TuHir FF: Never Your Wife Again!! Ch: 13 on page 27: Green Tea & Petal - Page 21

Originally posted by: saloni_306

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M61NZJI6qIs In this video at 26:00 ... Lucky you.. was watching yesterday only

thank you. But can’t open the video, if you can tell me the episode no. Or better yet, simple write that one dialogue here please

Thank you Saloni ji!! You’re a life saver

Chapter 11: Kuch Raaz…Pyaar ke

-----

She came to the kitchen for water.

The jug on her desk had been empty — she had reached for it twice and found it empty twice, which said something about the state of the evening — and she had finally gotten up, in the quiet of the very late night, and come downstairs.

She filled the jug at the tap.

The kitchen was dark except for the small light above the stove that Kamla always left on — the particular amber of it, warm and low, the light of a kitchen that is resting rather than sleeping. She stood at the sink and she watched the water rising in the jug and she thought about the interview. Not the whole of it. Pieces of it. The way pieces of something keep returning when the mind hasn’t finished with them yet.

*She left because I gave her no other dignified option.*

The water rising.

*I noticed it the way you notice oxygen. She was simply there.*

The jug almost full.

*Our house. Our family.*

She turned the tap off. Stood for a moment with the full jug in her hands.

*She has earned that right completely. I am not in a position to have any opinions about how she responds to that.*

She turned to go back to her room. And then her eyes fell on it — the Eno sachet lying on the platform beside the stove, slightly crumpled, as if someone had picked it up and then set it down again with the intention of returning to it. She looked at it a second longer than necessary. Gayatri Chachi had mentioned acidity at dinner. Not complained — she never complained — just said it in passing, the way she said everything, expecting the house to absorb it and respond without fuss. Shobha must have forgotten.

She set the jug down. Picked up the sachet. Took a glass from the rack and filled it halfway with water. Then she turned toward the stairs.

-----

The house was very quiet — not silent, a house like this was never silent, but the particular layered quiet of many people asleep, doors closed, lights off, lives temporarily paused. She climbed slowly, without hurry, the way you move through a sleeping house at night when you don’t want to disturb its stillness.

At the landing she turned right, toward the chachis’ rooms. She did not look left. Mihir’s room was to the left. She did not look.

-----

Gayatri Chachi’s door was not fully closed. A thin line of lamplight at the edge. She walked up to it, the Eno sachet in one hand, the glass of water in the other, and raised her hand to knock.

And then she heard voices.

Low. Close. The kind that belong to a room that believes itself private.

Her hand lowered. She did not move away. She stood in the dim corridor light — and without deciding to, listened. She wasn’t prone to eavesdropping. But something made her stay.

Shobha’s voice came first. Low. Controlled. But not entirely steady.

Shobha: Pata nahi Baa. Abhi tak bahut restless the. Abhi dawa deke sulaake aayi hoon.

A pause.

Gayatri: Bhagwan kare subah tak theek ho jaaye.

Silence — not empty, but the kind that holds something in it. Something not yet said. Then Gayatri, softer:

Gayatri: Arre Shobha beta — kya hua?

A moment. And then the sound Tulsi had not expected — not words, but the quiet involuntary break in someone who had been holding themselves together for too long. Movement inside the room. Gayatri crossing to her.

Gayatri: Arre — Shobha.

Shobha tried to speak. Didn’t, the first time. Then:

Shobha: Baa — aaj unki haalat dekh ke — woh din yaad aa gaye. Woh darr. Unhe kho dene ka darr. Woh phir se aa gaya.

Gayatri held her. Let the silence be what it needed to be. Then, gently:

Gayatri: Chhe saal ho gaye, beta.

Shobha let out a breath that had been sitting somewhere in her chest for a long time.

Shobha: Haan Baa. Chhe saal ho gaye. Lekin kuch cheezein jaati nahi hain. Aapko yaad hai na — jab Mumma gayi thi. Do din.

Just that. Two words. Then:

Gayatri (with deep regret): Yahan ye sab ho raha tha aur main..

But Shobha, lost in her own memories and chain of thoughts, didn’t hear her.

Shobha: Do din tak unki condition — bahut bura tha Baa. Dr. Sharma ko dono din ghar bulana pada tha.

Tulsi’s gaze dropped to the floor for just a fraction of a second. Then came back up.

Gayatri: Haan. Aur uske baad bhi theek kahan hua sab. Baar baar.

Shobha: Manage ho jaata hai Baa. Ho hi jaata hai. Woh bahut ghut rahe hain. Main koshish karti hoon unse baat karne ki. Lekin kaun sa pitah apni beti ko yeh sab batata hai.

The words landed quietly. Without drama. Because they didn’t need it. A silence followed — the kind that comes when something true has been said and both people are standing inside it.

Then Gayatri — slowly, as if putting something together she had been approaching for a long time:

Gayatri: Pehle na Shobha beta — Mihir ko neend ka koi issue hi nahi tha. Ghar mein bachche rote the, cheekhte the — tum log chhote the — lekin uski neend kabhi nahi tutti. Itni gehri neend sota tha woh. Aur ab — pichhle kuch saalon se — zara si awaaz ho toh turant uth jaata hai. Ritik ya Pari ke bachche raat ko palat bhi jaayein — toh uski aankh khul jaati hai. Neend hi nahi aati usse theek se. Sone ki aadat chali gayi hai uski.

Outside in the corridor, Tulsi stood exactly where she had been. Her posture had not changed. The glass in her hand was still steady. The Eno sachet, slightly softened now, rested between her fingers. But something in her stillness had shifted — not outwardly, not in any way that could be seen. Just attention. Focused now. Completely.

Gayatri continued — not as someone recalling events, but as someone placing them one by one into a frame that made sense of them:

Gayatri: Pata hai beta — Tulsi bilkul sahi hai. Mandira ke baad Mihir se dobara rishta theek karna, aur Karan ko is tarah apnana ki aaj tak uski khud ki kokh se janme bachche bhi un dono ke rishte se jalte hain — yeh sab koi aur aurat nahi kar paati. Kam se kam main nahi jaanti kisi aur ko jiska itna bada dil ho. Aisi aurat ke saath… phir wahi dokha… Woh bhi uss waqt… Jab zindagi ke is mod par aadmi aur aurat dono yeh sochte hain ki ab zimmedaariyan dheere dheere kam ho rahi hain… ab bas saath baith ke, shaanti se, sukoon se… jo reh gaya hai woh jee lenge…​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

She stopped. The sentence didn’t need finishing.

