Bigg Boss 19: Daily Discussion Thread - 3rd Sep '25
Yeh Rishta Kya Kehlata Hai - 03 Sep 2025 EDT
LIFE IN JAIL 3.9
Yeh Rishta Kya Kehlata Hai - 04 Sep 2025 EDT
MAIRAs REJECTION 4.9
Finally a beauty queen who is star material!!
Gen 5 - Posted on Saas Bahu Official Page
New Entry : Manit Joura
Abhira & Geetanjali
A Missed Opportunity
Deepika LVMH jury member
Faridoon Giving Advice to Salman
War 2 Set To Finish As The Lowest YRF Spy Grosser Domestically
Shilpa Shetty's Bandra Restaurant Shuts Down
Akshara’s karma
Mihir - The d*uchebag
Baaghi 4 - Reviews And Box Office
Did Trump Just Remove ALL SANCTIONS on India ? (Doubtful news)
Part IX
"Jai Uncle!" Simran burst through the front door, pulling Varun by the hand along with her, Simran's rosy cheeked and breathless with giggles. "We need you to come and help us slide into the pool."
Pulling her hand free to push her hair behind her shoulders. Bouncing on the balls of her feet, Simran left a puddle of water in her wake.
"Simran," Purva deftly sidestepped Jai to reach her daughter's side. "You're making a mess."
"I gotta go to the baffroom, Mama."
Smiling as Purva steered a waddling Simran in the right direction, Jai returned his attention back to Varun when he heard his pointedly clear her throat and whine his name. "You want me to help slide down the slide into the pool?"
"Uh huh," Varun nodded.
"Do you promise to not come back in here in these wet clothes again and make a mess?" Jai asked him.
"Yes Jai Uncle," Varun threw his arms up in exasperation then settled them on his small hips and struck a pose reminiscent of his mother.
"Okay," Jai relented with a grin. "Go back outside. I'll be right out. Hey, Varun?" he called when Varun paused in front of the fireplace to snatch a protesting Dixie into his arms. "Have you seen Atharva? Is he outside in the pool?"
"Nope," Varun answered him with a shrug of his thin shoulders, dark curls bouncing behind him as he marched back outside. "Don't forget, Jai Uncle."
"I won't," Jai promised, letting the curtains fall back into place as he turned to leave in search of his young son. "Mausi," he pushed the door to the kitchen open, "have you seen…Mausi? What is she doing here?"
Lifting her chin proudly and standing tall, Sudha Sablok commanded his attention. "I'm here to keep you from making a terrible mistake."
Jai looked to his mausi, but she refused to meet his eyes, staring instead at an undefined point somewhere over Sudha's shoulder. Looking back to Sudha, he waited for her to continue, and after a brief pause, she did.
"Bani wouldn't listen. My only hope is that you will."
-----------------
"This seat taken?"
Attempting to hide her embarrassment with an overly bright smile, Bani hastily wiped at her eyes and stood up to accept the bear hug Pushkar pulled her into. "Pushkar, what are you doing here?"
"Forget that," Pushkar held her at arms length, searching her watery eyes. "The question is, what are *you* doing here? I ran into your niece at the luggage check-in. It looked like she had everything she owned and then some packed up and ready to go. Like she's leaving Mumbai forever," he laughed. His laughter faded at the serious, somber expression she wore.
Bani bit her lip, busying her fingers with the soft leather of Pushkar's collar then moving on to the woolen fringe of the scarf around his neck. "We're going to catch the flight to…" her voice wavered slightly before she carried on, shying away from his worried brown eyes. "She was really sweet, Pushkar. She offered to help me find a place to start over and to get me settled in, and I needed the friendly face so far from ho—so far away from Mumbai."
Pushkar followed her to the cushioned chairs below, running a disbelieving hand through his hair as he cut her a glance from the corner of his eyes. "So this is it? You're really leaving this time?"
"I am," Bani whispered softly, leaning companionably against his solid form and taking comfort in the arm he tossed about her shoulders. "Atharva and Jai," she paused, taking a long, shuddery breath, "they deserve so much better than me, Pushkar."
"Are you kidding, Beautiful?" Pushkar murmured against her temple as he held her close and let her cry on his shoulder. "You're the best damn thing that's ever happened to them."
-------------------
"Do you know why Bani didn't call off the wedding, Jai?"
They were outside, the children's cheerful laughter swirling around them with the water splashing all over around the pool.
Jai buried his hands in his pockets, hunching his shoulders. "It doesn't matter," he shrugged. "She still chose him, no matter what her reasons."
The bitterness of his misunderstanding made Sudha's heart ache, and she silently asked her daughter's forgiveness for what she found it necessary to reveal to him. "You're wrong, Jai. She didn't choose Tarun. She chose your happiness."
"Tarun wasn't her happiness, I was!" Jai whirled on her, daring her to pretend otherwise.
"Not Tarun, Jai," Sudha didn't back down. "You and Pia—Your happiness." When he said nothing in response, she pressed on. "She was so worried of failing you like she'd failed Atharva and Krishna…"
Jai cut in, his words insistent and at direct odds with the claims he himself had made in the past, "She didn't fail Atharva and Krishna, at least not on her own. I'm just as responsible, just as much to blame."
If Sudha was surprised, she hid it well, clasping her hands together and holding them in front of her. "She chose the your happiness, Jai, and a life with Tarun and even though her heart wanted something different. Even though," she held Jais' gaze with hers, "her heart wanted you and the son you'd brought into this world. She felt it was the only choice she could make."
