Posted:
Hello my loves! If the title didn't warn you, let me explain: the following is crackfic. It is meant to be insane and unrealistic. Don't let the reasonable beginning fool you; this story intentionally descends into madness and surreality, and the first clue is in the very first line. Also I was sort of half-feverish while I wrote this. I'm not sure whether that made it less or more cracky. Maybe if I was feeling better I'd have been able to push the envelope more...I really wanted this to be funny throughout, but I don't think I succeeded.
A few important mentions and apologies: to queenkatherine-pierce on tumblr for requesting a certain coping tactic for Pragya; sorry I couldn't do it exactly how you asked. to mkgp88 for putting me in mind of Wrecking Ball - sorry I completely misused your notion. to lkb79 for inviting me to put abhi in the kitchen - sorry it's not more of what you suggested, but i'm keeping that idea in reserve for the future, ok?! to tia and ishaa for last minute hindi help - my allstar twins, always at hand for my translation needs! any remaining mistakes are my own of course! and to deefan, thanks for your fantastic AUs on our abhigya AT. I have no idea if you will actually like this but somehow I had you in mind while writing parts of it, so be sure to be brutally honest with what you thought, mmk?
And as always, thanks to my abhigya AT pariwaar for support and encouragement, and big huge double thanks to everyone on this lovely KKB forum for reading and commenting on my work. long may we thrive! š
A few important mentions and apologies: to queenkatherine-pierce on tumblr for requesting a certain coping tactic for Pragya; sorry I couldn't do it exactly how you asked. to mkgp88 for putting me in mind of Wrecking Ball - sorry I completely misused your notion. to lkb79 for inviting me to put abhi in the kitchen - sorry it's not more of what you suggested, but i'm keeping that idea in reserve for the future, ok?! to tia and ishaa for last minute hindi help - my allstar twins, always at hand for my translation needs! any remaining mistakes are my own of course! and to deefan, thanks for your fantastic AUs on our abhigya AT. I have no idea if you will actually like this but somehow I had you in mind while writing parts of it, so be sure to be brutally honest with what you thought, mmk?
And as always, thanks to my abhigya AT pariwaar for support and encouragement, and big huge double thanks to everyone on this lovely KKB forum for reading and commenting on my work. long may we thrive! š
One Day In Mehra Madhouse
an AbhiGya crackfic by -mina-
PART 1 of 2(??)
~* to be continued! *~
The songs referred to are "Wrecking Ball" by Miley Cyrus and "Let it Go" from Disney's Frozen - no copyright infringement intended!
Thanks for reading! Please like and comment š
What do you think happens next?! How much more cracky can we get?
All suggestions for madcap randomness are welcome!! š
All my KKB fic can be found at My KKB Fic Index.
an AbhiGya crackfic by -mina-
PART 1 of 2(??)
Pragya woke with a smile on her face and a song in her heart. After many weeks - months, really - of dashed expectations and despair, finally the day she hadn't even dared to long for had arrived.
Her last day at Mehra mansion.
She yawned hugely and stretched her arms wide, luxuriating for a few last moments in the sinfully comfortable guest bed. What a pity she hadn't thought to move in to this room earlier; it would've saved her from the chiropractor's bills she was facing in the future for the back pain she'd developed over all those nights shivering on the balcony and lying curled up on Abhi's sofa.
But then, for so long it had seemed important to maintain the appearance of a functional marriage. She couldn't move out of Abhi's room when she was trying to make the world believe that there was nothing wrong between them.
And of course there had been the small complicating factor of her treacherous, deluded heart having more sway over her actions than her brain, in that sad stretch of time when she'd thought being in love with him might make a difference.
But now it was all over; no more pretence, and no more delusion. Maa and Daadi both knew that Abhi didn't want her as his wife, and they both agreed the best course would be to end this disaster of a marriage before it got any worse.
Pragya was finally going to have her freedom back, and as she breathed a deep sigh of satisfaction that morning, she felt as if she'd never tasted purer airer.
With a spring in her step, she left the bed and got ready for her day. The only thing she had left to do was pack up her stuff from Abhi's room. Once she had her things together, her family would come to meet her, and she would leave behind her benighted sasural once and for all.
She had stopped sharing Abhi's room two nights ago, when he'd burned the sheets. The smoke and ashes had made the room unfit for either of them that night, and then afterwards she'd just decided not to go back. She'd returned the next day for a few minutes to grab fresh clothes and her basic toiletries, but that was all. As far as she was concerned, she was done with that room as she was done with the marriage.