Shobha: Main bhi yahi sochti hoon Baa. Aur papa ne bhi samajh liya hai — maan bhi liya hai. Woh kabhi nahi chahenge ki Mumma guilt ya darr ki wajah se wapas aaye. Kabhi nahi.

Gayatri: Toh Tulsi agar khud ko aur heartbreak se bacha rahi hai — bilkul sahi kar rahi hai. Lekin Shobha beta — ek ajeeb si vidambana bhi hai - Iss waqt Mihir ko sabse zyaada zarurat agar kisi ki hai — toh sirf Tulsi ki.

A pause.

Shobha: Baa… ek baat aur hai. Ab jab Mumma yahan hain… unki ghutan… aur badh gayi hai. Pichle chhe saal se… jinke liye itna tadpe… aaj woh saamne hain. Lekin… jee bharke dekh bhi nahi sakte. Baat karna toh door ki baat hai.

The words settled deeper than the ones before them. Not just explaining the past. Pointing to the present.

Then — Gayatri again, more quietly. Not the voice of analysis now. The voice of something that needed to be named:

Gayatri: Ab samajh aa raha hai Shobha beta — usne Noina ko itna kyun taunt karta tha. Hume kitna ajeeb Lagta tha na - woh toh tha uske saath — phir yeh naraazgi kyun, yeh rojana ke taane. Lekin naraazgi nahi thi. Dard tha. Ghutan thi. Kahin na kahin nikalna hi tha. Woh tha toh Noina ke saath — lekin tha toh hamesha Tulsi ka hi.

The sentence did not echo. It settled — into the room, into the corridor, into the space Tulsi was standing in without being seen.

Shobha did not speak immediately. When she did, it was soft. Certain.

Shobha: Noina chipki rahi Baa. Jitna Papa door jaate the — utna woh chipakti thi. Aur Papa — pichli galatiyon ka bojh itna tha — nikal nahi paaye.

Gayatri let out a slow breath. Not disagreement. Not resistance. Just absorbing the completeness of it.

Then, after a moment — quieter now, more practical, returning to what needed to be said:

Gayatri: Aur usne hum sab ko kasam di hai. Tulsi ko pata nahi chalna chahiye. Kuch bhi nahi.

Shobha: Haan.

One word. Carrying agreement, loyalty, and something beneath it she did not say out loud.

She moved before the conversation could settle further. Not abruptly — carefully, the way one steps away from something they were never meant to hear. Down the stairs, one step at a time, the old wood responding the way it always did — a slight sound here, a faint settling there — the familiar language of a house she knew well enough to move through without disturbing.

At the bottom she paused. The hallway stretched ahead of her, dimly lit. The Eno sachet still in her hand. The glass of water in the other. Both things suddenly irrelevant. She set them down on the side table without looking at where exactly they landed. Then she turned toward the dining room.

-----

She almost missed it.

The folder lay at the edge of the dining table — not misplaced, not forgotten entirely, just left the way something is set down in the middle of urgency with the quiet assumption that one will return to it. She slowed. Sat down in the nearest chair. Opened it.

Dr. Sharma’s handwriting. Precise. Even. The kind that did not betray haste — not even in situations that must have required it. Her eyes fell on the first entry. The latest one. Today’s date. Her fingers stilled — not visibly, just a brief interruption in movement. *BP elevated. Episode following exertion. Advised rest. Medication adjusted.*

She turned the page. Moved backward. One entry earlier. Then another. And then she stopped reading and began seeing.

Dates.

Her gaze moved — stopping, returning, stopping again. Not searching now. Recognising. The pattern arriving before she had consciously looked for it. She turned another page. And another. Year after year, in Dr. Sharma’s careful hand — the entries a little longer on certain days, the notes a little more concerned. She did not need to read the words. She needed only to see the dates.

She turned back to the beginning. Found the first entry. The date.

She looked at it for a long moment.

The day she had left. The day of Pari’s unfortunate wedding to Ranvijay!

She closed the file slowly. Rested her hands over it. This man — the fittest person she had ever known. The man whose body she had trusted the way you trust something that has never given you reason not to. Thirty-eight years of never worrying about his health because it had never required thought.

Six years of Dr. Sharma’s handwriting.

She sat for a long moment. The house unchanged around her. The night holding its silence the way it had been holding it all along. Only something within her was no longer arranged the same way it had been when she walked into this room.

Her gaze remained on the closed file.

*Kuch tareekhein shayad insaan bhool jaata hai,* she thought — without meaning to think it, without inviting it. *Lekin dil nahi.*

She got up. Set the file back exactly where she had found it. Went to the front door and opened it and stepped out into the February night.

The February night received her the way February nights do — cool, neither cold nor mild, the particular in-between quality of a season that hasn’t decided yet what it wants to be.

She walked without deciding where she was going. Just walked — across the lawn, past the old trees, the house behind her with its lit windows and its sleeping family and its closed doors. The garden was dark but not completely dark, the city’s ambient light filtering through the trees in the way it always did, enough to see by without quite being seen.

She had been walking for perhaps two minutes when she almost stopped.

The temple was in the far corner — she had not been consciously moving toward it, or had not known she was. It was simply there when she looked up. Small. Darker than the dark around it. The kind of thing you stop noticing when it has been a part of the landscape long enough.

She stood at the edge of the lawn and looked at it.

It had not been tended in years. Perhaps two decades. Since the family’s prayers had moved inside — to the grander mandir in the house, with its marble floors and its scheduled ceremonies — and this one had been left to the garden and the weather and the quiet of things that are no longer needed. The platform where the lamp used to burn was empty. The stone steps leading up to it were worn and unswept. A tree had grown close enough that one branch reached almost to the roof.

Her father had tended this temple for most of his adult life.

She had grown up in its shadow.

She stood looking at it for a moment longer.

Then she went in.

The idol was barely visible in the dark — stone, old, the features worn but still clear enough to be recognised. Dust on the shoulders. Dust on the platform beneath. The particular grey quality of something that has not been touched in a long time.