The echoes of Simran's and Varun's happy squeals welcoming Aditya, Nachiket, and Ranveer back drifted to them on the wind, and the conversation stuttered to a brief stop before Jai picked it back up with an emotion-laden response.
"It wasn't her only choice."
Stepping in close to him and looking deeply into his glittering dark eyes, Sudha softly implored him to see things through her daughter's eyes, to understand. "She couldn't burden you with the irrevocable evidence of her weakness."
"It was a Pia's baby," Jais' jaw tightened.
"Your baby. She would have…" she broke off, closing her eyes tightly before continuing in a low, whisper that rang of truth, "She would have loved that baby just because it was yours."
"Even while she wished it was ours ?" Jai smiled sadly.
Sudha shook her head, putting some distance back between them and turning her back on him. "You can't fault her for wishing Pia had never happened." The comment hung heavily in the air between, the realization that, indirectly, she'd just wished an innocent child's existence away shaking Jai to his very core and making his throat grow tight with regret for the way he'd let his own hurt feelings blind him to Bani's pain. He held on to the hand Sudha offered him, shivering at her cool kiss to his cheek.
"Why couldn't she say this to me? Why did she still marry him?"
"She didn't" Sudha finally revealed.
"What nonsense are you talking now? We all know she married him."
"No Jai, that's what you think and that's exactly what she wants you to think. Tarun and Bani never married. Yes, she'd gone with him, but not to marry him but to get away from you and her sister. To let you and Pia have the happiness that she didn't get."
"I don't understand…how could she not…"
"Tarun is happily married Jai, to the one he always loved, Arpita and not Bani. He's happily married and living in Canada."
Not knowing how to react to the sudden revelation, Jai stood there like a zombie. Can this be true? Did his Bani really not marry Tarun? If so then why didn't she say anything? Why had she hid such a big truth from him?
"Why didn't she ever say that? When I questioned her, hurt her each time, why didn't she scream out and say that she wasn't married to him?"
"Because she didn't want to come between you and Pia. She has always been the one to sacrifice for others' happiness. Even when it meant giving up her family. She isn't the person you've made her out to be, Jai. She loves you just as much if not more today than she did the day she found out you'd gone back to Pia. Can you fault her for thinking you wanted Pia and not her? That too, when she was pregnant with your children? Till this day, she blames herself for Krishna's death."
"I…I don't know what to say. I've hurt her so much. I've questioned her character. How could I've done that? How could I let so much time pass by us without ever knowing the truth?"
"That doesn't matter anymore Jai. There's still time," she whispered, opening his palm and placing a piece of paper into his hand. "Don't waste it."
The soft clink of her shoes in the ground gradually faded away, replaced by the forlorn little voice he'd sought to hear the entire day.
"Papa? What's that in your hand?" Atharva's eyes were big and round and expectant. "Papa?" Atharva repeated worriedly when still his father didn't answer.
"Give this to your dadi," Jai tucked the paper into Atharva's red mittens and pressed a kiss to the little boy's furrowed brow.
"Mamaji, can you give us a hand? Mamaji?" Anu jumped out of her mamaji's way as he swept past her, Rano, and Raashi and their mountains of shopping bags, digging the keys to his car out of his pants pocket without a backwards glance to them. "Mamaji!" Turning to Atharva, Anu wondered aloud what was behind her mamaji's strange behavior while Raashi carefully took the piece of paper from Atharva's hands. "Atharva? What was that all about? Where's your Papa going in such a hurry? Raashi, please, what does the paper say?"
Raashi frowned, trying to make sense of the numbers she read. "It looks like…"
"Let me see that," Rano snatched the paper from her hands. "It's a flight number."
"Why would jiju be going to the airport?" The scowl directed at Rano froze on Raashi's face, to be quickly replaced with an expression much like the one of dawning comprehension on Anu's own.
"Bani mami."
--------------------
Bani whirled around at the gentle, hesitant touch of a hand on her arm.
Meerab's eyes were soft with kindness. Over her shoulder, Pushkar's brown eyes mirrored her expression. "It's time to go."
Stepping around Meerab, Pushkar held out his arm and nodded to the carry-on Bani shouldered. "I'll take that. It's the least I can do since you ladies so graciously invited me along on your trip."
Through the red haze of her sadness, a tiny smile tugged at the corners of Bani's mouth at Meerab's disbelieving eye roll; Pushkar had all but invited himself. "Thanks, Pushkar," she murmured, letting him take the bag.
"For you, Beautiful?" Pushkar lifted Bani's chin with his fingers, offering her an encouraging smile. "Anything." Pressing a kiss to her hair when she surprised him with a hug, he met Meerab's wide gaze over her shoulder and raised his brows. Pushkar let the bag slide from his arm and wrapped his arms tight around Bani. "You think I'm kidding?" he squeezed her shoulder in emphasis. "Use me. Abuse me. I'll like it," he winked, causing her to laugh and Meerab to roll her eyes again as she handed the bag back to him with a barely perceptible nod.
"Just remember," Meerab warned, threading her arms through Bani's arm and gently pulling her from Pushkar's embrace toward the gate, "you asked for it. Right, Bani Aunty?"
"Right." The light of gratitude shone in Bani's tearful eyes as Pushkar hurried to fall into step beside them, and Meerab filled her ears with excited chatter about cute little purses and to-die-for shoes. When she would have looked back, Pushkar's firm hand at the small of her back gave her strength even as her feet betrayed her and refused to move forward.
"What's that saying?" His brown eyes were still kind but filled with an iron will that brooked no argument. "How does it go again? If you love someone…"
With a determined step forward, Bani finished for him, her voice but a faint whisper.
"Set them free."
To be continued…
Kumkum Bhagya
Anupamaa
