Remember before the AbhiGya marriage came about through Aaliya's plans, we had Pragya all heartbroken about Suresh? I would always think "Don't worry girl! you have bigger and better things ahead! A rockstar is going to love you!" and imagine a beautiful lovestory with a hot hero for her future. At the time all we knew was Abhi was kind of goofy but fundamentally decent, we didn't have any reason to guess how the torture dynamic would develop because of the misunderstanding underneath it.
So this takes off from that time!
Please note, this fic borrows bits and pieces from earlier AbhiGya fics by book.worm, -Tia-, Ishaa, veeleo, and probably others that I am forgetting...I felt like I was plagiarising but I couldn't remember what I was plagiarising from. So I hope my fellow authors will take it as flattery? 😳
The One by the Backstreet Boys
I guess you were lost when I met you
Still there were tears in your eyes
So out of trust and I knew
No more than mysteries and lies
Abhi had encountered Pragya several times as that annoying girl telling truths to his fans and catching his cousin's lies. He thinks there's something spunky and interesting about her but she's getting to be a thorn in his life. Then by some chance they are stuck in a cab together one rainy night, and during their ride, between arguing with the auto walla and sniping at each other, somehow they share a bit of their life stories.
And Abhi finds out that Pragya just had to break her engagement to her best friend because it turns out the stupid guy actually loves her sister. And she's pretending to be strong and unaffected but he knows what heartbreak looks like and he feels bad, because she's a good person and doesn't deserve to sound so resigned to a loveless life.
There you are, wild and free
Reachin' out like you needed me
A helping hand to make it right
I am holding you all through the night
Over the next week their random hit and misses continue, and you have to wonder how in a city as big as Mumbai, two such different people keep meeting by chance. One day Pragya is going for a walk in between her morning and afternoon lectures, and then there's Abhi in his shades and a sweatsuit, taking a jog along the beach. He's all "Hey chashmish, what're you doing here!" and she's all "What kind of rockstar are you, taking exercise without a bodyguard?" and then they just chat and have lunch from a street stall together and at the end of it Pragya just somehow feels better about life even though she never expects to see that ridiculous rockstar again, and she goes back to the college and has a pleasant afternoon and actually manages to nod neutrally at Suresh when passing him in the hall.
Meanwhile Abhi can't stop thinking about her and it's really bizarre, why is he so curious about this random girl? She's a boring professor from a proper middle class family and she's not even that pretty but he wants to meet her again, spend more time with her, because the only times in his day when he doesn't feel hounded by celebrity are when he's with his daadi, when he's on his anonymous runs, and now...when he's with her. So he hopes he'll see her again and he takes the same route for his run for two weeks expecting her to waltz by in one of her pastel coloured anarkalis and long swishy hair and no he is not developing an obsession and it's no big deal when she's nowhere to be seen for two weeks and he's so over it and he gives up running for a few days but that's only because life gets busy, nothing to do with her.
I'll be the one (I'll be the one)
Who will make all your sorrows undone
One day he goes with Daadi to the market and Daadi insists on introducing him to this very nice girl who has helped her a few times and he turns around and it's her, Pragya, the chashmish masterni. And internally he's surprised and excited and wants to ask her where the hell she's been on her lunch breaks, but because he's a big time Rockstar and not at all obsessed with random girls who matter-of-factly tell sob stories in taxis, he just plays it cool and acts like a very polite grandson and lets Daadi gush over what an acchi ladki this Pragya is. And he's impressed that she interacts so naturally and comfortably with his Daadi, there's no awkwardness or over-formality and it only makes him more intrigued because how awesome would it be if these two people, his only peaceful havens in a hectic life, were somehow connected to each other? And he doesn't think ahead to which exact rishta could easily make them connected to each other because he's Abhi, he simply doesn't think ahead unless Purab pushes him to.
I'll be the light (I'll be the light)
When you feel like there's nowhere to run
Daadi is bugging him about looking at girls' biodatas and pictures and he is so not interested, marriage is for losers who are over-dedicated to tradition, but of course he can't say that to Daadi. He thinks maybe it's time to introduce Tanu properly to Daadi, to come clean about their relationship. Tanu's been out of town for four months and they haven't had a proper conversation in even longer than that, but when she comes back he'll have to explain that they can't hide anymore. And when Daadi understands that he's serious about Tanu and happy with her, all this marriage talk will fade away and things will be peaceful again.
