The Night of The Wedding--FIRST PART, LINK TO NEXT

Hello ladies!

I am not a new member of I-F, some of you may know me from the IPKKND and Rangrasiya forums, but this is my first post here. I have so far been a silent viewer of this show, I came across Gul's new venture quite late, and I'm still catching up on the episodes so if this One shot is not very good, do forgive me. But the one role I really identify with as an excellent character sketch so far has been Surbhi's upright, strong and controlled depiction of Anika. I like her self respect and self control, and so I was inspired to write a small One Shot depicting her reaction upto (and beyond) Shivaay's wedding. Its angsty, but I hope you like it. Enjoy, and please comment!

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Chameli was truly done. She had died a hero's death, Anika thought. Chameli had not given out until she was out of the floral decked mansion, away from the driveway hung with fairy lights. Chameli was a true friend, a loyal friend to a girl who had very few of those in her life. The slipper had not torn into two until she had gotten Anika away from the wedding festivities. Chameli had been on her last moments all day, but the brave slipper had not ripped until her mistress was on the road leading to her own home, a good few miles away from the fancy cars and loud music, the shimmering chandeliers and the glittering guests of Shivay Singh Oberioi's wedding. Anika picked up the red slipper, as she stumbled to the side of the road. Her eyes had been watering all day, but she had managed to suppress it, mostly.

All in all, it had been a good day. She sniffed valiantly now, nodding her head fiercely even though there was no one to see her gather her strength, gather herself. She had been quite good, given everything. Billu-ji of course had tried to make this, her last day with him, an absolute hell of earth. How would he manage from tomorrow? she thought. When she was not there? And the day after? Who would handle the man, his anger, his insanity, his demands, and his temper tantrums? Who would give him back word for word, stand up to that ego, who would disrespect the man for his own good, and still cherish the glimpses of laughter and mischief, the deep love for his brothers and his family, the all too rarely seen kind heart that was hidden deep beneath those eyes of chipped ice? Someone else, of course, she told herself, her inner voice for once, oddly strangled ... she even knew who ----the newly minted Tia Singh Oberoi would be in charge. She was going to have to do all that, if not for herself, then at least for him, to stop him from becoming a ruthless caricature, a creature of stone. She would have to be his.. Anika.


Anika felt almost boneless right now. She shook herself, tossing her hair back, taking the final few steps away from the road and over to the side, where a single lamppost stood as the sentinel of light against the black night sky. In the distance, the fireworks display she had spent weeks planning burst into the indigo sky, causing streaks of light from the Oberoi Mansion to piece the velvet darkness. The effect was magical, as she had predicted it would be. But right now Anika could not even turn her head to look at the fruit of her many hours of labor, allowing her head to slump wearily back, against the pole. Clearly she had been working too hard. She sank down underneath the lamppost, still holding her torn shoe in her hand. She nestled against the pole, her bag dropped next to her. She was getting utterly dirty, and what would he say to her if he saw her now? Look at you, you crazy fool, he would say. You are the very filth of the street, literally.

Anika shrugged, uncaring. She was never seeing him again, after all. The cheque for a job well done was tucked safely inside Chikni, and she was determined to cash it first thing tomorrow, and then get them, herself and Sahil, the hell out of this city, that he controlled. She would get them away, go somewhere where she could get Sahil's treatment started, with the generous bonus Dadi had tucked into her hand. Maybe she would enroll herself in night classes, finish the college degree that Sahil's parents' death had interrupted. After having lived with the Oberois for all these months, Anika had realized the importance of an education more than she ever had before. She was self respecting, but not stupid, no matter how many times he questioned her brains, her intelligence. She knew it. Logic. She would take English classes too, she decided, she would learn ALL the words there were in the English language, even more than the ones he knew, and she would use them too, when she wanted to. She could get herself started on the path to improving herself and Sahil, forgetting these past few months of hell.


She blinked, her eyes smarting with the gathering tears, her throat closing, her heart clenched like a fist inside her chest--her own body betraying her even as her mind fought on, still valiant. She had survived. She told herself this, even as she felt the storm break inside her. She had survived his taunts, hatred and attempts to break her, with her dignity, if not her heart, intact. These past few days had been filled with his provocations. It had been an exercise in her ability to tolerate, to stand tall while the winds around her tried to break her, force her to her knees.


