Part 4
In the week that passes by, Arnav and Khushi get more attracted to one another.
Khushi is always up to something, and when she does whatever it is, that gets Arnav's attention, he gazes adoringly at her, though he himself doesn't realise it. Feeling Arnav's gaze on her, Khushi's attention is automatically turned to him, and they end up having an eyelock.
Everyone notices this growing attraction between the two adults, but the only one who has an inkling of the true depth of that attraction is Prem.
Prem and Khushi have an undeniable and indescribable bond, and that too one that makes Arnav a little jealous. This leaves all the guys, including Arnav, in a state of amazement, as Prem, the ever-quiet guy who is shy around pretty girls, has opened up to Khushi more than he has even opened up to his male buddies, meaning the rest of the gang.
************************************************************************
In that one week, Khushi has sent a few hand-written letters to her parents to let them know that she is fine. Otherwise, she has been enjoying herself so much that she has grown quite attached to the gang. She loves teasing Aahil because he gets irritated quite easily, but Aahil has also grown to wait eagerly for whatever she throws his way and quite misses it if she doesn't annoy him. She challenges Maan and Rishabh to various games and sports challenges and always ends up winning, giving a small blow to their male ego and macho-man image, but after a while they end up just laughing it off, and watching a rom-com on the television.
"Despite their rough and tough outlook, Manu and Rishi are total softies at heart..." Khushi makes that observation about Maan and Rishabh, referring to them by the nicknames she created.
"Prem is like a buddy... I feel a deep connection to him that even I can't explain!" Khushi thinks to herself. "Even Aahil is not that bad either. It's fun to annoy him, and I like it even more that he takes it all in like a true sport."
When it comes to Arnav however, Khushi seems to be at a loss of words to describe him. "I can't really figure him out," she thinks, "but I know for sure that he intrigues me a lot!"
************************************************************************
About a month has passed by since Khushi has been kidnapped. She has written letters to her parents a few times, just to assure them that she is fine. The letters were posted by Aahil who dropped them off sometime during the night, when the guards at the main gate of the Gupta's bungalow took their nightly power naps.
As the days pass, Khushi has become more and more reluctant to write the letters to her parents. Boss told Arnav to make Khushi send regular letters to her parents, because he wanted to them to get perplexed at her whereabouts ("Is she kidnapped?" / "Where is she if not kidnapped?" / "Is someone playing a game with us? Who?")
Khushi took the letter writing as a task and did it rather for formality sake. She didn't want to inform her parents where she was. She was technically kidnapped, but had no intention of going back home. In fact, she wanted to stay with Arnav and his gang, as she felt more at home with them than with her parents. There was a certain sense of freedom she felt with the gang, rather than at her actual home. She was allowed to do whatever she wanted.
Though Ram and Priya loved Khushi a lot, they were overprotective and kept a lot of restrictions on her. Khushi had a curfew, she had to be at home before 10 pm every night, but she managed to get out of that regularly when she sneaked out to meet her boyfriend and friends. What's more was that Khushi was also not allowed to have a boyfriend, but she had one anyway. Khushi didn't particularly love him, but he loved her, and he was a "bad boy" who provided her with a chance to escape from her life at home.
Khushi was always looking for ways to escape because she felt too coddled at home. She too loved her parents, but their overprotectiveness was smothering her a lot, especially over the past year or so. She was already 22 years old, but still living with parents. Actually, the living with parents might have been fine if there weren't so many restrictions.
************************************************************************
~ Flashback (Khushi's Past) ~
But who can blame Khushi's parents? They loved Khushi too much to loose her. They had already lost their older child, a son, many years back. Ram and Priya had a 3-year-old son, Harsh, when they discovered that they were going to have another child.
Harsh was overjoyed that he was finally going to have a sibling that he could play with. He had seen his friends getting rakhi's tied on their wrists during the festival of Raksha Bandhan, and had always wished for a younger sister, who would tie a rakhi to him too. Though he was only 3 years old, Harsh was well aware of the concept behind Raksha Bandhan, and promised to extend it beyond just that one day when Priya revealed that she was pregnant. He promised that if he had a sister, he would love her and protect her at the risk of his own life.
