Part-2
Hello dear lovelies!! Thank you so much for your encouragement and bowing my head to your demands of continuation, I have decided to convert this into a TS. Here's the second part to the story. Enjoy and please dont forget to tell me your views. And those who have asked for pm, kindly send me a buddy request. Now enjoy!!
Arnav Singh Raizada had never ever imagined a day when he would feel like this. Like not being in control. Like wanting to scratch and thrash himself till he would be bruised to an extent that he got permanently disfigured for life and no one could recognize him, not even his own di. He wanted to do anything, anything which could bring him some relief from this confusion. And this pain, his mind suggested.
Yet the one who could put some salve on his wounds was unaware of all this, sitting and laughing amongst his family, as if there was nothing wrong in this world. As if she was the happiest person alive. Like she couldn't have asked for a better husband.
Yeah right. She should have left long ago. If only she would.
But no dear sir, she would remain there only. She would laugh and make others laugh. She would sit with nani and would demand that she tell her the tales of her jawani. He had once noticed, Khushi was actually teasing nani, going by the faint reddishness on nani's cheeks betraying her poker face expressions and the words like "nanaji", "deewane ", "jaadoo". On one occasion he found nani actually looking into designs of his company, AR Fashions, in a fashion magazine, muttering something about "besharam models" and "fate hue kapde", he had almost had a heart attack. His nani who would refuse to even look at the booklet of his clothes line was actually trying to find some good "new fashion" saari for her grand-daughter in law. They had a bet, he was told, that khushi would find some exquisite chikankari sari for nani, and nani would find some modern design sari for khushi. Whoever won was to be given a chaat-treat by the other.
What has Raizada household come to be?he had thought. If only he had realized the effort khushi had done had made his nani take an interest in his work, after 5 years of refusal to know about his work after that disasterous incident five years back, when she had caught him with his hand on a model's waist and hers in his hair .. He had tried to cover up with an guilty excuse of "part of the work" "was arranging her clothes for better photos" , which had speedily turned into angry tirade of "you don't know anything about fashion" "please keep your narrow mindedness to yourself". His nani had refused to talk to him for months and even after that, she would never ever mention his work. Surprisingly, he had found nani looking at a piece of his ethnic collection with a certain twinkle in her eyes.
He hadn't known that the design was a subconscious memory of a saari nani hadn't worn since many years. The one which had been gifted by his nana to her on Arnav's mother's wedding and which she had proudly flaunted in front of her young grandchild on his fifth birthday.
Later he had seen that saari in khushi's side of wardrobe, and khushi had treated the whole family with golgappas that evening, with payal and anjali extracting promises that nani would choose something for them too.
He also noticed that his divorced di, who had lost all interest in life, sparing her daughter Kavya and himself, was taking keen interest in teaching knitting and crochet to Khushi. Every day after dinner he would find khushi going into di's room taking some long and thin rod like things with herself. He had been horrified at the first day, had actually ran to di's room to find her giggling and trying to make khushi handle those rod-like things. "salayian", his di had called those things. He had mumbled something about "curious", he had never paid attention that the things machines produce in his factory was to be made by these rods when handmade.
If only he had noticed how khushi had made di take an interest in her creativity again. How di had produced several elegant and graceful designs in next few days. His di, who had helped him in his first few assignments with her handmade crochet laces , shrugs, accessories etc., had taken her steps back when she saw the finery produced by new machines in his factory. Her chhote didn't need her anymore, her skills were of no more use to him. Ofcourse she hadn't let him know, only telling him that she trusted him to be able to do everything on his own now.
Khushi's charm had not spared even his shrilly, over-reacting and sarcastic mami. Ofcourse she refused to call her anything but "phati saari", but the scathing tone had disappeared sometime in the middle. And ofcourse she would snort and turn her back on khushi with a "hello hi bye bye" and tell her to not disturb her during her "beauty nap" after lunch. But he had been more shocked than amused on the day he had seen his mami shredding sheetal into pieces, ofcrs verbally, the very same sheetal whom she had wanted to marry atleast one of the eligible bachelors in the house, him and akash. Apparently sheetal had made some cutting remark on the elder Raizada bahu's style-statement, so mami had proceeded on telling everyone in the group that how some bitchyayi ladkian used to daalo dore on her sons, wearing chhote-chhote skirts and taang-dikhao gowns, not giving a thought to their and their parents izzat. Then she had continued with telling that lakhnawi tehzeeb makes girls attractive and graceful, so much that even being dhaki-chhupi in a burkah, they could make men fall in love with them , using the charm of their eyes only. Ofcourse she hadn't failed to mention that she was the jeeti-jaagti saboot of lakhnwai beauty.
If only he hadn't failed to think about the fact that his shrewd mami wouldn't have taken khushi under her wings if she hadn't been very sure about her innocent and polite nature, her warmth and most importantly, if she hadn't been sure that khushi was indeed the key to happiness, for his family and for him.
Arnav had been a silent spectator when Khushi had taken the place of a sister in Akash's life . Mamaji had found a daughter in her, the one which he never had. He would tell her about the pranks he had played in his childhood, about his love and marriage with his manu, about his initial days as a businessman. The kind of people he had met, vague incidences, some funny , some scary, some normal. He had never known that his silent mamaji had such a vast knowledge with himself about people, their mindset and their ways. Ofcourse it came with years and years of experience.
Mamaji could easily be the head of his HR team, Arnav had mused. Why hadn't he noticed the experience behind his calm nature before that?? "Because you were too busy telling everyone that you need only young and energetic people in your team, who can keep up with you" his mind sneered.
He had been totally unaware of all this for the first month of marriage. Not that he was at home to pay attention. He had a business to run, for heaven's sake. The Korean clients won't wait for him to make a deal just because he got married yesterday, they would find someone else the very moment, he had told his di who was insisting that he take his wife of 24 hours to her mayka for some "phere". What new phere were these, he had wanted to ask his di, weren't the seven they took yesterday enough?? But then thought better than that and left for his meeting . One thing led to another and then he had left for an overseas meeting after two days of his marriage, putting his foot down when again nani insisted to take khushi with him. He was going for a business meeting, not honeymoon, he had told them with exasperation. And when he had returned after a month, he had begun to notice these changes, these small little insignificant changes, which hadn't bothered him till the time he had been wise enough to notice that he wasn't in the picture. In the little life she had created for herself in shantivan, he wasn't in any frame.
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