She finished dressing and was about to leave the guest room when she realized that she needed to refresh her sindoor. But she'd left the little pot of powder in Abhi's room, so she couldn't.
She stared at her reflection for a long moment, debating whether or not it was really important to put on sindoor on this, her last day as Abhi's wife. Finally she shrugged and decided that there was no point in holding onto symbols of a marriage that had already fallen apart.
She realized that by that logic she should probably take off her mangal sutra, too, but somehow that felt a step too far. She was already wearing it, after all. There would be time enough to take it off later. And maybe she could make a proper dramatic moment of it, untying it and placing it into his hand in front of everybody as she prepared to step out of the house for the last time.
Yes, that sounded like a moment worth savoring. She smiled to herself and stepped into the hall, ready to face her last day in the Mehra madhouse.
~*~*~*~
When she walked into the bedroom, Abhi was at the dresser, putting the finishing touches on his hairstyle. She decided it would be best not to get into any last arguments on her final morning, and besides she had nothing left to say to him. She had used up the last of her words for him by begging him over and over to believe her about the MMS, but he hadn't believed her, and now things were finally over between them.
Silently, she made her way to the closet and pulled down her suitcase. She carried it to the bed - which was still unmade, since Abhi never bothered to make his own bed - and opened it up so she could start filling it.
She returned to the closet and surveyed her suits and lehengas, trying to decide what to pull out first. Abhi strolled over with his hands in his pockets. He leaned against the closet door and cleared his throat ostentatiously, clearly trying to get her attention.
By reflex, she glanced at him, but then she quickly looked away again. She could tell he was hoping to bait her, and she wasn't going to play his games today.
This morning, she'd woken up with one of Purvi's awful American songs playing in her head, and to keep herself from paying too much attention to Abhi, she focused on the song.
She'd always been blessed with a vivid imagination, and in moments like this it helped that she could almost create an alternate reality for herself just from the strength of past memories and a bit of internal storytelling. She went over the lyrics in her mind, and then suddenly it was like she could hear the strong female vocals that went with them, as loud and clear as if the song was blaring from a radio right there in the closet.
We clawed, we chained our hearts in vain, we jumped, never asking why...
We kissed, I fell under your spell, A love no one could deny
Pragya gave a little mental laugh as she realized how the lyrics did and didn't fit this groundbreaking moment of her life. She'd clawed, and she'd chained her heart in vain, and she'd jumped and jumped and jumped, and she'd fallen under his spell, but there had been no kissing, and nothing like love, at least not a shared love...
"So, Chashmish," Abhi began, after she failed to respond to his third throat-clearing. "This is it. Finally your last day."
Pragya continued to ignore him. She decided to start with the heavy lehengas, as they would take the most space in her suitcase. A part of her wondered if she should even bother taking them; it wasn't like she'd ever have occasion to wear such rich clothes again. But Daadi had insisted that she should keep everything she'd been given, claiming that it would hurt her feelings if Pragya tried to return what had been meant as genuine gifts.
So Pragya grabbed two lehengas and carried them to the suitcase, feeling Abhi's eyes on her as she walked past him. She started to take the clothes off the hangers so that she could refold them to better fit in her suitcase, and Abhi started talking again.
"At least you can't say you're leaving this marriage with nothing," he taunted. "Although I'm sure you'll have your lawyer wring a huge settlement from me anyway. That's your plan isn't it, Chashmish? Now that you've broken my daadi's heart and disgraced my family, you're going to walk away from this marriage, and use the scandal as an excuse to get your last lot of money?"
The next lines of the song came to Pragya's mind, and they were so perfect that she really wanted to just shout them at him. Don't you ever say I just walked away, I will always want you; I can't live a lie, running for my life, I will always want you.
But he didn't need to know that she still wanted him. She hated that she did. She didn't understand how her heart could yearn so much for a man who remained willfully blind to her true self, but neither could she deny that it did. She wanted him, she loved him, this whole experience had probably ruined her for any other man and she would spend the rest of her life alone, but...he didn't need to know any of that.
"Oh ho Chashmish, showing a lot of attitude this morning, aren't you?" Abhi snapped, obviously getting irritated that she was continuing to ignore him. "You have a lot of nerve, you know that? You don't even feel bad that -"
Pragya decided she'd had enough of listening to his nonsense. She didn't quite have the nerve to start singing at him, but she found she could manage to start singing to herself, under her breath.
She picked up where the lyrics had left off in her mind, humming the tune to set herself up and then beginning softly, "I came in like a wrecking ball, I never hit so hard in love..."
She finished putting away the first two lehengas and went back to the closet to get some more. "All I wanted was to break your walls..."