She didn’t decide to do anything.

Her hands simply moved.

The pujari’s daughter’s hands — knowing what to do in a temple the way they had always known, before thought, before decision, with the specific muscle memory of a childhood spent here in the early morning before the household woke. She took the edge of her saree and she began — slowly, carefully, the way her father had shown her — to clean the idol.

The dust came away in layers. Slowly. The stone emerging underneath — warm-toned even in the dark, the way old temple stone always was, as if it had absorbed decades of lamp-warmth and kept some of it.

Her hands moved and her mind went quiet.

Not empty — quiet. The specific quality of a mind that has been given something for the hands to do and has, for the first time in hours, been released from the obligation of managing itself.

-----

She thought about this temple as it had been.

The lamps. Both of them — the small one that burned all night and the larger one her father lit at dawn, the particular quality of oil-flame light that was unlike any other light, warm and unsteady and completely itself. Her father’s voice doing the morning aarti — not a trained voice, not a performed voice, just the voice of a man who had been saying these words every morning for thirty years and meant them simply and completely.

Baa coming to the temple in the early morning sometimes — before the rest of the family was up, before the household had assembled itself for the day. Sitting on the steps the way old women sit when they have earned the right to sit however they want. Saying nothing. Just present.

And then — the day that had made this temple something else entirely.

She thought about it the way she thought about things she had decided not to think about too often — carefully, from a slight distance, the way you handle something that still has the capacity to hurt if you grip it wrong.

Baa and Bapuji standing to one side. Bapuji’s hand on his walking stick. Baa’s face — that expression, the one she wore when things went the way she had quietly hoped they would go, the expression of a woman who had been patient long enough and was now watching her patience become real.

The cousins trying not to look too pleased with themselves.

Mihir’s face. On their wedding.

She had not let herself look at this memory directly in a long time. Had learned, across six years, to keep certain things in a place where they couldn’t be used against her. But here — in this temple, her hands moving, the dust of years coming away under the edge of her saree — it arrived the way memory arrives when the body is doing something familiar and the mind has finally, fully, stopped managing itself.

His face in this temple. The specific quality of it — not the composed public face, not the careful face, not any of the faces she had watched him wear across thirty-eight years of a life lived largely in public. Just his actual face. Looking at her. With the unguarded completeness of a man who has chosen something and is entirely at peace with the choice and needs no one’s approval of it.

She had trusted that face with her whole life.

She had been right to. And then she had been wrong to. And now she was sitting in the temple where it had all begun, cleaning dust from an idol with the edge of her saree at God knows what hour of the night, and she still did not entirely know what to do with either of those facts.

-----

She thought about the first meeting with a fully grown up Mihir the day he returned from abroad after completing his studies. The gulal that splashed on his face from the Pooja thali she was carrying. His words *Bachpan ke doston ko koi bhool sakta hai kya?* said to her when she expressed her surprise at his recognizing her after so long.

She thought about *kaash main Payal se nahi — Tulsi se shaadi kar raha hota.* Said to his cousins. The truth escaping before he could manage it — the way his truth had always escaped, in the unguarded moments, before the composure came back down. She had not been in the room. She had heard it secondhand. But she had known, when she heard it, that it was real — that it was the specific sound of something true arriving before it was ready to be said.

The engagement with Payal, later broken and then again rekindled due to family pressure. His proposing her while being re-engaged to Payal.

She thought about Baa. *Uski sirf sagaai hui hai, shadi nahi hui. Aur woh bhi apni marzi se nahi. Apni feelings dekh, beta. Sirf apni.*

She thought about the few days she had taken. Sitting with it. Turning it over. Asking herself the question Baa had told her to ask — not *what should I do* but *what do I feel.*

She had known what she felt. Had always known.

She thought about Savita’s voice — *She’s just a sophisticated maid* — and Payal’s carefully constructed apology, and the drawing room where she had bent over backwards to accommodate a girl who considered her beneath comparison. And Mihir watching both of them with the focused attention of a man who was studying something he needed to understand fully before he acted.

The trap he had set for Payal. The venom it released. The engagement broken — and then, under family pressure, half-restored — and then the truth escaping in a cousin’s room before he had fully understood it himself.

He had always seen clearly. That was the thing she had loved first and most.

She had trusted that clarity with her whole life.

And then — she thought about Noina.

Not the way she usually thought about Noina — carefully, from a distance, the information managed so it didn’t become something she couldn’t put back down. She let herself think about it directly, here in this temple, in the dark, with no one watching.

The comparisons. The specific, repeated, quietly devastating comparisons — the way he had looked at Noina and then back at her and let her see the comparison in his eyes. The disappointments he had shared with the wrong person. *Tumhari shaadi mein kuch nahi bacha* — said in her house, in her presence or near enough to it, and not stopped. Not answered. Not refused.

The man who once said about her wrinkles * ye jhuriyaan nahi hain mere haathon ki lakeeren hain* was suddenly appreciating the blemish-less, younger-looking face of another woman.

That was what she had left for. Not the bedroom scene — that had been the moment she could no longer pretend she hadn’t been seeing what she had been seeing for months. The bedroom scene was not the beginning. It was the end of her ability to absorb what had already been happening.

She had left because he had made her feel, slowly and not cruelly but completely, that she was not enough. That he had found someone more suitable to his new life — more sophisticated, more polished, more the kind of woman he had wanted. And instead of refusing that comparison, instead of saying *yeh meri Tulsi hai aur koi comparison nahi hoga* — he had let it live. Had let it grow. Had watered it with his silences and his shared disappointments until it had taken up residence in the house like a third person at every meal.

Her self-respect was the wound. It had always been the wound.

And then she thought about *No. It doesn’t warrant a word.*

The single syllable that had reduced six years of Noina’s presence — the staging, the comparisons, the *chipakna*, the *tumhari shaadi mein kuch nahi bacha* — to something that didn’t even deserve the dignity of engagement. Not *she’s a liar.* Not *she manipulated me.* Just — *it.* A thing. Not worth a word.

She sat with that for a moment.

Then she thought about the file.

The dates. The pattern. The first entry — the day she had left, the day of Pari’s wedding, the day everything had broken simultaneously and beyond repair.

This man — the fittest person she had ever known — marking her absence in his body year after year on the days that had always belonged to her.