Priya was of course proud of her son, and glad that her unborn child already had someone who loved him or her and was willing to go to any length to protect his or her wellbeing. Priya knew that Harsh would be able to take care of himself and his younger sibling even if something happened to her and Ram.
However, Ram was not exactly convinced. He knew that Priya wanted Harsh to learn how to take care of himself and learn from his own mistakes, but he was still a toddler... Priya had already suffered 3 miscarriages after Harsh, so when she finally got pregnant for a 4th time, Ram wanted Priya to take extra care of herself and her unborn child. Ram had work; Priya though at home, wouldn't be able to run after Harsh the whole day, especially not when she approached her third trimester and had a bloated pregnancy-belly; and HP had the cooking and cleaning of their bungalow to take care of. Hence, Ram decided to hire a full-time Nanny to take care of a young Harsh, as well as stay on to take care of Harsh's younger sibling when he or she was born, allowing Priya to go back to work or even start up some hobbies.
So, after the first trimester of her pregnancy, Priya hired a Nanny for Harsh. The Nanny would stay at the Gupta's bungalow, eat, sleep, bathe there, and of course, help Priya in taking care of Harsh and Harsh's younger sibling after the birth.
Harsh grew an attachment to the Nanny, and used to talk to her the whole day about what he would do for his younger sister when she was born. He also told her that he wouldn't mind a younger brother, but he preferred a younger sister who he could pamper yet protect at the same time.
Even the Nanny had grown attached to Harsh. The only problem was that the Nanny's attachment was more of an obsession. Harsh reminded the Nanny of her dead son so much so that she made plans to kidnap him and keep him for herself, treating him as her own actual son.
Of course, the Nanny couldn't carry out her plans with Priya in the house the whole time, so when Priya was pregnant, the Nanny just went about and did the tasks for which she was hired. Ram and Priya had done a full background check on the Nanny when they hired her, and knew that she had a dead child who she mourned over, but her experience with young children overshadowed her past.
What Ram and Priya did not know, however, was that due to her past, the Nanny was actually mentally unstable. They did not realise her state of mind and see through her true intentions to kidnap Harsh as she was extremely good at hiding it.
The Nanny hatched out an elaborate plan to kidnap Harsh for herself, and finally got to put that plan into action... One Saturday night, a heavily-pregnant Priya was sitting on the jhula in the garden. When it suddenly started raining, Priya got up to walk back into the house. However, she slipped and went into labour due to distress. Ram was at work, so HP had to take Priya to the hospital instead. HP called Ram to tell him the news, and Ram told HP to meet him at the hospital with Priya and to tell the Nanny to stay home with Harsh and take care of till Priya and the new baby are safe.
HP sat Priya in one of the cars, buckled her up, and set off for the hospital. The Nanny waited for a few hours to pass. When Ram gave her the call, she put Harsh in the child seat of another car and she herself sat in the driver's seat.
Then, the Nanny set off... However, instead of going to the hospital, the Nanny went in the opposite direction. So when even after 2 hours of telling the Nanny to leave home and come to the hospital which is a mere 20 minutes away, and yet seeing no sign of her, Ram called the guards who told him that she had set off quite some time back.
Ram left Priya and their premature daughter in the hospital and returned home to do a little investigation. He found a handwritten letter addressed to him and Priya, and written by the Nanny. The letter said all and exactly what Ram dreaded.
Ram didn't inform Priya anything, as she was still under sedation. Instead, he set off on his own, looking for the Nanny. But to his misfortune, he didn't find her anywhere at all. Then, he got a call from the hospital saying that Priya had woken up. So, Ram rushed to the hospital. He met and hugged Priya, and took a glimpse at his newborn daughter who was in the incubator at the hospital nursery.
Ram kept shuffling between the hospital and the police station everyday. Most of the times, he tried to avoid meeting Priya when she was awake and went to the hospital only when she was asleep. He spoke to Priya on the phone many a times, but told her that he was at work when in reality he was going in and out of various police stations and detective agencies with a copy of the letter that the Nanny had left along with a picture of both the Nanny and Harsh.
Ram also instructed HP to strictly not reveal to Priya anything until she was ready to be discharged from the hospital. When Priya enquired about Harsh and the Nanny, Ram and HP made some excuse or the other, and Priya believed them because she was actually too weak to argue with anyone.