He hasn't seen that professor girl in a while, he's been busy, but Daadi mentioned sometimes they see each other in the market and she's such a dutiful daughter, doing the family's shopping and preparing for pujas and all sorts of whatnot. And he remembers how during their beach lunch, Pragya said that her mother is already trying to find another rishta for her, which means she's probably being hassled to look at pictures and biodatas too, and also that somewhere in Mumbai some other guy is being handed her photo and writeup in a pile with a bunch of other girls...and that makes him feel a little weird but he decides it's just because he can imagine what this random guy will think, "Oh boring plain chashmish, not interested, who is next?"
...Because professor girl's appeal doesn't come across in bare details on a page, you need to have her in front of you and hear her sarcastic voice mocking your weaknesses in a helpful way and you need to see her sweet innocent surprise about silly things and the way her smile lights up her face and just to feel how warm and genuine her presence is...and he doesn't ask himself why he's thinking these thoughts about a girl who is not his girlfriend, but he thinks that she's a nice new friend to have made and he wishes her the best but this arranged marriage nonsense never made anyone happy so hopefully her mom won't push her too hard...
I'll be the one
To hold you and make sure that you'll be alright
So Tanu breaks up with him via Skype because it turns out she met a hot Italian on her shoot in Milan and her contract is gonna have her abroad for awhile and "sorry Abhi I'm really not interested in making life decisions based on Daadi's happiness," so obviously it's time to just call it quits. And Abhi is annoyed and upset, how could she think some random Italian is hotter than him, but somehow he finds he's not going to miss her because in all the time she's been away he's barely ever thought about her. So maybe he's going to be ok. But now he doesn't have an excuse for Daadi so one day he has to sit down with the pictures and the matchmaking aunty trying to sell him on each and every girl.
He doesn't bother to listen to more than one or two sentences about each candidate and they've already reviewed and rejected 5 women and then the 6th picture is her, Pragya. And even in her matchmaking glam shot, she looks plain and normal and down to earth, she doesn't have a ton of makeup like most of the other girls and she is wearing an everyday anarkali rather than a heavy sari and she's not even smiling properly, you can see the nervous tension in her eyes like she's tired of doing this and she doesn't believe it will work but still she's letting the picture be taken because it's part of the process and she agreed.
And it makes him laugh a little to see her like that, so completely naturally herself, and he's so busy studying her smile and her eyes that he doesn't even realize that the matchmaker aunty has been telling Daadi Pragya's lifestory for almost 5 minutes, and isn't until both older women go silent and watch him staring at the picture that he snaps out of it and comes back to the moment. Then there's no denying that he's interested in her, and he can't find a way to tell Daadi and the matchmaker aunty that no, he is not going to marry her or anyone else, and it just seems easier to go along with the plan the elders make to have him and Pragya meet somewhere, and that's ok, no big deal, it'll be nice to see her again, they can eat some pani puri and laugh about their families...
'Cause my faith is gone
And I want to take you from darkness to light.
But when they meet up at the restaurant, she's not alone, and she's not herself. They've made her dress up so she looks like one of those fake girls in the matchmaking photos. And it's not that she looks bad, really, the new cut of suit she's wearing is quite flattering and shows him that she is very fit indeed, and the makeup softens her cheeks and accents her eyes, and her glasses are missing, so she looks even more like an elfin enchantress than usual (and Abhi has no idea where his brain picked up the idea of an elfin enchantress, he just chalks it down to watching a lot of strange movies on cross-continental flights) so really, if her family wanted to present her to a potential suitor as a tasty dish on a silver platter, they've done a good job. But Abhi thinks they didn't need to do that because Pragya as herself is much more interesting and appealing, and it's too bad that her family doesn't seem to understand that.
For the first half hour he can't even talk to her, because her sister and cousin are there, and they're his fangirls, and they're so busy peppering him with questions and requests that he has to wonder if anyone told them why he came there in the first place. Pragya just watches silently, sipping on water and nibbling on appetizers. She's smiling fondly at all of them, but Abhi notices that there is a certain tension in her shoulders, and in the way her hand never relaxes, and for some reason she's not meeting his eyes and he doesn't like it.