She had been carrying her own suffering for six years. She had been so occupied with it — with the building of Bandhej, with the reconstruction of herself, with the enormous work of becoming someone who did not require his presence to stand upright — that she had not fully reckoned with the possibility that he had been carrying his too. In different ways. In a failing body and a house that wasn’t alive and six years of Dr. Sharma’s careful handwriting.

She was not excusing it. She was not collapsing the distance between his failure and his suffering. Both were real. They did not cancel each other out.

But she was sitting with both of them. For the first time. Without managing the distance between them.

-----

Her hands had stilled at some point without her noticing.

She looked at the idol. Cleaner than it had been — not clean, not the way her father had kept it, but cleaner. The stone visible. The features clear. Something restored, however partially.

She sat back on her heels.

The temple around her — her father’s temple, her wedding temple, the place where the story had begun — was still in the way of very old places that have been left alone long enough to become themselves again. No ceremony. No performance. Just stone and dark and the particular quality of a space that has been sacred and remembers it even when no one comes anymore.

She thought about the kasam.

*Tulsi ko pata nahi chalna chahiye. Kuch bhi nahi.*

He had looked at his own failing health and thought — not *tell her, use this, let this be the thing that brings her back* — but *she must not know. She must choose freely or not at all.* He had protected her freedom to choose at the cost of her knowing what the choice was costing him.

That was not the man who had made her feel insufficient. That was not the man who had looked at Noina and let the comparison live in the air.

That was the man who had stood in this temple forty-four years ago with his actual face showing.

She did not know yet if those two men could be reconciled into one person she could trust again. She was not there yet. She might not get there. She had told him as much — *lekin tumhari patni banke nahi. Kabhi nahi* — and she had meant it as a possibility, not a threat.

But she was sitting in this temple at whatever hour this was, and she was thinking about both of those men, and she was not bracing against either of them.

That was new.

That was, she thought — carefully, without committing to it — something.

She stayed a little while longer. Not thinking. Just sitting. The idol in front of her, cleaner than it had been. The garden dark and quiet around her. The house behind her with its sleeping family.

Then she got up. Her knees were stiff from the stone floor. She stood for a moment, adjusting.

She looked at the idol once more.

Then she walked back toward the house.

She went back inside.

The front door closed behind her with the particular soft click of a door handled carefully in a sleeping house. She stood in the hallway for a moment — the dark around her, the quiet, the familiar smell of Shantiniketan at this hour, old wood and incense and the particular quality of a house that has been inhabited for a very long time by people who loved it.

She looked at the staircase.

Then she went to her room. Closed the door. Changed out of her saree — the edge of it still carrying the faint dust of the temple, the particular grey of something long untended — and got into bed.

She did not sleep for a long time.

But she lay in the dark without bracing against anything, which was different from the last several hundred nights, and eventually — somewhere in the very early hours of February 3rd — sleep arrived anyway.

She was up at five.

Her body knew its routine regardless of what the mind had been doing. She freshened up. Went to Baa’s prayer corner and lit the dhoop — the small morning ritual that had been hers since she came back, the particular smell of it filling the room the way it had filled this room for as long as she could remember. She stood for a moment with her eyes closed and then opened them and went to the kitchen to make her chai.

She brought it to the dining table. Sat down.

The house was completely quiet around her. The February morning still dark outside — that specific pre-dawn dark that is different from the dark of the middle of the night, carrying in it the knowledge that light is coming even if it hasn’t arrived yet.

She sat with her chai and she did not think about anything in particular. Or rather — she thought about everything and nothing simultaneously, the way you do after a night that has rearranged something, when the mind is still finding where the furniture has been moved to and hasn’t yet decided whether it approves.

She thought about the corridor. The file. The temple. The idol emerging from the dust under the edge of her saree. The kasam. *Tulsi ko pata nahi chalna chahiye.*

And underneath all of it, quiet and persistent, a thought she had been having since she woke:

*Woh kaisa hai.*

How is he.

She didn’t do anything with this thought. She simply had it. Several times. In the dark of the early morning, with both hands around her cup, the dhoop still faintly present in the air.

The sky outside began, very slowly, to lighten.

At seven the family started coming down.

She heard them before she saw them — the particular sounds of the upper floor waking, doors, footsteps, the specific quality of movement that was not quite the usual morning movement. Too careful. Too coordinated. The sound of people who have somewhere they need to be and something they need to manage before they get there.

Ritik came down first. Then Angad. Then Shobha — and something in the way Shobha appeared at the bottom of the stairs, the specific set of her face, told Tulsi that whatever had been restless upstairs through the night had not resolved by morning.

They gathered in the dining room — not sitting, not settled, the particular standing arrangement of people who are in the middle of deciding something. They were looking at each other in the way of people who need to speak and are trying to establish who speaks first and what exactly gets said.

Tulsi picked up her cup. Stood.

Tulsi: Main Kamla ki thodi help kar deti hoon chai coffee ke liye.

She went to the kitchen.

-----

The stove was at the far end. Kamla was already there — moving between the chai decoction and the coffee, the particular efficient rhythm of someone who has been doing this in this kitchen for a very long time. She looked up when Tulsi came in, read her face, and moved slightly to make room without being asked.

Tulsi went to the counter nearest the dining room wall. Picked up her phone. Looked at it without seeing it.

And listened.

She was not proud of it. She was also not going to pretend she wasn’t doing it.

In the dining room, voices — low, careful, the specific register of people who don’t want to be overheard and are not entirely sure they aren’t:

Ritik: Dr. Sharma ko bulana padega. Aaj hi.

Angad: Haan. Lekin bahar press waale hain. Agar unki car aayi toh—

Ritik: Hum apni car mein le aayenge unhe. Quietly. Lekin Maa ke jaane ke baad. Jab tak woh yahan hain—

A pause. The specific pause of people doing a calculation they don’t want to do out loud.

Then Shobha’s voice — coming from the bottom of the stairs, not the dining room, which meant she had just come down:

Shobha: Hum wait nahi kar sakte. Abhi bahut restless hain woh. Abhi bulana padega.

Silence. The calculation changing in real time.

-----

She set her phone down on the counter.

Pari, she thought. Today was Pari’s first day at Bandhej. She had told Vaishnavi yesterday. The morning shift — seven thirty to two thirty. Everything was already arranged.