After about a week in hospital, it came time for Priya to be discharged. It was then, when she was all well and healthy and hearty that she finally noticed that something was amiss. Soon, she would go home and see the truth for herself. That's why, so as to not give her such big a shock, Ram revealed the truth to her.
Their newborn daughter still needed to be kept in the incubator for a few more days, so leaving her in the safe hands of the hospital staff and under the watchful of HP, Ram and Priya set off to find their son.
After trying hard for a few days, Ram and Priya finally got a call from the police, informing them of a sighting of the Nanny and their son Harsh. Ram and Priya reached the destination they were told to reach, but by then the Nanny had already left with Harsh, as she had gotten a windfall of their arrival. The Nanny had a good 15-minute head-start, but the road they were chasing her on was a long straight road, a freeway, with no exits.
After some time of driving, Ram and Priya came across a car burning on a bridge that was a part of the freeway. Upon coming closer, they discovered that it was one of their own cars, the same which their Nanny had stolen when she kidnapped Harsh. Seeing the car on fire shocked them.
With the help of passing motorists and the fire engine which Ram and Priya called, the firefighters tried to put out the fire. However, the fire was so strong that it continued raging on for sometime. When the fire was finally put out, the police were called in to investigate. The fire was so bad, and everything was so badly damaged that the only thing remaining was the metal frame of the car.
The police concluded that the Nanny had lost control of the car while trying to make her escape and had crashed into the framework of the bridge. The impact had caused the engine to catch fire and start burning the car immediately upon impact. They knew that the Nanny and Harsh didn't survive the accident. Moreover, the fire was so strong and hot that even their skeletal bones were burnt down to ash.
Priya and Ram both broke down, but were forced to compose themselves when they got a call from the hospital giving them an update about their daughter. Ram and Priya wiped their tears and drove to the hospital. They made a decision to not dwell on the past but instead move on to the future and be happy with what they have not dampen their moods over what they lost.
Ram and Priya named their newborn daughter Khushi, because that is what Harsh always said he wanted to name his younger sister, if he ever had one. Ram and Priya both wished that Harsh were with them to see Khushi, as he would have been the happiest.
But Ram and Priya decided to move on... Having lost a young child, and unable to have anymore children after Khushi (as Priya's womb had to be removed in a hysterectomy after it got damaged during her fall), Ram and Priya made a decision to shower all their love on Khushi.
They loved her and got her everything she ever insisted for, and for that, Khushi was always grateful. However, due to losing their children, they tended to be extra cautious where their now, only-child was concerned. Hence they kept a number of restrictions on Khushi, that would especially ensure that she is alive first, and then adhere to her safety.
Priya was more level-headed. But Ram, being the father of a girl, was of course more tensed about her safety. Hence, Ram always put more restrictions on Khushi while Priya was the slightly more liberal parent.
So, Khushi grew up being pampered, yet heavily restricted. And once she hit her teens and adulthood, that's when she started to rebel. She neither wanted nor needed any more gifts, what she desired instead, was freedom.
But, Khushi never got that... And neither did she come to know the details of the tragedy that occurred around the time of her birth. She just knew that she had a brother who died when she was young... Khushi never actually got to meet Harsh, and had just seen pictures of him when she was young. Her memories of "playing" with him were actually made up and influenced by television programmes she had seen as a young child. Sadly, everything happened too long ago for her to remember any bit of the actual truth.
~ End of Flashback ~
************************************************************************
Khushi wakes up with a sudden jerk. She looks out the window and sees that the sun has set. She realises that she must have been sleeping on the living room sofa for at least 5 hours now. She remembered sitting on the sofa to watch a movie on television after lunch.
"The movie must have been so boring that it put me to sleep." thinks Khushi to herself.
"Kumbhakaran has finally woken up, eh?" teases Arnav from behind Khushi.
Khushi gets up with a start and turns around to look at Arnav. She gives him a death glare, but the only thing he does is stare right back at her in admiration.
"She looks beautiful even though she has just gotten up from her sleep... She is one of the prettiest girls I have ever seen... Wait... What? What am I thinking? And that too about Khushi? No ways... Ewww! I take it back." Arnav thinks to himself, trying to deny his budding feelings for Khushi, yet being unable to hide the emotions on his face.
Tum Se Tum Tak
Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi 2
Cricket
29