Finally the older girl, Bulbul, gets a call from her Daadi, and then she blushes at whatever her grandmother says. She clicks off her phone and grabs Purvi. She gives them some hurried excuse and finally leaves them alone, and Abhi realizes that her grandmother must have told her off for fangirling, and he is glad that someone in that family appears to have some sense.
He turns to Pragya to make a joke about them finally being free but he's caught off guard by the way she's staring at him. She's biting her lip and her eyes are full of sadness and he's really confused by what could have possibly happened to make her look so tragic. And a familiar instinct of fierce protectiveness wells up in him, but it's strange because he's never felt this way about anyone outside of his family and Purab. But somehow it's perfectly natural to hate whatever it is that's upsetting her without even knowing what it is, and all he wants then is to make her smile and laugh and maybe get mad at him so things will be back to normal and the universe will be at peace.
"Hello? Earth to Chashmish? What happened? And by the way, how can you have such a chatterbox for a sister? It's like you two aren't even related, you need to teach that girl some manners."
Pragya blinks and her expression clears and then she catches up with what he said and she frowns at him. "You're insulting my sister?"
"Not insulting. Just saying, she's like a little kid in a candy shop. I mean, I've met 12 year old fangirls who are more mature than her."
Pragya is confused and it's like she's in a different conversation than him, because her next question is "You didn't like her?" and she sounds so disbelieving that he has to wonder if maybe she didn't hear him compare her twenty-something sister to teenyboppers.
Abhi shrugs and tells her "She's ok, I guess. But I came here to talk to you."
Then some expression flies across Pragya's face, it's so quick that he can't tell what it is, but now she is much more relaxed and open and happy and he is very glad that she's back to normal because tense Pragya was making his heart hammer with worry and no he's not alarmed that he apparently has really strong feelings for this sort-of friend he's only met a handful of times...
You need me like I need you
We can share our dreams comin' true
They have a pleasant lunch that day but agree that the idea of them marrying each other is ridiculous, because they have nothing in common and their values and interests and goals are vastly different. They'll just tell their families that they didn't hit it off and that will be that, no problem. Abhi explains to Pragya how he doesn't really even believe in marriage anyway, and how most tradition frustrates him because it's mindless dogma. Pragya listens thoughtfully and offers a few counterarguments but she doesn't try to change his mind, she respects his opinion and he really likes that. They leave the restaurant as friends, and exchange numbers so they can stay in touch.
Over the next months Abhi finds himself developing a texting habit with Pragya. He'll send her little messages about the random frustrations of his day, and she'll reply back almost immediately, usually to make fun of him but sometimes just small messages of comfort or even a smiling emoji. Sometimes when she goes a few hours before responding he starts to feel restless, and then he curses his phone and is unpleasant to be around and Purab has to intervene between him and whoever he's supposed to working with so that he can take a break and come back refreshed.
At some point he starts to flick through the expanded menu of emojis, and his eyes catch on the ones of the heart, and the kissing lips, and the hug, and he wonders how she would react if he sent her a message with one of those. She'd probably think he was joking and send back an emoji of a bomb because it turns out her sense of humour is even sharper and more wicked by text. But the thing is maybe he wouldn't be joking, she's become so much of a friend that it feels right to think of hugging her and sending her a friendly heart...and as for the kissing lips, well, he's not sure what that means because he hasn't seen her in weeks and when he last saw her he didn't once think of kissing her but now sometimes he wishes he could hear her voice more and see her smile more and be near her more and yes, this has something to do with kissing but he's not going to be honest with himself about what he really wants because he can tell it would be messy and complicated and he doesn't need a headache like that, not when he's single again for the first time in years...
I can show you what true love means
Just take my hand, baby please...
One day he texts her about meeting up for lunch and she writes back that she can't because she has a date with some guy the matchmaking aunty found for her. His heart lurches into his throat and he has no idea why suddenly he feels clammy and distressed and he texts her back hoping she has fun and wishing her luck and the whole time he's thinking that what he really wants is for her to call him at the end of lunch and tell him that the new guy was a total loser and she's not impressed with the quality of guys this matchmaking aunty is finding and she is going to try to convince her mom to cool it off because it's getting to be too much.
