I promised quick service, so here is Chapter 2! Its dialogue heavy (english) because I wanted to give her father a voice and role -in the show, I think the CVs have forgotten that Khushi isn't actually an orphan, that she has a family, who would not stand by and watch her disintegrate like this. I know this is how my dad would react if I came home the way she did-he would remind me that love isn't enough. Respect and dignity are also needed to be happy. So, here it is, an answer to several of your questions-please comment!
CHAPTER 2
So this was the end. This was what hopelessness truly felt like, Khushi thought vaguely as she felt herself first crack slowly, from her scalp to her toes, and then shatter into shards all over the floor. Internally, something had broken apart, come off of its hinges. She could actually feel it plummeting, as if her stomach was one giant pit, a gaping hole waiting to swallow her last shreds of faith. As if her heart, or soul, or something essential, something that had feebly beat, keeping hope alive now just...fell off the edge, into that yawning darkness.
Dimly, she realized she had sunk to her knees, and was breathing heavily, her head hanging down, her hands grabbing at her chest and throat as she battled an overwhelming sense of loss. Buaji's screams from the kitchen, her mother grabbing her, both of them half carrying, half dragging her to her bedroom. Whispered consultations-her father's concerned voice, the anxiety in her parents' eyes as they rubbed her hands and poured water down her throat, stroked her back.
All this she saw, as if it was happening to someone else. And one thought emerged. She would have to go back. Back to Delhi, back to him. She would have to know the truth from him. And if he was marrying someone, she would have to set him free. And, perhaps, herself as well. She would go to Delhi. Tonight.
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"Khushi, you need to know something...something that had to be done, betiya... please believe us'" Never had Garima's voice been quite so'guilty? So..weak? Khushi stopped packing, and turned, surprised, to face her mother. "Khushi, we didn't want to tell you this...'" Garima faltered, as Bua-ji entered, and interjected in her loud voice--"And we still don't need to tell her anything! She doesn't need to go to Delhi, it is not her concern whether his new marriage is valid or not! Why should she care about signing divorce papers or doing anything for him? Not after what those Raizadas did to our girl! Hai Re Nandkishore, not after everything...!"
"Enough! I have decided, the time is right for her to know. She can decide for herself now that fate has stepped in and she has to go face that man. I took that first decision, so Garima, Madhumati--leave the room. I will speak to my daughter. Go!" Shashi Gupta's voice washed over them as he walked in, holding a large bag. Clearly relieved, Garima and Bua-ji bolted, leaving Khushi alone with her father.
Shashi Gupta sat down slowly on the bed. He had physically come a long way. Being away from Delhi had helped him recover faster, as he returned to his own community, away from the problems that had plagued them there. Leaving Delhi had been the best choice at the time, when Khushi had needed to heal, when they had to leave Lakshmi-nagar to avoid the gossip, the innuendos.
Even Payal had begged them to go, to give her a chance to smooth things with her in-laws and her husband. She was suffering as well, her marriage facing trouble because of all this. Shashi Gupta had had to consider the well-being of both his daughters, one devastated, one desperate. Of course there was a lot of talk here too, but this was home, and their own neighborhood after all. Khushi had returned to her innocent memories here, without the shadow of that man to pull at her mind and heart at every second.
Her look of stunned, uncomprehending, pain had vanished once she had come back home. They had all worked very hard to give her another chance, if not at happiness, then at least at peace. But as he saw his daughter plaster another smile on her face, and turn to face him, he wondered if he had been playing the same role that Khushi had clearly been playing for five months. If, as a father, he had simply needed to believe that his daughter was recovering, and if, as a daughter, Khushi had pretended to be alright, to help him believe. And...Shashi Gupta sighed and asked himself---and whether his eyesight was failing--if Khushi's smile had been exactly this fake for the past five months and he had simply not seen it.
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First came a sheaf of papers. There were legal papers cancelling the original "contract marriage", new marriage papers that promised she would be Arnav Singh Raizada's wife with all possible legal and social rights if she would only sign them. There were deeds to apartments, bonds, a portfolio of shares in her name in AR Industries, dividend documents in companies that Arnav Singh Raizada had built into profitable businesses.
Bank statements of accounts opened in Khushi Singh Raizada's name, with the amounts shown-- huge figures, entered monthly, sums she had never even seen, much less thought of owning. There were cards, framed photographs of her and her family, and boxes of gifts-jewellery, perfume, bangles, saris, clothes. There were boxes that had contained jalebies, empty now, but bearing the seal of Delhi's top sweet store. Dried flowers littered her bed, dead tokens from a desperate man.
