Posted:
This is one of the best stories I have read in this forum ❤️. Your writing skills are superb. I would like to read all your works. Please provide links of your other works.
This is one of the best stories I have read in this forum ❤️. Your writing skills are superb. I would like to read all your works. Please provide links of your other works.
This is one of the best stories I have read in this forum ❤️. Your writing skills are superb. I would like to read all your works. Please provide links of your other works.
Thank you, Sister. Such kind remarks
DM me for links.
Very interesting ...Farhad the Cupid makes his entry
Hey when u like that rishab and prerna FF do let me know ..I for sure want to read it
Dear JalebiJane - Amazing updates. Re-Read all the chapters again😆
You write very well and I can visualize when reading which tells me what a great story teller you are👏
So so eagerly waiting for your next update.
Originally posted by: AnjuRish
Very interesting ...Farhad the Cupid makes his entry
Hey when u like that rishab and prerna FF do let me know ..I for sure want to read it
No problem. Could you FRIEND me? I usually notify through there.
Originally posted by: Vibrant_Ana
Dear JalebiJane - Amazing updates. Re-Read all the chapters again😆
You write very well and I can visualize when reading which tells me what a great story teller you are👏
So so eagerly waiting for your next update.
Thank you, Sister. What a lovely comment!
Simple wow...
I'm a fan of your narration... Haven't read your previous works but have read a lot on IF and can say it with certainty that your style of writing is something different... unique in a way that fills me envy and admiration at the same time...
This is about Raghvi but I feel you somewhere in there taking me ( I mean, your reader) like a guide on a tour... A virtual tour that felt more real and beautiful than anything I've seen in a long time..
I'm so glad we've you here with us... Though it's free but I'd have paid to read it despite being broke..
The chapter as usual was awesome... But left me wanting for so much more...
APRIL 8, 2021
EPISODE 6
No, Sisters, contrary to Raghav Rao’s prognostications, our Heroine was not laughing over her breakfast.
Quite the opposite.
Krishna had just asked her the question which had been plaguing Pallavi since her disastrous conversation with Raghav: Who was the woman who had accompanied her husband to the jeweller?
“I have no idea,” Pallavi replied, flicking away angry tears.
Raghav had referred to them as a ‘couple’ which indicated that there must have been something in their appearance and attitude which suggested sexual intimacy.
Well, at least she had been spared that betrayal. At least Mandhar had some decency—if decency was a word which could still be used in the same sentence with his name. He had taken everything she had to give—her heart, her trust, her inheritance—but he had not taken her body. She did not have to lie in that bed every night and regret his touch. The tears of anger now became tears of relief and flowed more copiously.
Krishna misunderstood the tears and ran to the other side of the kitchen table to take Pallavi's hands.
“How could I have been so stupid? So blind!” the younger girl cried.
This was a road she had taken often in the past year—and Pallavi tried yet again to stop the self-flagellation. She caught Krishna's gorgeous round face to quiet her.
But Krishna gripped Pallavi's wrists, and continued, “No, Didi, don’t—don’t exempt me from my responsibility. I worked with Bhai day-in-day-out. I was present when suppliers would call and demand payment. And Bhai would claim that sales were slow when the shop was busier than it had ever been. I ought to have told Baba something was not right. If I had spoken—then I could have spared you—”
“—Hush, Krishna. Look, I say this to you as well as myself—none of us are to blame. We were all victims of Mandhar’s duplicity.” Adding, “This was a meticulous plan carried out by a determined man over an entire year.”
When things are done in tiny increments, Sisters, it is difficult to see what is happening. Particularly when it is done by a person whom you trust.
Krishna refilled their teacups and said, “Well, whoever that woman is—she cannot be as beautiful as you, of that I am certain—and I hope she makes his life a misery. He will soon come to regret losing your love—”
Here Pallavi interrupted her. “—He was not interested in my love. He was interested in my inheritance. When I met Mandhar and he discovered I was orphaned, he asked how I had managed to survive. And like a naïve fool, I told him about the money my parents had left. But forget about what he did to me. He took a year of his own family’s profits! What kind of man enriches himself by impoverishing his own parents? Had he been able to mortgage the family house, I’ve no doubt he would have done that too. He had no scruples whatsoever.”
Krishna giggled, “—Bhai didn’t attempt to mortgage Deshmukh Niwas because he knew Sulochana Kaku would have pursued him to the gates of hell with a rolling pin.”
“And that would be the first time a rolling pin was ever seen in Kaku’s hands!” Pallavi laughed.
But with a sobering afterthought, she said, “If Kaku ever discovered what Mandhar has done, she would drive Aayi and Baba to the gates of hell. She would remind them every hour of every day that their son betrayed them. What’s more? She has absolutely no family feeling—she would tell the world too and thus Aayi and Baba would suffer public shame.” Absently stirring in another heaping teaspoon of sugar into her cup, she added, “I’ve recovered from Mandhar’s betrayal—but Aayi and Baba would not be able to survive it.”