She went to the doorway between the kitchen and the dining room.

The family looked up.

Tulsi *(to Pari, entirely naturally)*: Pari — taiyaar ho? Aaj tera pehla din hai. Hum saath chalenge — main bhi Bandhej jaana chahti hoon aaj thoda pehle. Tujhe settle bhi karna hai aur Kuch check bhi karna hai.

Pari looked at her mother. One second — just one — in which something moved across her face. Her eyes went briefly upward, toward the floor above, where her father was. Then back to her mother’s face.

She read what she found there.

Pari: Haan Mumma. Bas do minute.

She went upstairs to get her things.

In the dining room, Ritik and Angad looked at each other. Then at Shobha. The calculation had resolved itself without anyone having to say the resolving word.

Angad: Main Dr. Sharma ko call karta hoon.

Tulsi had already turned back toward the kitchen.

-----

She used the family car for the first time since returning.

She had been taking autos since she came back — deliberately, the way all her choices since returning had been deliberate, maintaining her own separateness, her own independence from the Virani infrastructure. The auto had been hers. Her choice. Her route.

This morning she got into the passenger seat beside Pari without comment. Pari adjusted the mirror. Started the engine.

The gate opened.

The press outside stirred immediately — cameras lifting, figures straightening, a vehicle pulling out to follow as the family car turned into the lane. Tulsi watched it in the side mirror. The security car behind them. The press vehicle behind that. All of them moving in the same direction — toward Bandhej, toward the factory, away from Shantiniketan.

The gate closed behind them.

Inside, Angad would be watching from a window. Watching the lane clear. Waiting for the right moment.

She looked away from the mirror.

Neither she nor Pari said anything. Pari drove with the particular focused attention of someone who has just understood something and is processing it quietly while keeping her eyes on the road. The February morning moved past the windows — the city waking up around them, the light still finding its level, the day not yet decided.

Tulsi looked at it.

They drove in silence for a few minutes — the press vehicle behind them, the security car between, the city opening up around them in the particular way of early morning Mumbai.

Then Tulsi spoke. Not looking at Pari. Looking ahead at the road.

Tulsi: Pari.

Pari: Haan Mumma.

Tulsi: Main jaanti hoon aaj concentrate karna mushkil hoga.

A beat. Pari’s hands tightened slightly on the wheel — the specific tension of someone who thinks they are about to be asked about something they are not ready to discuss.

Tulsi: Garima ko chhod ke aayi ho na ghar pe.

Pari exhaled. Almost imperceptibly. Her hands loosened.

Pari: Haan Mumma. Woh so rahi thi abhi tak.

Tulsi: Haan. Aise hi hota hai pehle pehle. Baaki bhi aisa hi feel karenge — kuch unka kuch tumhara. Lekin ek baat yaad rakhna —

She paused. Still not looking at Pari. Still looking at the road ahead.

Tulsi: Jab bahar kaam pe jaate hain — toh ghar ke masle ghar pe hi rehne chahiye. Kaam pe kaam. Warna dono jagah ka nuksaan hota hai.

Pari was quiet for a moment.

Pari: Ji Mumma.

Tulsi: Bandhej mein aaj se tum sirf Paridhi ho. Wahan koi tumse yeh nahi poochega ki tum kaun ho ya kahan se aayi ho. Kaam bolega.

The city moved past the windows. The press vehicle was still behind them, a steady presence in the mirror.

Pari: Mumma —

Tulsi: Haan.

Pari: Thank you.

Tulsi looked at her then — briefly, the quick sideways look of a woman who doesn’t make a production of things.

Then she looked back at the road.

Tulsi: Dhyan se chalao.

-----

The factory arrived the way it always arrived — first as sound, then as smell, then as the particular quality of light through the high windows that Tulsi had learned to read the way she read everything, for information about what the day was going to require.

She got out of the car. Pari beside her, bag on her shoulder.

At the entrance Tulsi stopped.

Tulsi: Bag wahan rakh do.

She indicated the row of hooks near the door — the workers’ hooks, the ones that had always been there, the ones that held the same kind of bags every morning. Cotton. Canvas. Worn at the handles. The particular honest shabbiness of things that are used daily by people for whom use is the point.

Pari looked at the hooks. Then at her own bag — the leather of it, the brass hardware, the kind of bag that announced itself without meaning to. Then she hung it there, among the others, without a word. The contrast not commented upon by either of them. Not needing to be.

They went in.

-----

The floor was already in the particular focused state of early morning work — frames occupied, hands moving, the low steady sound of skilled people doing skilled things. Heads turned when Tulsi came in, the way they always did, and then returned to their work, the way they always did.

Except one.

Sushila was at the third frame from the left — she was always at the third frame from the left in the morning shift, had been for years, and would be there again in the afternoon shift, because Sushila was simply that kind of worker. She looked up when Tulsi entered. Then her eyes moved to Pari.

Her face did what faces do when they recognise someone they weren’t expecting.

Sushila: Didi —

Tulsi: Paridhi.

The correction came quietly. Without harshness. But completely.

Sushila blinked.

Tulsi: Yahan woh Paridhi hain. Nayi worker. Bas Paridhi. Samjhi?

A beat. Sushila absorbing this — the specific adjustment of someone recalibrating something they had assumed.

Tulsi: Paridhi —

Pari turned.

Tulsi: Yeh Sushila didi hain. Dono shifts karti hain. Sabse pehle aati hain, sabse baad mein jaati hain. Inse seekhna. Aaj se yeh tumhari senior hain.

Pari looked at Sushila. Then back at her mother. The *didi* of it landing clearly — she was being asked to address a factory worker as senior, as *didi,* which meant she understood exactly what that required of her.

Pari: Ji mumm—

She stopped. Looked at Tulsi’s face. Read it.

Pari: Ji madam. Sushila didi — namaste.

Something shifted in Sushila’s expression. Not quite a smile. The particular expression of someone who has just understood something unexpected and is deciding how to hold it.

Tulsi: Sushila — aaj se Paridhi tumhare saath rahegi. Jo bhi kaam tum karti ho — woh sikhao. Shuru se. Bilkul shuru se.

Sushila: Ji Kaki.

Tulsi turned toward her cabin.