He doesn't ask where she's going to be and he doesn't plan to track her down but somehow he finds himself walking past the restaurant where the elders had sent them and sure enough she's there, sitting near a window with some tall, skinny guy who is wearing a business suit and thick-framed glasses, and they're laughing together and Abhi doesn't like it because they actually look good together, like they belong together, like they're two of a kind. And Abhi has the bizarre thought that if she marries that guy it'll be a shame because then her sister and her cousin will have a boring regular jiju when what they really want is his rocking self, and he wouldn't mind having fangirls for saalis as long as he could make fun of them to their Di...
Then he waits outside the restaurant like a lovesick loafer. He doesn't watch the pair inside the restaurant, he just stands against a wall and scrolls through three months worth of texts between him and professor girl.
Pragya and her suitor finally leave the restaurant, and they part with a handshake, and something inside Abhi loosens and he breathes easier. Because fate is smiling on him that day, the business suit guy goes in the opposite direction and Pragya starts to walk past him. He reaches out to gently catch her arm and greets her with a grin and a loud, "Eeey, chashmish."
I'll be the one
I'll be the light
Where you can run
To make it alright
That day Abhi convinces her that they should start dating. She thinks that's the most ridiculous idea she's ever heard and anyway she doesn't believe in dating, but they talk and talk and without him having to exactly say it, Pragya comes to understand that Abhi isn't ready for marriage but he's somehow formed a strange attachment to her and it would disturb him very much if she kept trying to find a husband through that matchmaking aunty. And it shouldn't matter to her what this arrogant, immature, strangely clingy rockstar wants, she's only known him a few months and their friendship mostly consists of coincidental meetings and snarky texts and it would be foolish to keep putting off marriage when she's only getting older and more spinsterish by the minute...
But somehow it does matter to her and she does want to give it a chance. She wouldn't call it dating because she's not going to let him get romantic with her, but she's willing to spend more time with him, regularly, and convince her mother that they can pause on the matchmaking for a while, and they'll see what happens. She thinks maybe in a few months he'll lose interest or find another model to be his girlfriend, but in the meantime if he wants to spent time, attention, and money on her...well, she won't turn down the once-in-a-lifetime chance, and anyway it's generally refreshing to be around the big goof so it's not like the time together will be a hardship for her.
I'll be the one
I'll be the light
Where you can run
Abhi accepts her no-romance concept insofar as he doesn't try to kiss her or hold her or touch her in any way that might offend her mother or his daadi, but when it comes to the actual dates he goes all out on classic romance cliches. He takes her to a different fancy foreign restaurant each week, though instead of candlelit eyelocks they tend to share whatever random dish on the menu neither of them have tried yet, and usually they have a lot to critique about the flavours, the less-than-skilled preparations, and the quality of the ingredients, because sarcasm is what they do best together, and even Mumbai's top restaurants can't escape their scorching judgments.
They take walks along the beach, sometimes in the afternoon, sometimes in the evening. Generally they just talk about their days and joke about the things that make each other impatient, so it all feels quite ordinary and unromantic. They go to the movies a few times, but often they can't agree on what to see and it's hard to block out that much time between their commitments to their families and their jobs. Abhi eventually learns not to care what movie they see because in the dark of the theatre, Pragya is comfortable snuggling up to him, and he can have his arm around her shoulders, and it's one of the only ways that she's ok with him pushing the boundaries on touch.
One night he arranges a horse-drawn carriage ride for her, but that backfires because she feels bad for the horse and lectures him about animal cruelty. He holds his ears and apologizes like an errant schoolboy, and she laughs and forgives him but only after he promises to make a huge donation to the horse welfare fund or whatever group it is that's trying to get Victoria carriages banned in the city. He really doesn't care about that issue but Pragya does and so he adopts her opinion, because she's sensible about most things and anyway he can still have his own positions on the things that matter.
Sometimes this causes arguments because their values do clash in a few areas. Pragya very much believes in God and religion and rituals and Abhi really doesn't, though they're learning to compromise by respecting each other's beliefs while also sharing and supporting each other's practices. They also have different attitudes to money, which at first Abhi thinks is only because he has so much more than her. But she makes him realize that there is such a thing as safe enough, and that after all these years that he's been addicted to working because he feared not being able to provide for his family, he doesn't really need to worry so much about making money. And at the same time he should stop thoughtlessly spending on grand gestures just to keep up his rockstar image because really, he's a rockstar no matter what. It's all stuff Daadi has been telling him for years, but it makes a difference with Pragya telling him, because as the months stretch on he can see her by his side for whatever comes in the future, and that's what gives him the courage to stop worrying about money and to start enjoying being a musician again.
