SS-Consequences, A Story of Brotherhood (RESTARTED AUGUST--STAY TUNED)

CONSEQUENCES:A TALE OF BROTHERHOOD

CHAPTER ONE: OMKARA

"Do you know how many Indian, under 10 males with hip dysplasia there are Om? Over 15,000. This was my last lead. Looking at patient charts on the National Disabled Data base for children. I have tracked them all. Sahil is not among them, Om. I know she would keep on his treatments wherever she went. So I bribed everyone I could think of, hired over 100 agencies to do the tracking. I went over all the pictures of the patients myself. 15,000 faces. I have nothing left, Om. No other clue, no other way of finding her. I've tried everything else. I can't find her. It's been over three months, and I cant go on, yaar. My chest hurts. I can't concentrate, I can't sleep, I keep feeling her pain, her tears. I reach for her, and I can't FIND HER. I need you, Om. Do you hate me so much that you won't help me live, mera bhai?"

The question brought Omkara out of his world of art, and into the real world he had been trying to avoid so desperately. But Om was nothing if not dedicated. When he was unhappy with the lie he had been tricked into throw flowers of blessing over, during that mockery of a wedding, he showed it. When he was furious at his brother, at the mess he had made of his own life, he showed it. And then, after Anika had left to safeguard her sanity, when he saw Shivaay was trying to get her back, Omkara had felt all consuming rage -- and he showed it. Omkara had withdrawn from his family. He had withdrawn from whatever drama Shivaay was cooking up back at Oberoi Mansions.

Until today, until this moment.

Om had not spoken to Shivaay for the past three months, ever since the day Anika had walked out of their life. Om had not gone to his brother's room, where the crashes of breaking furniture and sounds of rage and pain had come. He had not sat at the same table as everyone, where the family screamed and shouted as they tried to track their missing bride down. He had not spoken of hypocrisy to them--- that they wanted her back now when she had gone. Even though they had ignored her pain, when they'd had her right here, silent and miserable, for months.

He had not picked up his phone calls, where Pinky Aunty and even his father had left message after message. Telling him how his older brother was burning himself into ash, abandoning the business as he desperately trying to find her. That Omkara needed to come home, and keep Shivaay from losing his mind. Shivaay's crazed hammering on the door to his apartment here had gone unanswered. Unable to deal with the constant family drama as Shivaay turned Mumbai upside down in his attempts to bring back the woman he had wronged, Om had finally left the Mansion. He had packed his bags, ignored his mother, and moved here, to his Art Camp/Gallery.

He had not listened to Rudra's begging, to Soumya's rational arguments, to Prinku's tears or even to his Dadi's soft requests that he stay, that he help. He could not help. He would not help. He would not let these people get their hands on Anika again. He would not help Shivaay have another shot. another chance at repeating the crime he had committed -- despising her, questioning her purity. Asking her to prove her loyalty when out of all of them, Shivaay knew what she truly was, already. He would not sit back and watch as Shivaay threw away what she had given to him. He could no longer silently watch her in pain. No longer sit across from her every night at the dinner table, as she hid her wounds behind a smile that hurt him to look at. So he had not stayed, so he didn't have to see her husband's hatred. He had not been able to reconcile his love for Shivaay with his digust for Shivaay's actions.

Anika had run, finally, and she had been right to run. Om ran, too. He could not take it. He could not deal with the reality of the monster he was related to, who had shown such cruelty to a defenseless girl, because of his own beliefs. He had married her, had gotten caught in his own breath- takingly stupid plan. And, snarling like a beast in his own trap, Shivaay could not accept the fellow prisoner he had ensnared, right along with him. And when his beliefs were proved to be the hollow nonsense Om had always warned-- he didn't want to help Shivaay get his way again, at the expense of HER choice. She should be allowed to make one choice. Even if that choice was to leave her husband and escape from their family. From everyone who treated her like the road-side trash Shivaay had decided she was.

Unlike everyone else, Om was perhaps the most detached, as well as most sensitive to HER pain. It was hell, quite honestly. But love, the love for his blood ran deep. To be able to see both sides of this story, to feel the pain from both these bleeding hearts. With everyone else, all that they saw was Shivaay's desperation, his fierce longing for the woman he had married-- and immediately lost. But, along with the shame of having been so blind to what Shivaay was doing, right under his nose, Om felt disgust. For himself, mainly. Om was disgusted that some where, in some place deep inside, he still wanted his brother to get his happiness back.

Knowing, better than the others what desperation, wounded pride and loneliness was, knowing what Anika had gone through, until she had escaped. Knowing her pain, her right to escape what they'd all done to her, he STILL wanted her to be found by her husband. He wanted his brother, selfishly, totally without deserving it, to get HER back. So, shocked by his ability to be ruthless and uncaring when it actually came down to choosing the truth of the circumstances over the happiness of his family, Omkara had shut Shivaay out.

He had left so he could at least pretend he was taking the right side-- his Bhabi's side. If he could not help her-- well, at least Om would not help him. If Shivaay found her, by himself, so be it. Omkara's hands, at least, would not be stained with the crime of helping him track her down, when she didn't want to be found.

And so, tonight, as his brother had finally shown up at his gallery, and sat down across from him, Om had tried. He had tried SO hard to ignore Shivaay, waiting to hear the raging and screams he was used to, that the soft question had caught him by surprise. And in surprise, Omkara Singh Oberoi looked up, and saw Shivaay Singh Oberoi... for the first time in three months. Om allowed himself the luxury of looking at the man he should not have cared about. And the shock of Shivaay's appearance almost had him push his canvas and easel over, in his race to reach his brother's side before Shivaay collapsed heavily to the floor.

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Chapter Two: https://www.indiaforums.com/forum/ishqbaaaz/4756929/ss-consequences-a-story-of-brotherhood-restarted-august-stay-tuned?pn=4
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STORY INDEX, FEATURING BROTHERS *AND* SISTERS