-----

She had taken perhaps five steps when she heard the quick light footsteps behind her. She stopped. Turned.

Sushila stood there — hands together, the specific posture of someone who has a concern and is not entirely sure she has been given the right to express it.

Tulsi waited.

Sushila: Kaki — woh. Paridhi — matlab — aapki —

Tulsi: Haan.

A beat.

Sushila: Toh main — agar kuch galat kare toh —

Tulsi: Toh tum wahi karogi jo kisi bhi nayi ladki ke saath karti ho.

Sushila looked at her steadily.

Tulsi: Koi farq nahi hai. Samjhi?

Sushila: Ji Kaki.

She still hadn’t moved. The concern not quite resolved. Tulsi waited.

Sushila: Matlab — daantna bhi pade toh —

Tulsi: Toh daantna. Theek hai?

The particular nod of someone who has been given permission they weren’t sure they’d receive.

Tulsi: Jao ab.

Sushila went.

Tulsi went to her cabin. Closed the door. Sat down at her desk.

Outside through the glass partition she could see the floor — Sushila already back at her frame, Pari standing beside her, the branded bag hanging among the worn ones near the door.

She opened the first file on her desk.

-----

The knock came at two thirty-six.

She knew it was Pari before she looked up — the particular quality of the knock, tentative and deliberate simultaneously, the knock of someone who has been taught to announce themselves at doors and is doing it correctly for the first time in a professional context.

Tulsi: Aao.

The door opened. Pari stood in the frame.

She looked tired — the specific tiredness of a first day, the kind that lives in the shoulders and the feet and the particular way the face holds itself when it has been concentrating for six hours straight. Her hair was slightly less perfect than it had been at seven thirty. There was a faint mark on her kameez that might have been dye.

But her eyes were doing something Tulsi recognised — had not seen in her daughter’s face in a very long time. The particular quality of someone who has done something for the first time that required more of them than they knew they had, and has discovered that they had it.

Pari: Ghar jaa rahi hoon. Aap bhi chaloge mum — I mean Madam?

Tulsi looked up. Something in her face shifted — not a smile exactly, but the softening that comes before one.

Tulsi: Yahan madam bolne ki zaroorat nahi. Koi nahi hai yahan.

Pari exhaled slightly. The professional posture releasing a little.

Tulsi: Tum jao. Main baad mein aaungi. Angad ya Ritik ko call kar loongi jab jaana hoga.

Pari nodded. Started to turn. Then stopped.

Tulsi: Kaisa raha aaj?

Pari was quiet for a moment. Looking at her hands — the faint trace of something on them, the honest evidence of a day spent near the work rather than above it.

Pari: Bahut kuch seekhna hai. Pata nahi seekh bhi paaoongi ya nahi.

Tulsi looked at her daughter. At the tiredness and the shining in her face simultaneously.

Tulsi: Time do. Aur apne best efforts do. Seekh jaogi.

Pari looked at her for a moment. Then nodded — not the professional nod of a new worker, just her daughter’s nod, the one that meant she had heard and was holding it.

Pari: Achha Mumma. Main jaati hoon.

She closed the door behind her.

Tulsi sat for a moment with the closed door in front of her. Then she picked up her pen and went back to work.

-----

She had been staring at the same page for twenty minutes when she heard the knock.

Not Pari’s knock — different. The particular knock of someone who has been to this cabin before and knows it well enough to knock with familiarity.

Tulsi: Aao.

Ritik opened the door. He had a tiffin carrier in one hand and the slightly guilty expression of someone who knows they are late and has been rehearsing their explanation on the way.

Ritik: Sorry Maa — aaj thoda late ho gaya. Kuch kaam aa gaya tha.

He set the tiffin on her desk. She looked at it. Then at him.

He looked — fine. Tired perhaps, the specific tiredness of a difficult morning, but fine. Composed. The particular composure of someone whose crisis has been managed and is now behind them.

Or was that what she was reading into it? She wasn’t sure.

Tulsi: Baitha.

Ritik sat in the chair across from her. She opened the tiffin — Kamla’s cooking, the familiar smell of it, dal and roti and something with jeera that she recognised without looking.

She ate. He sat. The particular comfortable silence of a mother and son who have always been able to occupy the same space without filling it unnecessarily.

Then — carefully, without looking up from the tiffin:

Tulsi: Ghar pe sab theek hai?

Ritik: Haan Maa. Sab theek hai.

A beat.

Tulsi: Angad bhi theek hai?

Ritik: Haan.

Tulsi: Aur baaki sab?

Ritik: Sab theek hain Maa.

She looked up then. At his face — her son’s face, the transparent one, the one that had always let things out before he’d decided to let them out. It was entirely composed. Giving her nothing.

She looked back down at the tiffin.

*Hum almost late ho gaye the Maa* — he had said that in the car yesterday evening without being able to stop himself. Today he was apparently able to stop himself. She did not push further.

Ritik stayed for a few minutes — talking about nothing in particular, the kind of conversation that fills time pleasantly without going anywhere — and then stood, said he had to get back, and left.

The cabin door closed.

She sat with the half-finished tiffin in front of her. She tried to go back to the files.

She managed perhaps ten minutes before she picked up her phone.

Kamla answered on the third ring — the particular slightly breathless answer of someone who had been doing something and put it down quickly when the phone rang.

Kamla: Ji madam ji.

Tulsi: Kamla — sab theek hai wahan?

Kamla: Ji ji — bilkul theek. Bacche abhi soye hain, dopahar ki neend le rahe hain. Khana bhi sab ne kha liya.

Tulsi: Achha. Sabne kha liya?

Kamla: Haan ji. Angad bhaiya ne bhi, Shobha didi ne bhi — sab ne.

A small pause. Then Kamla, in the particular way of someone who is reporting completely and doesn’t think of anything as separately significant:

Kamla: Sahab bhi neeche aaye the thodi der ke liye. Maine khana diya unhe. Thoda hi khaaya lekin —

She kept talking. Something about the dal being slightly thin today, and whether madam ji wanted her to make something specific for dinner.

Tulsi heard none of it.

*Sahab bhi neeche aaye the.*

He had come down. On his own. Which meant he was upright. Which meant the morning’s crisis had been managed. Which meant Dr. Sharma had come and done what needed doing and Mihir was — not well perhaps, but not worse.