"Eh? Chashmish, what are you saying? Jawab dena hai toh theek se do naa," Abhi growled. He grabbed her wrist as she turned to leave the closet again, carrying another set of lehengas.
Pragya stopped and looked at his hand on her wrist and then at his agitated face. Feeling the last of her inhibitions fly away - this was her morning of freedom, after all - she gave him a huge smile and loudly sang the next lines of the song in her best Miley Cyrus impression. "Aaall - you - e-ever did was wre-e-eck me.Yeah, you wre-e-eck me."
She shook free of him, which wasn't difficult as his grip had slackened while he stared at her in amazement. She continued singing as she added the lehengas to her suitcase, letting her deep frustration with him and their failed relationship add weight to the words of the song. "I put you high up in the sky, and now - you're not coming down..."
"Chashmish! Eyy, Chashmish, have you gone mad? I'm trying to talk to you!" Abhi made his way from the closet to the bedside. He looked like he wanted to grab her again, but was too afraid.
She continued at her task with only the briefest glance at him. On her way back to the closet, she thought of how he'd let her down so many times in the last months, and she sang, "It slowly turned, you let me burn, and now - we're ashes on the ground."
"Crazy, one hundred percent," she heard Abhi mutter. Then, to her relief, he quickly turned and left the room.
The next verse had the lines "I will always want you" again, and she was glad that he wouldn't be there to hear them. She still sang, them though. It actually felt kind of good to let loose like this, and it had been far too long since she sang anything at all.
She kept singing to herself as she emptied her section of the closet, and when she finished "Wrecking Ball" she continued with all the other half-hated English songs that were buried in her memory thanks to years of living with Purvi and Bulbul.
~*~*~*~
Forty-five minutes later, Pragya was almost done emptying the closet, having only a handful of her everyday suits left to add to the suitcase. She was singing "Happy Love" under her breath, because she was in just the right mood to be finally be amused by Abhi's idiotic lyrics.
The hazy memory of practicing the song with him while they were both drunk rose to her mind, but for once it didn't leave her feeling melancholy. No, today she was even a little glad that they'd had those few sweet hours. At least there was some evidence that she hadn't lost her heart to a complete waste of a human being.
It was just too bad that he couldn't find it in himself to be that decent to her more of the time.
She was humming the beat and repeating the line, "party like, do it like a rockstar," when Aaliya and Tanu came into the room.
A different song came into her mind then, and a Disney tune started to play in her head as she steeled herself to keep her silence in front of the two witches. She was definitely not going to answer back to them today, whatever they said, and it would probably be best not to sing at them either. It might be enough to scare Abhi away in confusion, but she wouldn't put it past Tanu and especially Aaliya to somehow find a way to turn the singing against her.
Once again, the song lyrics in her mind seemed to fit perfectly with that very moment in her life. Don't let them in, don't let them see, be the good girl you always have to be - that exactly described how she'd constantly had to be on guard around these two, always playing the perfect bahu to foil their performances as nanad-from-hell and sautan-without-a-clue.
"Well well well, Pragya Bhabhi," Aaliya said, her cold voice dripping with a kind of icy glee. "How sad that you have to pack up all your things by yourself. But I guess you're going to have to get used to doing all your own work again, hmm? Your short stay in the paradise of wealth is over."
The next line of the song played in Pragya's head as she kept her eyes on her suitcase, refusing to look at her annoying visitors. Conceal, don't feel, don't let them know - well now they know!
Hmm, maybe there was something in that? The song was about letting go of all the fear and self-doubt that held you back in life, about breaking the habit of putting up appearances. And now that Aaliya and Tanu were finally getting what they wanted, was it worth hiding anything in front of them? What more could they do to hurt or humiliate her, after all?
Tanu reached into her suitcase and pulled out one of the anarkalis she'd just neatly packed away. It was the purple one she'd been wearing when Abhi had caught her after she'd tripped trying to reach a book on a high shelf. For a brief second, she remembered the feel of his strong arms around her, and an uncharacteristic stab of vindictive joy pulsed through her. If only there was some way to play a tape of all those little moments of unexpected closeness she'd shared with Abhi in front of Tanu. The Chudail would burn with jealousy for a few moments, and her sorry excuse for a boyfriend would be stuck ripping his hair out to come up with a soothing explanation.
Pragya suppressed a smile at that image. The anger of the song was getting to her a bit too much maybe. Let it go, let it go, can't hold it back anymore. Let it go, let it go, turn away and slam the door!