Anika closed her eyes, her eyelids heavy. It's nothing, she told herself, even as she felt herself break down, her eyes welling with salt tears. Still, she told herself it was nothing but being sleepy from having stayed awake all last night. She had stayed overnight, last night. There had been so much to do. The mandaap was not done, and a thousand details she had to fix had kept her back last night. Dadi-ji had looked at her with a peculiar expression, and told her to stay. He had just stared at her across the dinner table, his jaw working, as his family glanced at them both, no one breaking the charged silence, not even Rudra.


She had worked feverishly until past midnight, trying to forget everything but her work, trying to forget the other woman who would sit with him on this wedding dais that she was so carefully daubing with real gold leaf and crystal strands. Finally, she had gone to her room, exhausted, but of course, her night was not done. He had come to her room, drunk after Rudra's "Bachelor Party," and she had felt her body singe with the flame of his eyes wherever his glance rested.


He had brought "Ms Anika No Last Name" his sherwani... Shivaay had slurred, his lean body propped up against her door. Omkara had been with him, holding up one arm, or Anika would have shut the door right in his perfect face. Om had watched his brother, and then her, his eyes flitting from her stoic face to Shivaay's sneering one, his expressive eyes saying everything his voice did not utter. "Here it is" Shivaay had said, shaking the garment on its hanger, the sleek velvet and silver work catching the room's dim light. The wedding outfit that she had picked for him. He would wear it for her, tonight, he said, laughing harshly at some joke only he was privy to. Omkara had protested, softly. No, Shivaay had stated, staring at her, the smirk still twisting his smile into something ugly. No-- Ms Anika No Last Name would see him in it, so she could admire the fit, fix the seams and change the simple buttons into ones more fitting an Oberoi. Do some work for the exorbitant amount he was paying her--- a little extra work for an employee. She didn't mind, did she?

Diamond buttons had tumbled from his hands, glittering onto the floor. Just one of those stone buttons would feed someone like her for a month, Shivaay had slurred, staring into her blank eyes, trying to see into a soul she had hidden behind a wall of silence. Omkara had shifted then, blocking her from his brother's view, and Shivaay had shrugged into the sherwani, turning to her with the garment hanging off his body. She would have to fix those buttons up for him, he had said, his words clear, his eyes mocking. Tia would be taking them off his body on his wedding night, but he wanted Anika to put them on him now.

Silently, she had let him in, her weak heart aching as she took him in, the tousled hair, the eyes glittering more than the diamond encrusted buttons he carelessly dropped all over her room. She, who had never knelt before her fate now fell to her knees before him, and one by one, she had done up his sherwani, sewing on the regal adornments as her eyes were held in a vice like grip by his mocking, hatred filled gaze.

Omkara had left, muttering to himself, and she had stayed on her knees, greedily gulping the air that was scented with his expensive cologne, a combination of ice and thunder. She had stumbled to her feet, lightheaded from tiredness, her strength sapped from having to fight so many things, so many people, including, most of all, herself. His hands had dug into her arms as he lifted her close to him, his face inches from her, his voice had been hoarse as he had asked her, "Why?"

One question, to which she had no answer. What was he asking, anyway? Why, what? Why was she Ms. Anika No Last Name? Why did she have to meet him? Why had she not fought for him? She, the eternal fighter, why had she not fought him, fought his beliefs, so they could have something? Why had he not been allowed to fight for her? Why was fate the way it was, placing them both as equals in every way that did not matter, while making sure they were worlds apart in every way that did? Why did they feel this heat, this dangerous pull,when neither of them wanted or needed the other? Why she had handed him over, gift wrapped in her chosen sherwani, to a woman who was so much less than her in every way but that of blood? Why was her blood so very unknown, and so badly tainted? Why was his own blood as blue as his eyes, as pure as his lineage? Why was she not breaking before him? Or..was he asking her why she was already broken, already dust beneath his feet? She had not said anything, not answered him, and Omkara had returned with Rudra, who had then taken their intoxicated brother to his bed, leaving Anika to his unanswered question reverberating in the empty room. Why?


