passing day, Ram had only proved that he was loyal to a fault. What didn’t help matters was his marriage of convenience because Priya also had no problem with the status quo. Which meant that only a miracle worker could evacuate Vedika from her permanent abode in Ram’s heart.

Through the next hour, Ram was constantly busy with business associates and acquaintances, who lauded his successes and wished him many more achievements for the future. However, irrespective of who he was talking to, Ram's hopeful eyes continually scanned the hall, and occasionally strayed to the entrance, as if in search of someone, expecting someone's arrival. It didn’t take a genius to know that he was looking for Vedika.

“Speak of the devil...” muttered Vrinda, exasperated.

As if Ram's restlessness had conjured her out of thin air, his friends saw Vedika and Shashi enter the party venue. All four pairs of eyes zeroed in on Ram, sure of his next move. As if on cue, Ram excused himself from the people he was talking to and made his way towards Vedika. Shashi had been conveniently intercepted by a friend while Vedika continued to head in Ram's direction.

Vrinda and the gang saw Ram pick up two glasses of drinks from a server’s tray on the way and continue walking past them, towards the approaching Vedika. But what happened next left Ram’s friends spellbound.

“Hi, Ram,” Vedika greeted him when Ram was within earshot.

Acknowledging her greeting with a brisk nod, he responded, “Excuse me, Vedu,” and walked past her, leaving her confused, and straight up to his wife who had entered the venue behind Vedika and her husband.

In their annoyance at Shashi and Vedika’s arrival, Ram’s friends had completely missed Priya’s entry. Clad in a plain, navy blue, satin saree with a thread of glitter at the edges, medium teardrop earrings and hair casually let loose, Priya looked radiant in her simplicity.

Shocked into silence by the unexpected turn of events, Adi was the first of the gang to find his voice, “Am I hallucinating, or...?”

“Did I just see...?” Kunal followed with another incomplete question.

“...Ram ignoring Vedika?” Vicky jumped in.

“Oh. My. God. Yes! Eeeks!” Vrinda almost whisper-squealed. “Who would've thought that all this while, Ram was restlessly waiting for his wife and not Vedika!”

Their eyes now glued to the couple, the friends saw Priya’s face brighten at Ram’s familiar presence as he greeted her. Not a regular at such parties, the hesitation had been evident on Priya’s face as she had stood at the entrance, surveying the crowd, and Ram had been quick to put her at ease by meeting her at the door with his usual kind self. They exchanged a few words which seemed like Ram querying about Sara's situation and Priya assuring him that everything was under control. Ram nodded and offered Priya the glass of lemon mojito he’d picked for her who accepted it with a thanks.

They walked in, their drinks in hand, and came to a halt at a table close to the where Ram’s friends were huddled together, but oblivious to their presence. The friends saw Ram say something which evoked Priya’s laughter. Despite straining their ears, none of the friends could catch anything of the conversation over the sound of music and chatter from the party.

“I want to know what’s going on there,” Vicky whispered. “How did this miracle happen?”

“That makes the two of us,” Vrinda piped in.

“Me, three,” added Adi.

“No, four,” responded Kunal.

“Yeah, but we can’t do that without barging into their conversation and that’s not going to help,” Vrinda sighed.

Ram and Priya continued to chat with none of the friends still being able to catch anything from the conversation. From where they stood, all they could see was shared warmth and happiness between the couple and that was more than enough for the friends to feel happy for their buddy.

For a couple that had love nowhere on their radar, these two were masters at whispered conversations, thought Vrinda.

A few minutes later, they saw Neeraj, Priya’s snob of an ex-boyfriend, arrive with his wife. The friends saw Ram's eyes literally light up with mischief, as he caught sight of Neeraj, then said something to Priya. Priya seemed to refuse but could barely contain the grin that was threatening to break across her face. She finally seemed to concede and Ram offered her his hand. Priya put her hand in his and Ram flashed her a conspiratorial wink as they walked towards Neeraj who was approaching them.

Vicky let out a low whistle, “When did these two go from ‘We both mind our own business’ to ‘Let’s rock some boats and ruffle some feathers’?”

“Not that we’re complaining,” laughed Kunal.

Ram and Priya’s interaction with Neeraj and his wife didn't last long. The snob already seemed to be irritated seeing the couple laughing and holding hands. His expression indicated that he’d tried throwing a snarky comment their way but was rewarded with an equally snarky one from Ram that had left him seething as the couple walked away.

“I think this went better than anything we could’ve planned,” Adi said referring to the little show that Ram and Priya had just put up before Neeraj.

“I believe you're right,” Vrinda replied to her husband, her eyes glistening with tears of joy. "So our Ram and Priya are not all that hopeless, after all.”

“So long as they don't hear you say that,” teased Vicky and the group burst out laughing.

What made Ram and Priya special, thought Vrinda, was the fact that they both valued each other as people and knew the other’s worth. Before anything else, they treated each other with utmost respect – and while that may seem like a secondary thing to people when they spoke about love, it came first for Ram and Priya. For someone like Priya who had always cared for others all her life but never had someone do the same for her, Ram’s little gestures held a wealth of meaning. For Ram, who was known for going all out for his loved ones, gratitude or appreciation was something he'd hardly ever received – and Priya recognizing even the smallest of his gestures every time was the kind of attention Ram had never thought he needed. These very elements would become the defining foundations of their relationship.The stepping stones that would eventually lead them to love... and of this, Vrinda was certain.

EDIT - Guys, goes without saying - looking forward to hearing your thoughts! So, do comment! 😃