She realised she had been holding something in her chest since five in the morning without fully acknowledging she was holding it.

She let it go.

Kamla: Madam ji? Madam ji, aap sun rahi hain?

Tulsi: Haan Kamla. Haan — jo theek lage woh bana lena dinner mein. Thank you.

She ended the call. Set the phone down.

She realized it all at once — the tiredness arriving not gradually but suddenly, the way it does when you have been running on something other than rest and that something has finally run out. She looked at the time. Nearly three thirty.

She picked up her phone and called Ritik.

He answered immediately.

Ritik: Maa?

Tulsi: Tum abhi factory mein ho?

Ritik: Haan — infrastructure checks kar raha hoon. Kuch kaam bacha tha.

Tulsi: Ghar kab jaoge?

Ritik: Bas Aadhe ghante mein. Zyaada nahi.

Tulsi: Toh mujhe bhi saath le jaana.

A small pause — the pause of a son who had not expected this and is quietly pleased by it.

Ritik: Haan Maa. Main aata hoon upar.

-----

They had been driving for perhaps ten minutes — the city moving past the windows, the security car at its distance behind them — when Ritik spoke.

Ritik: Maa — ek baat karni thi.

Tulsi: Haan.

Ritik: Mitali ke baare mein.

A beat. Tulsi looked ahead at the road.

Ritik: Woh Noina ko information de rahi thi. Household expenses, Kamla ki salary — yeh sab bahar nahi jaana chahiye tha. Lekin gaya. Aur sirf Wohi thi jo jaanti thi.

He said it without anger. Just the flat, careful statement of someone who has been sitting with a conclusion long enough that the emotion has gone out of it and only the fact remains.

Tulsi: Haan.

Ritik: Toh — usse yahan nahi rehna chahiye. Abhi nahi. Jab tak yeh sab —

He stopped himself. Rephrased.

Ritik: Main nahi chahta ki woh yahan rahe, Maa.

The car moved through a signal. Red. They stopped.

Tulsi was quiet for a moment — the specific quality of her quiet when she was thinking rather than processing, when the conclusion hadn’t arrived yet and she was still turning things over.

Then:

Tulsi: Thoda waqt do mujhe.

Ritik: Kitna waqt? Woh —

Tulsi: Ritik.

He stopped.

Tulsi: Main sun rahi hoon tum kya keh rahe ho. Aur tum galat nahi ho. Lekin yeh decision seedha nahi hai. Timsy hai. Tumhari shaadi hai. Aur —

She paused. Something she wasn’t ready to say yet.

Tulsi: Bas thoda waqt do. Main sochungi.

The signal turned green. Ritik drove.

He didn’t push further. She had said *main sochungi* in the specific way she said things she meant — not to delay, not to avoid, but because she was genuinely going to think and he knew the difference.

They drove the rest of the way in silence.

The gate opened. The car came up the path. She got out.

At the front door she paused — just for a moment, just briefly — and looked up. The first floor. His room. The window, curtained, a faint light behind it.

Then she went inside.

She meant to change. She meant to sit with Baa’s photograph for a few minutes the way she always did when she came home. She meant to check on the children.

She sat on the edge of the bed.

And woke up to the sound of Kamla outside her door.

Kamla *(softly, knocking)*: Madam ji — khana lag gaya hai.

-----

She sat up. The room was dark except for the light under the door. She looked at the time — she had slept for over two hours without meaning to, without knowing she was going to, the sleep of a body that had simply taken what it needed without asking permission.

She straightened her saree. Ran a hand over her hair. Stood up.

She felt — not rested exactly, but different. The specific quality of someone who has put something down briefly and picked it back up, and found it slightly lighter than before.

She freshened up and went to dinner.

-----

She was almost the last one to the table.

The children were already seated — all four of them, the particular post-nap energy of small people who have slept in the afternoon and are now fully operational and requesting things. Vrinda was managing Akshay and Madhvi. Angad was pouring water. Shobha was helping Timsy with her chair. Gayatri Chachi and Daksha chachi were already in their places, the conversation already moving in the way of a table that has been assembling itself for a few minutes and found its rhythm.

She took her chair.

He was already there. At the far end of the table. In his place.

Twenty-three days of the same arrangement — him at one end, her at the other, the family between them, the careful distance maintained without ever being named. She knew this arrangement the way she knew the sound of his footsteps on the stairs — by now it was simply part of the texture of being in this house.

But today was different from the twenty-three days before it in one specific way.

She had not seen him since yesterday’s breakfast. The day of the media storm, the newspapers, the morning that had broken everything open. He had not come to dinner last night. She had been at Bandhej all day today. Twenty-three days of the same table and yesterday and today had created a gap — small, unremarkable to anyone watching, but present.

She was aware of it. She suspected he was too. Neither of them gave any indication of either thing.

She reached for the water jug. Filled her glass. Set it down.

-----

The meal moved the way meals moved in this house — around the children primarily, their demands and their negotiations and their particular talent for filling whatever space was available with noise and appetite. Garima wanted more roti. Akshay and Timsy were in a disagreement that had apparently begun before dinner and had not yet resolved. Madhvi was watching the adults with her usual careful attention.

The adults ate. Talked about small things. The ordinary commerce of a family at the end of a day.

She did not look at him directly. She did not need to. Twenty-three days of careful peripheral management had given her a precise map of him at this table. She knew how he sat. She knew the specific quality of his attention when he was listening versus when he was simply present.

He was present tonight — the contained, careful presence of the last twenty-three days. But she was also reading, without intending to, the particular quality of a man who had been unwell and was now upright again and was carrying that fact quietly. The specific effort of someone who is functioning on slightly less than full reserve and is not going to let it show.

*Sahab bhi neeche aaye the.* Kamla’s voice from the afternoon.

He had come down. He was here. That was enough.

She reached for the roti. Moved on.

-----

She helped Kamla in the kitchen after.

The particular quiet of a kitchen being put to rest for the night — dishes stacked, surfaces wiped, the small rhythmic work of two women who have done this together enough times that it requires no direction. Kamla moved. She moved. The kitchen settled around them.

The family dispersed — the children taken up to bed, voices fading room by room, the house finding its nighttime register. She heard footsteps on the stairs. Doors. The particular sounds of a large household making its way toward sleep.