And finally, there were the letters. Over 20 unopened letters, the earliest dated ones printed and typed out, the later ones handwritten , their horrible handwriting showing, without question, who all of this was from.
All of this, without comment, was produced by Shashi Gupta from a bag at his feet, and placed, gently, on Khushi's bed. Proof that her husband had been trying, for months, through every means the post office and courier service could devise, to woo his wife. All in vain, because Khushi had never known about any of this.
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Khushi looked at her father. Tears, ones she had not allowed to escape from her eyes even in the shadows of the night, now rained down her face. "Why Bauji? Why would you not tell me? Why did you keep this from me, Bauji?" The question was soft, real curiosity was behind her words. Because this decision had been her Bauji's, a man who had always understood her, had always made the right choice for her. He was her lodestar, his purity was her compass, and she waited to know why he had chosen to hide this. Her Bauji had hidden as much from Khushi as she had hidden from him, it seemed. Now, finally, the dam of secrets broke, as father and daughter bared their souls to each other.
"Because I refused to be helpless this time, to watch impotently while my daughter's life and happiness was at stake! I couldn't trust that man, Khushi! What father could? He never asked for you, not even from you! He just took, and took, until he decided to throw you away with no reason other than his own blind hate! The last time you gave yourself to him, bitiya, he almost broke your spirit, almost took your life. You think I don't know how close I came to losing my daughter forever in Delhi, Khushi? How his cruelty and his callousness had driven you to almost killing yourself out of pain, pain he inflicted on my innocent child?
How could I bring you home, and then, in a month, when these things started arriving in the mail, how could I return you to the man was had driven you to such despair? I did what I thought was best for you, Khushi. I couldn't let him keep acting like God-- now picking you up, now throwing you away!
I am your father, Khushi, and as much as you might want to dash yourself against the wall again and again out of love, what kind of father would I be to let you hurt yourself like that? Over a man who truly did nothing to deserve his first chance with you, much less this second chance?
He called when the first packets came, every day, at all hours of the day and night. I told him, finally, that I would not let him speak to you, and I would not let him come and see you. That he had damaged you so much, hearing from him or seeing him might be the final straw for you. That I forbade him any access to my daughter. It was my daughter who he had tortured, kept out in the cold like an animal, who he had hurt in every way, who his family had rejected. Who he had almost driven to suicide.
He ranted and raved, Khushi, like a madman. But I made him remember that you had a family as well, that privilege was not just reserved for him. You also had people who loved you, who got hurt when you got hurt, who had the right to protect you. You came from a poor family while he was from a rich one, but the love from both your families was the same. You were not helpless, you were not a stray found on the roadside for him to abuse-- you had me, Amma, Bua-ji.
He stopped calling after that conversation. He knew he could not come. But the letters and all these papers and things kept coming. I hid them. I didn't want old memories to haunt you, Khushi.
And you seemed to be doing fine here! Every day, for months, your Amma-ji and Bua-ji and I would examine your face for any signs that you felt pain. You had been forced to marry him, you told us how he and his family treated you. We rejoiced when it seemed like you were recovering.
Every night we would stand outside your door, listening for your tears. Not once, betiya-in five months, not once, until this news, did you seem to be anything but fully recovered-our old carefree Khushi was with us once again...But today, after that gossip-news-today, I know what a nautanki my little girl has become-hiding her broken heart and acting happy in front of her Bauji...hiding.."
Shashi Gupta broke down, as Khushi threw herself into his arms, mingling her own tears with her father's. Her father who thought he had failed her once, though no fault of his own and had tried, so hard, to not fail her again. Who could have avoided these months of scandal and gossip by simply letting her return to Delhi, who had gone against his traditional beliefs and soft nature and stood up to her formidable husband. For her.
Who had considered her happiness and self respect more important than her marriage or his society, and had stood up for her dignity even though she had never done so for herself. Who had chosen to suffer in silence because he believed returning her to the Raizadas was going to break her. She cried for the conservative, simple halwaii, who would choose to tolerate anything, even taunts and accusations, even anger from Arnav Singh Raizada, so she, his beloved daughter, could have another chance at life.
Khushi could finally cry, and she did, sobbing, after five long months, for her pain, for her Bauji, for the other man in her life. For Arnav, whom she had thought she had lost forever, but who, it turned out, had been just as lost, just as desperate for her as she had been for him. For the man who had tried all these months to reach her, even as she had waited, silently, to be reached by him.
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