I'm in a meeting when my phone rings.
I'm a Barbie Girl
In a Barbie Wo-o-orld
Life in plastic
It's fantastic
You can brush my hair
Undress me-
"How many times have I told you not to change my bloody ringtone?"
She greets my bellowing with a laugh and I can feel my heart melting. I look up at everyone staring at me and turn the impending smile on my face to a warning frown, daring one of them to give me a knowing smirk or make a cheeky comment about how whipped I am.
I am whipped. Of course I am. I'm happy to be so. But it's embarrassing just how one woman has managed to wrap me around her little finger. I might as well be tattooed on there.
I notice Mishra give me a knowing smirk and realise that my lips have curved into the smile I was trying to hold back. He opens his mouth to make a cheeky comment about how whipped I am, but I throw a pen at his head before he can do so.
"Did you call to tell me something important?"
"Of course, why else would I call you in the middle of the day, Billu Ji?"
"It's you. You could literally be calling to tell me you've renamed your chappals."
A splutter of laughter from Mishra. I scowl at him again and he pretends to be clearing his throat.
"Ahhh Chameli," a fond sigh of remembrance in my ear, "gone but never forgotten."
"So?"
"So what?"
"So why did you call?"
"Ah right. Yes. To tell you something very important."
"What's that?"
"You know your Kanjhi Akhein?"
"I'm rolling them as we speak."
"They're beautiful." Giggling profusely, she hangs up the phone.
I stare at the phone in my hand, bemused. I know without a doubt that I married a crazy woman, but with a gun to my head I would not be able to summon a single regret for having done so.
Surrendering to the urge, I smile openly as I turn my phone off.
Everyone is staring...
Let them stare.
"""""""
I find it difficult to believe sometimes, just how happy I am. It's a warmth that threatens to erupt from me in the form of spontaneous laughter. And I know it's because of Anika.
Khoon. Khandaan. Once upon a time it all seemed so important, but as I see the unbridled joy Anika has brought to those who share my khoon, those who make up my khandaan... I thank the Lord I wasn't sure I even believed in that I chose her. I, Shivaay Singh Oberoi, the Man of Ice whose brain always always won decided to let my heart decide.
And it picked the one woman for whom my heart sings.
I can hear her laughter even before I open the front door. It's tied in with someone else's. My mother?
I remember the sarcastic comments, the sniffles and the affronted looks my mother used to give Anika for the first few weeks after we married. I told Anika I'd deal with it, but she had placed a hand firmly on my arm and told me not to worry, she'd sort it out herself.
I don't know what she did or said, all I know is that one day I came home to find the two of them in my room in each others' arms, crying. Mum had, rather cryptically, said "I'll be your mother." to Anika as she had left the room, then come back in and pulled my ear, muttering something that sounded like "Idiot son, not explaining anything." Since then, the two of them have been as thick as thieves.
Though honestly, who isn't Anika thick as thieves with? On Bade Ma and Bade Papa's Anniversary, she even managed to teach the entire dance to 'Badtameez Dil' to Bade Papa and get him to perform it in front of Bade Ma. Rudra, Omkara and Priyanka had almost fainted seeing their father's outrageous dance skills as well as the unabashed flirtation with their mother.
Rudra and Omkara. If anyone's opinion mattered to me, it was their's. To see the way Rudra clearly adores his 'Bade Bhabhi' and the deep respect Omkara has for her, to hear Anika talk about them as though they are as dear to her as Sahil, it makes me so happy I could scream.
I had, of course, felt like the scum of the earth when I realised what I had said to Anika's own personal OmRu- Sahil, but when I tried to choke out an apology to him he had simply responded with a sickly sweet smile and a "If you hurt my sister, I'll be sure to let you borrow my spare crutch."
That confused me for a moment, until I realised I had just been threatened by a child. I nodded gravely in his direction and reached out to shake his hand, a bond between men who would give their lives to protect the same woman.
"""""""""
I am and have always been a very physical man, and touching Anika has always felt... necessary. Even when I was trying to avoid her, avoid my feelings- how often did we find ourselves holding hands or in each others' arms? What about that night we even slept in each others' arms? I hadn't been shocked or upset to find her there the next morning, in fact, my primary concern had been to not wake her too suddenly.
It had just felt right.
That physical connection only intensified after I surrendered to my feelings for Anika. Both of us caring very little for ritual and ceremony, we had let it get physical very quickly. Making love to Anika had felt like... maybe I won't share that. Even if I wanted to, I can't find the words.
But after the first time, I had wanted to laugh and cry and scream and sing all at the same time.
As we took the 7 pheres on our wedding day, as I swore to anyone listening that that was just a placeholder and that this woman would be mine for as many lifetimes as we were given, whether that be 7 or 7 million, I had let that emotion take control.
I cried.
Anika's eyes had filled with tears of their own and we had clutched each other and whispered "Don't cry." to each other as our entire family watched. Because my family had long since accepted Anika as one of their own.
The wedding just made her mine.
Anika Singh Oberoi is everything an Oberoi Bride should be: she is intelligent and beautiful and strong and knows how to manoeuvre the world of the Upper Class in a way my own mother has been unable to and in a way that impresses even Jhanvi Chachi.
Anika Singh Oberoi is everything an Oberoi Bride should not be: she is crass and she talks too much (most of it ridiculous) and she wears her love for her husband like an obnoxious suit. Her love and her kindness and her pure and open heart dazzles everyone in her path in a way that no socialite born into the icy world of the brides I had previously considered 'appropriate' choices could ever hope to emulate. If that trusting and genuine nature ever leaves her exposed to the silver-handled daggers of this society, not only would I rip the perpetrator apart with my bare teeth if necessary, everyone from Rudra to Dadi would step in and pull a 'Murder on the Orient Express' right along with me.
I never would have thought it possible for one person to change the lives of so many.
Anika Singh Oberoi is my life.
Anika Singh Oberoi is my world.
Anika Singh Oberoi is everything I wanted and nothing I have ever done to deserve.
Sometimes I wonder what my life would be like if I had let her go, but even imagining it makes my stomach churn and the gorge rise in my throat.
As if I would have ever been that stupid.
As if anything could have convinced me to let the love of my life walk away and take my heart and my love and my happiness with her.
As if...
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A little extra misery for those of you who are already struggling to deal with how miserable Shivaay is in the story. 😆 I promise this chapter isn't here just to torture you, it has a bigger role to play. All will be revealed
Thank you all again for reading and Liking and Commenting. It is the kick in the teeth required to make me write.