I'll be the one
To hold you, and make sure that you'll be alright
Before Pragya came into his life Abhi would've said it would be a very stupid thing to marry a woman just because you wanted to kiss her and make love to her. For every proper girl "waiting for marriage" there was a modern woman somewhere ready for pleasure, and why bother trying to convince the first type to go against her values when you could just find the second type and enjoy yourself? He had never understood that this attitude would be completely useless when for some reason his heart and body and mind fixed on just one specific woman.
It has been over a year since they started running into each other and more than six months since she'd agreed to not-date him and Abhi is starting to lose his mind. He wants to talk to her every night before bed and he has to have at least one meal a day with her (and it has never yet been breakfast and that annoys him) and if he has to go out of town for a week he can't just casually get back in contact on his return, he has to Skype with her at least once per trip because unless he sees with his own eyes that she is smiling and taking care of herself and healthy and whole, he is always worrying about her at the back of his mind.
He loves that she now calls him her best friend and he hates that she still insists they are just friends. He doesn't know what more he could do to convince her that he wants her as more than a friend; it is starting to look like he will just have to swallow his doubts and marry her anyway, because it is getting really inconvenient that she lives across town and he can only see her when she has time between work and family and the constantly changing little social justice projects she somehow gets involved in. He doesn't mind her having a life of her own but he wants to start and end his days with her and if that means going through the whole circus of sending a rishta and arranging a shaadi, he is starting to feel willing.
I'll be the one
When he tells Pragya that he's ready to get married she looks at him like he's an alien and then bursts out laughing. She refuses to take him seriously until she sees that he really isn't laughing with her. Then she tries to talk calmly with him about it and reminds him of all the reasons he had for not believing in marriage, but somehow every argument she brings up just sounds hollow and irrelevant to him. He can remember believing those things, but that was when marriage was an abstract and the idea of a wife had no reflection in his reality. All he knows is that he's the happiest he's ever been, being with her gives him confidence and a sense of safety that he hadn't known he needed, and he wants her in every way it is possible to want someone.
He gets frustrated with her resistance and argues back to her about how this is a logical next step, how it would be good for their families, how she's always wanted to get married and was willing to consider arranged matches so there should be no problem that it's him. She still tries to talk him out of it so he loses his temper and shouts at her and demands to know what the hell she's been doing with him all these months if she's so convinced that he'd make a bad husband.
She is not intimidated by his anger and snaps back at him that she's always been clear that she doesn't see him like that, but they both know that's neither fair nor true.
Finally she admits that she doesn't want to say yes to him because she's scared. She got engaged to her best friend before and that ended in disaster and why can't they just continue as they are for a little while longer?
Then he pulls her into his lap, because it's past time that they abandoned this stupid no touching rule. And he wants to kiss away her doubts but if there's one thing he has learned about his professor girl, it's that her mind has to be at peace before the walls around her heart come down even a little bit, and kissing her too early would not help his cause. So he holds her and tells her that all he wants is the right to hold her like this every night (although yes there are a few other things they could do at night) and that yes forever is a long time but maybe it's worth the risk and by the way she had better never compare him to that double battery again because he has perfect vision and a working brain so there is no way he could ever fall in love with Bulbul. Also, he has good taste. That makes her laugh and punch his shoulder for talking trash about her sister, but now she's relaxed in his arms and tentatively returning his hug with a cool, soft hand against his neck so he thinks maybe finally he has succeeded in convincing her that it might not be so bad to spend her life with him.
Yeah ok so the story doesn't really match the song. My brain is weird, what can I say. Sorry about the ending; it was getting too long and I just had to cut it somewhere. And ok Abhi is probably not the kind of guy to think long and hard about what emojis to send a girl, but he is the type of guy to be really silly when in love so let's just leave it at that. Tell me what you thought of this alternate, super fluffy path for AbhiGya! I didn't talk about Bulbul/Purab/Aaliya because in this version they just don't have their drama 😛
Edited by -mina- - 10 years ago
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