Enough! - A DBO-IB SS Chap 5 Pg 11(24/06)

As Gauri in her Chulbul avatar lay on the floor where her clueless husband had pushed her in his hurry to go off playing detective with one of his so-called arch enemies, Svetlana (who'd suddenly become a team player and everything was fine and dandy with that), She realized it was all her fault. All of this... this mess that her life was in at the moment, rather, the mess her life had become for quite a long while now, was definitely her fault. No... this was not an emotionally compromised Gauri, the sanskari wife who was happy revering her husband from a distance, speaking.

For once, this was Gauri Kumari Sharma the original version, the strong, independent and carefree woman she'd been before one Omkara Singh Oberoi crashed into her life... the part of her that had been sitting quietly in a corner, waiting for the infatuated version of her to wake up and smell the coffee. The part of her that was done with all of this shit, that needed to make her understand that no matter how devoted and dedicated she was, it didn't matter if the person on the receiving end didn't even know or care about it. That if the sensible part of her didn't wake up and speak up today, she would be lost and there was no way Gauri Kumari Sharma would let herself lose that easily.

Carefully sitting up and inspecting herself for any bruises or other injuries from the fall other than the throbbing elbow she'd landed on, she slowly moved her aching body to lean against the pillar nearby, most of her mind still on the problem at hand. Her husband, the man who'd likened Gauri to Svetlana in a disgusted tone, called both of them cheap, grasping gold-diggers, the man who knew the she-devil had drugged him, tried to murder his family members so that she could gain the upper hand and blackmail him and his father at the same time, actually probably murdered some people to keep her secret hidden... despite knowing all of that, the man had just swanned off to god only knew where with the same witch in question, no back up plan in sight.

Just because Svetlana had come up to him and told him she wanted to help, he believed her? Was there no concept of a double cross in the Oberoi universe? Would he have believed her the same way had she revealed herself as Gauri... no questions asked, no proof required? Of course not... Mr. One-track-mind Oberoi was like a bull seeing red... only one of a short list of things existed in his mind at any given point of time - Anger at his father, Sadness and frustration about his mother, a combination of anger and frustration at having to bear the company of Svetlana and sheer hatred for her, Gauri Kumari Sharma.

As Chulbul, she'd heard from the other members of the family that Omkara had been a very different person some time back... very quiet, philosophical and caring... but since their first meeting, this was the man she'd seen, she'd come to know and by some godforsaken miracle, fall for. She was surely a masochist for liking a man who made no bones about hating her.

She'd begged him repeatedly, told him about the bloody alligator and still, he'd just pushed her aside like yesterday's garbage and walked off to join Ms. I-kill-people-for-fun for a sunny afternoon of chor-police. Granted, the alligator thing was a bit too filmi to believe, and she'd not made a very convincing argument, making up most everything on the fly, but she'd tried her best given her situation. The only other thing she could've done is revealed herself and that might've resulted in her being thrown off the first floor rather than just pushed aside and he would still have gone after the two older men.

No... this was not the time for those questions or the negative sounding answers that flooded her mind. Every second was necessary now, to find help, to do something, to assist Omkara in any way she could, to save his life from the evil she'd brought into their lives. Hurriedly, she made a call, convinced the person on the other side to listen to her and respond quickly, and sat back to wait. They would be there in less than a minute and Gauri needed the time to think things over. Not only was a plan to be made to save Omkara and his family, a plan also had to be made for their future... her future.

Gauri may have very well been a not so educated village belle from Bareilly who didn't speak fancy English or dress up in slinky clothes, put a ton of makeup on and sleep in iceboxes to preserve one's vanity. But she was proud of herself and what she had accomplished given the set of circumstances life had dealt her.

Gauri had never had a problem introducing herself as who she was, Gauri Kumari Sharma, paanchvi pass from Bareilly. It wasn't because she thought that passing 5^th grade was an achievement. She was intelligent enough to know that her qualifications made her fit for exactly zero jobs that paid anything. She introduced herself that way because it left no cause for resentment from the opposite party in most conversations and it let them underestimate her readily.

Gauri might not have had an academic pedigree to show, but she was very street smart and possessed a never say die attitude that had made her accomplish so much more than even her own understanding of her capability. And if there was one person who had never underestimated or discouraged her in the entire 23 long years she had spent on the planet, it was Gauri herself. Through all the twists and turns her life had taken, she managed to keep herself upright, cheerful and a generally positive person.

Gauri simply knew that her Shankarji would never let her, his favorite chiraiyya, down. Whether any divine intervention had ever happened in her life or not, this indestructible belief had led her to pick herself up when down and carry on. Even without her own knowledge, she had become her own manifestation of her favorite God. She prayed to the idol every day, spoke to it about all her troubles and then went on to fix everything herself.