Well, she should definitely let go of whatever resentment she still had about Abhi's relationship with Tanu. It had nothing to do with her anymore, and they were welcome to figure out a future together after the mess they'd let Aaliya lead them into.
Tanu let out a fake, trilling laugh, holding the unfolded anarkali with one disdainful fingertip. "Thank God we won't be tortured by the sight of these behenji outfits anymore, right Aaliya? Good thing you're finally taking them back to Chembur where you belong, Chashmish."
Pragya didn't bother looking at Tanu, but from the corner of her eye she noticed a brief flash of irritation cross Aaliya's face. It seemed even her sadistic and selfish nanad had some standards, and her friend's intelligence didn't make the mark. It was a lame insult and all three of them knew it.
Pragya could almost feel a little bad for Aaliya, being stuck with a vacuous best friend like Tanu. There was a lot to like about Aaliya, really, and if she'd just spend more time figuring out her own life instead of playing games with everyone else's, everyone in this madhouse of a mansion would probably be happier.
But worrying about the Mehra family's happiness wasn't her problem anymore. With a shrug, she reached forward and grabbed her purple anarkali from Tanu, and carefully packed it away again.
"Waise, Bhabhi, you'll be glad to be getting back to your aashiq, hain na?" Aaliya said with her trademark sweet venom, apparently deciding to try a new track to get her attention. "Only, I wonder what would happen to the both of you if that shocking MMS became public?"
That remark made Pragya's head snap up, and she scanned Aaliya's face to confirm whether she was right to hear that as a threat. If the MMS did get out to the world at large, that would be a heavy headache indeed.
But Pragya decided she wouldn't give Aaliya the satisfaction of seeing her fear. If it happened, she and Suresh would simply have to find some way to deal with it.
In the mean time, she'd had enough of her two unwanted guests, and so with a big grin and wide eyes trained on Aaliya, she started to sing the rest of the Disney ice queen's empowering song.
"It's funny how some distance makes everything seem small. And the fears that once controlled me can't get to me at all!"
Aaliya and Tanu looked at each other in amazement, at a loss for how to react to her.
Pragya energetically continued folding her clothes, singing the next lines with gusto as she thought of how nice it was to indirectly tell off her tormentors this way. "It's time to see what I can do. To test the limits and break through, no right no wrong - no rules for me. I'm free!"
"Hey Behenji, have you gone crazy?" Tanu demanded. "Are you - are you singing a song from a children's movie?"
Pragya paid no attention to Tanu, but it occurred to her that the following lines of the song were especially appropriate for Aaliya. She had little hope that her wilful nanad would get the message, but still she met her eyes and looked at her with sincere hope as she sang, "Let it go, let it go, I am one with the wind and sky."
Aaliya blinked at her in shock and quickly looked away, so Pragya turned back to her packing and kept singing to herself. "Let it go, let it go, you'll never see me cry. Here I stand..."
Aaliya pulled Tanu off the bed and interrupted Pragya's singing by saying harshly, "Come on, Tanu, we don't need to listen to this." She dragged the supermodel out of the room and slammed the door shut behind them, as if to block Pragya's voice from the rest of the house.
Pragya merely laughed at this last, small triumph against the terrible twosome. She put away the last of her clothes and crossed the room to start packing her books. She finished the song quietly to herself, smiling with the words "let the storm rage on, the cold never bothered me anyway."
~*~*~*~
It only took Pragya about half an hour to finish collecting the last of her things from Abhi's room. She'd lived here for three months, but she hadn't had much of a chance to make it her own, and the room didn't look any different now that all her stuff had been removed.
Just the way Abhi's life wouldn't look any different with her removed from it.
It was just as well, really. She didn't feel much sadness at leaving this room behind. She'd stepped into it with so much hope, but all that hope had been killed the very next day, and in the long weeks since then, this room had been more of a jail cell and a torture chamber than a place for peaceful rest.
It was true that there had been a few good moments, and some of those falls and almost falls she'd gotten into with Abhi quickly flashed through her mind. She realized that they had spent an awful lot of time staring into each other's eyes. And she certainly wasn't going to forget the scent of his shower-fresh skin anytime soon, since she'd somehow ended up in his arms while he was shirtless so many times.
But she surely would forget, given enough time. She'd get over this whole mad episode, and the rest of her life was just about to start.
She contemplated calling Robin to take her suitcases down for her, but then she remembered Aaliya's snide words about Mehra mansion being a paradise of wealth. It was so true that Pragya had never belonged here. She'd been raised to do all her own tasks, and she could manage this too.
She started to drag the first suitcase down by herself, but then suddenly Aakash showed up.