Krishna said, “I know you refused thus far—but I really feel it is now time to tell them the entire truth.”
Pallavi parted her lips to protest, but Krishna insisted, “Wait! Listen to me, Didi—earlier you didn’t have evidence that Bhai embezzled shop profits. But after last night, you have Mr Rao’s statement that Bhai sold the ring after he left the house that night. This is enough to prove to Aayi and Baba that their son left by choice.”
Krishna and Pallavi had covered this ground before. But as Krishna believed that Raghav Rao’s testimony had changed matters, Pallavi had to show her that in essentials nothing had changed.
Pallavi asked, “Whom would the truth serve? Aayi and Baba believe Mandhar is dead. And—I don’t have any evidence to the contrary. They hired the best private investigators and nothing was discovered of him. Let them spend their remaining days in the comfort that their beloved son was taken from them rather than that he left them. If Mandhar decides to come back, then they can hear the truth from him. But they will never hear it from me.”
To redirect this conversation to a positive place, Pallavi added brightly, “And we are slowly recuperating the financial damage he wrought. In another year—maybe sooner if we go online—the shop will be in the black. Aayi and Baba will never know that the thirty-five year legacy of Deshmukh Saree Emporium had nearly been brought to the brink of extinction by their unworthy son.”
“But what of your legacy? Your inheritance? What of that? It was all you had left of your family—who will recompense that?” Krishna asked.
“Nobody,” Pallavi shrugged. “I trusted the wrong man and the price I paid for my fooolishness was my inheritance. An expensive lesson which I will never repeat.”
Krishna had a way of pointing out the bitter truth. “You won’t get the chance to repeat it. Without your fortune you will never again be pursued by a fortune-hunter.”
Pallavi sighed. “I suppose that is something to be grateful for.”
Krishna was shaking her head with marvel. “You are too good, Didi. And in this case, I don’t mean it as a compliment.”
Pallavi made a face, and said, “I agree. I’d rather be successful than good. Like Mr Rao.”
“You sound as though you admire him,” Krishna declared, her eyes rounding.
“I don’t admire him—I want to be him,” Pallavi said. “I’m sure he doesn’t wake up every morning worrying about how to pay the rent.”
“Do you miss the money you had?” Krishna asked, adding more jam to her toast than was reasonable.
“Yes! Desperately!” Pallavi laughed. “At the casino last night when I saw all that money being thrown away in games, it infuriated me. What I could do for Deshmukh Saree Emporium with a fraction of that capital!” She then added, “But now I have a family. And that is priceless to me.”
“Family is fine.” Krishna said, “but how is it serving you now? You’re enduring all this financial stress alone.”
Pallavi gave Krishna a playful slap. “Alone? When have you left me alone for a minute? Even when you disapprove of my actions—like last night—you have never left my side.”
And that was fact. Krishna was the true heroine in this tale.
After Mandhar’s disappearance, Baba had a heart attack. Aayi was either at the hospital or at the police station. All the responsibility of the shop had fallen on Pallavi’s shoulders. She was a girl fresh out of an elite college in Kohlapur with no real understanding of business. She knew nothing of sarees. She had never even worn a saree until her engagement to Mandhar.
But each morning, she had plaited her hair, draped on a saree, and gone to the shop—where Krishna had been waiting to wipe her tears and soothe her fears.
Krishna had been there that terrifying day when Pallavi discovered the shop had no operating cash and was drowning in overdraft. Krishna had been there when that horrid landlord Jagdish had come with his demands for rent, implying with his greasy winks that he would be happy to take favours in kind. Krishna had been there when the supplier had refused to provide stock.
How can one run a shop, pay debts, pay rent, without goods to sell?
And when Pallavi had the brilliant idea that she would use her inheritance money to keep Deshmukh Saree Emporium afloat, Krishna had been seated beside her when the bank manager told her that her inheritance was all gone. Mandhar had withdrawn it before the ink was dry on their marriage certificate.
Simple wow...
I'm a fan of your narration... Haven't read your previous works but have read a lot on IF and can say it with certainty that your style of writing is something different... unique in a way that fills me envy and admiration at the same time...
This is about Raghvi but I feel you somewhere in there taking me ( I mean, your reader) like a guide on a tour... A virtual tour that felt more real and beautiful than anything I've seen in a long time..
I'm so glad we've you here with us... Though it's free but I'd have paid to read it despite being broke..
The chapter as usual was awesome... But left me wanting for so much more...
Thank you, Sister. Writers are always told, write the story you want to read. So in many ways, my writing is a very selfish act. But when I receive a beautiful comment such as yours, I feel validated that someone shares my vision---and that sends me running to my desk to produce another episode. Thank you, again.
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