The whole of this day had continued with the questions, the taunts-- this morning, and the whole day, he had showed up wherever she was, interrupting her work with his questions. She had chosen silence, for the first time in her life, and it had not worked. All day, he had demanded that she answer him--- Why? Why were her eyes red? Why was she silent? Why would she not speak to him? Why was she not wearing the new clothes Dadi and Priyanka had chosen for her? How dare she show up for his wedding day dressed in her old jeans and tattered shoes? Low class stuff did not fit the evening's theme he had taunted. Her appearance was an insult, he had sneered into her face, even as she struggled to breathe, to control herself and to leave him to the future he had chosen, the one he had been born to choose.


She had held it together. She shook herself from the memories of just a few hours ago. The day was behind her, now, the day was over. Pinky Aunty's piercing, almost knowing questions, Dadi-ji hugging her tightly whenever she saw her running around with the wedding's last minute details. She had survived Priyanka's and Soumya's well meaning attempts to make her sit down and eat something, even avoided Rudra's childlike demands and Omkara's silent stare.

In a day crested with pain, just a few moments had gotten to her, had broken her resolve.

When she had seen him smiling at the top of the stairs, dressed like the royal he was, the aristocrat in the inky blue sherwani who's buttons she had sewed herself the night before, the icy silver of the embroidery a perfect match for his crystal eyes. She had needed a moment for herself then. The way his eyes had locked into hers, as she stood apart, as his mother did his aarti, one perfect brow arched in a silent challenge she could not interpret--- she had needed to go to the garden to check on the lights then. And later, the sounds of the shehnai, the arrival of Tia's bridal party, when he had grabbed her hand, and tucked her cheque into her fist, whispering that she was no longer needed, that she was done, she could leave the house, with his thanks---she had needed to...

But even then Anika had handled herself, even then she had held it inside, only needing a few minutes in her office room to beat back the tears before she headed back out to do her job and get him married. She had settled Tia next to him, settled his chosen bride into the mandap she had decorated with her own hands. She had done that final task, and left the Mansion, and Chameli had helped her to take those steps out the door without faltering, stumbling, looking back at the man sitting on the wedding dais, staring at her as she walked away.

But now, she thought, as she began to cry in earnest, now she didn't have to hold on anymore. Now, before she got home to Sahil, where she would have to put on her strength again---she had now.

Her breath escaping in panting gulps, her choking sobs rising from her throat, no longer held back by sheer willpower, sheer strength. Chameli had not let her down. Chameli understood the value of self respect, of control, of keeping up a show of strength until Anika was alone, alone at a place where she could be herself. All day she couldn't have given in to the howling pain that prevented her from taking a deep breath, she could not allow herself to feel emotions she had no right to feel and still look at herself in the mirror with any pride. She could not allow herself to feel these in front of others, in front of him. But now?

So she sat now, her body shaking with the force of her pain, her trembling arms wrapped round herself, trying to hold in a loss that seemed bigger than what her heart could contain. Never in public, only in the privacy of the night that was around her now. So now she could... shatter, without anyone knowing about her weakness, her one point of weakness. Anika sat under the flickering light of the roadside lamp, wiping her streaming eyes as she tried to focus on the beleaguered, tattered shoe in her hand.

The wire she had wrapped around the toe came right out and fluttered to the ground. Slowly, as the pain swallowed her, at the loss of a love she had no right to, that was more like a poison than the elixr the story books promised-- as that madness and love bit into her heart and bled through her soul, Anika cried. Finally, weeks of torment, of longing poured out of her, tinged with the despair of a girl longing for a man who was as unattainable to her as the moon in the sky. The wind, the silent night and the little torn slipper bore mute witness to the cries of the shattered young girl sitting huddled, now silent, in the dirt, her proud, ravaged heart shattered before a loss too big to be borne.

In the distance, above the marble mansion she had left behind her forever, the last of the fireworks flamed into the night sky, and collapsed, showering sparks onto the guests below.

The wedding was over.