"Bhabhi, I can help with that," he said briskly. He took the suitcase from her and reached back to grab her other bags, and before she could refuse his help he was carrying them all down to the first floor.
She met him at the foot of the stairs and smiled at him. "Thank you Aakash. You'll take care of yourself, right? I want to hear only good things about you."
Aakash clasped her hand warmly. "Bhabhi, I wish you didn't have to go like this. We all know that video is false. If there was any way -"
Aakash's words were cut off by Abhi, who emerged from the kitchen yelling for Pragya. "Chashmish! Where are you, Chashmish!" he shouted, looking upwards to the second floor, as if he was trying to call her out from their room.
"I'm right here," Pragya answered, amused to see him in such disarray.
"You! You are coming with me," Abhi announced. He grabbed her hand and started to pull her away.
Pragya dug in her heels, refusing to be dragged anywhere. "Arre? Aap yeh kya kar ra ha hain? Would it kill you to use words for once? What do you want?"
"What I want is for something in my house to make sense without you, Chashmish!" Abhi snapped back. He stopped when they were half way to the kitchen and turned to face her. "No one knows where anything is without you! I asked Robin to prepare some simple dahi and shakkar, and you know what he said to me? He said, 'sorry sir, you'll have to ask bhabhiji about that.' Ask bhabhiji about yogurt and sugar! Now why would that be, I wonder? It must be because you've got your controlling fingers tangled up in every aspect of my life!"
Pragya was used to ignoring his outlandish accusations, so the only part of this recital that interested her was the idea that Mr. Anti-Ritual had for some reason asked Robin to prepare the good luck token of sweetened yogurt. "Why on earth were you asking for dahi-shakkar?" she demanded, cutting through the rest of his rant.
"Because," Abhi said with exaggerated patience, "I wanted to make sure that when you leave, you do it right! So I thought a mouthful of your superstitious yogurt and sugar will help to ensure that you'll stay gone!"
"Wow," said Pragya, genuinely impressed. "And were you going to feed it to me yourself?"
"Yes! In fact -"
"HAYE BHAGWAN YEH MURGHIYAAN YAHAAN KYA KAR RAHI HAI!" Indu Daasi's sudden screech interrupted Abhi's explanation and made them both look up - just in time to dodge the huge platter of kumkum that had clattered over the bannister when Daasi jumped to avoid tripping on the chickens apparently wandering up on the second floor.
Abhi tugged Pragya towards him and they both fell to the floor, thankfully not being hit by the heavy brass platter. Nothing could stop them from being coated in the red powder, however, as a thick cloud of the sacred dust drifted down onto them.
So much for being done with symbols, Pragya thought ruefully. She hurried to cover her mouth and nose with her dupatta, and dragged up her clueless husband's hand to cover his own face.
He took the hint, and they scrambled to their feet to get out of the way of the toxic dust particles drifting in the air. Sindoor was fine in small quantities but it was not meant to be inhaled, and until the dust settled, this area of the mansion was a definite hazard zone.
Unfortunately, it seemed that the other members of the household didn't realize this, as a sudden commotion arose with everyone finding their way out to the hall.
The chaos found a focal point when Babli started to run down the stairs, shouting for Pragya to help her. "Chaachi!! Chaachi the chickens got loose, come quick!"
Pragya and Abhi watched in astonishment as an entire brood of chickens followed Babli down the stairs. At least a dozen flightless livestock pecked at the little girls feet, rushing behind her as if she were a moving bowl of feed.
"Chickens? Why does she have chickens? Did you know she had chickens?" Abhi demanded, turning to Pragya and grabbing her by the shoulders.
Pragya pulled his hands off of her arms, in no mood to be shaken like a rag doll today. "Yes, she has them for some school project," she answered curtly. "But don't yell at me, I didn't give her the permission, her mother did."
"That Mithali Bhabhi!" Abhi said in a voice of strangled rage. He looked around the hall in search of her, and if looks could kill she would probably be burned to cinders by his gaze just then.
Luckily for Mithali Bhabhi, Abhi's gaze was quickly pulled back to the ground. "It - it looks like they're going to chase us," Pragya said, a note of panic entering her voice. "Run!"
She grabbed Abhi's arm and pulled him away from the hall, and the two of them began their escape from the rampaging chickens.
The songs referred to are "Wrecking Ball" by Miley Cyrus and "Let it Go" from Disney's Frozen - no copyright infringement intended!
Thanks for reading! Please like and comment š
What do you think happens next?! How much more cracky can we get?
All suggestions for madcap randomness are welcome!! š
All my KKB fic can be found at My KKB Fic Index.
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