She said goodnight to Kamla. Went to her room.

Closed the door.

Sat on the edge of the bed.

The house was quieting around her — the sounds diminishing one by one until there was only the low ambience of the city outside and the settling of old walls. She sat with it. Not thinking in any directed way. Just sitting.

She was listening for his footsteps.

She did not examine this. She simply sat and after some time — she couldn’t have said how long — she heard them. The particular weight of his step on the staircase. The rhythm of it. The sound she had been hearing every night for twenty-three days from this room without acknowledging that she was hearing it.

The pause.

The midpoint of the staircase. As always.

She stood. Opened her door.

The hallway was dim. She could see the staircase from her doorway — his figure on it, his hand on the banister, his face turned slightly downward the way it always was when he stood here at night.

She kept her voice soft. Just loud enough.

Tulsi: Zara yahan aana.

He went very still. Was he dreaming? Then, very slowly turned on the stairs.

She led him to the balcony.

The small balcony off the ground floor corridor — the one that looked out over the back garden. The February night air was cool around them. Below, the garden was dark and quiet. In the far corner, barely visible, the darker shape of the temple against the darkness.

She did not look at him immediately. She looked at the garden.

Then:

Tulsi: Agar chaho toh — kal subah se roz chhe baje — chai par aa jaana. Yahin.

Silence.

He was very still beside her. She could feel it without looking — the specific quality of his stillness when something had arrived that he hadn’t expected and was receiving carefully.

Then:

Mihir: Yeh — kal ki wajah se toh nahi kar rahi?

She looked at him then. The direct look, unmanaged.

Tulsi: Nahin. Kal kuch cheezon se thodi dhool saaf hui. Kuch badla nahi.

He held her gaze for a moment. Then, quietly — not pushing, not pressing, but needing to be sure:

Mihir: Koi bhi pressure nahi. Koi bhi obligation nahi. Tulsi — agar nahi karna toh mat karo. Kuch bhi mat karo jo tum khud nahi chahti.

She looked at him. At his face — the particular expression of a man who is actively, deliberately, at considerable cost to himself, giving her the exit.

Tulsi: Main jaanti hoon.

A beat. The garden below. The February night around them.

Tulsi: Lekin yeh sirf chai hai. Isse zyaada ke liye main taiyaar nahi hoon. Shayad kabhi nahi houngi.

He nodded. Simply. Completely. Without making it anything other than what it was — acceptance, full and without condition.

Then she spoke again — carefully, as if she was finding the words as she said them:

Tulsi: Sab log saat baje se neeche aane lagte hain toh hum —

She stopped.

A small pause — barely a second, barely visible. But she had heard it. *Hum.* The word arriving before she had decided to use it, the way certain words arrive before they have been approved.

She continued, without acknowledging the pause:

Tulsi: Sirf paune saat tak. Main nahi chahti kisi ko pata chale. Unki expectations — main handle nahi kar paaoongi.

Mihir (quietly): Main dhyaan rakhoonga.

She looked at him once more — briefly, the look of someone confirming something they needed to confirm — and then turned and went back inside.

-----

He stayed on the balcony.

Two minutes. Perhaps three.

The garden below. The February night. The temple in its corner, darker than the dark.

He stood with his hands on the railing and he told himself — clearly, firmly, in the specific internal voice he had been using for twenty-three days to manage himself — *yeh chai hai. Sirf chai. Kal subah chhe baje. Sirf chai.*

He told himself not to let hope seep in.

He failed.

It arrived anyway — quietly, without permission, the way it had been arriving in small increments for twenty-three days, except tonight it arrived differently. Not as the careful, managed, deliberately unnamed thing he had been carrying. As something that had a shape now. A time. *Chhe baje. Kal. Roz.*

He stood with it for another minute.

Then he went back inside and climbed the stairs.

And there was — he was not aware of it, or was aware of it and did not care — something in his step that had not been there when he came down. Not dramatic. Not visible to anyone who might have been watching. Just the almost imperceptible difference between a man going up stairs and a man going up stairs with something in his chest that has changed its weight.

He went up.

I remembered the old classic.

Na main tumse koyi ummeed rakhun dilnawazi ki

Na tum meri taraf dekho galat andaz nazron se

Na mere dil ki dhadkan ladkhadaye meri baton se

Na zahir ho tumhari kashmakash ka raz nazron se

Chalo ek baar phir se, Ajnabi ban jayein hum dono..

Originally posted by: bpatil3

I remembered the old classic.

Na main tumse koyi ummeed rakhun dilnawazi ki

Na tum meri taraf dekho galat andaz nazron se

Na mere dil ki dhadkan ladkhadaye meri baton se

Na zahir ho tumhari kashmakash ka raz nazron se

Chalo ek baar phir se, Ajnabi ban jayein hum dono..

hey that’s one of my all time faves too! I also love the other one from the same movie- Aap aaye toh khayal-e-dil-e…

Kuch Raaz.. Pyar ke..

Chupana kitna mushkil hai insan k liye? Life is nothing like picture perfect, the Virani house displaying the picture perfect around Tulsi, anyone can catch easily, especially the woman who lived in that house for 38years of life and the kids whom she raised, she can easily pick it up a slight change in it.

Ok the opening dhamakedaar, Tulsi ko Chachi ke yha jaana tha, but she heard something important, she was shaken by the news( kitne dramebaaz ho writer, Ekta maiyya ki competitor😂), Shobha n Chachi ki baatein, so Mihir had serious anxiety attack and BP issue , and he was on medication constantly. She cannot hold anymore, she lived all her life for this man and his wellbeing. She drifted to the hallway side table to read the prescription and the medical history, just like that, is it panic or concern.??

Anyways, she had to know the unknown, 6years she led a life alone, single handedly, she yearn for him, family, to prove herself her sorrows have taken the path of building something, her depression has boosted her to be an independent woman, her exhaustion gave her energy to work hard, create something on her own. She used all her negatives to build something positive.

In contrast to Tulsi, Mihir dealt all his misery and sufferings differently. The self realization, guilt is so occupied his mind and heart, he could no more control himself but end up under medication.

This is exactly how nature has created men and women. Women are strong emotionally, men are strong physically, probably that's the exact reason, two different structurally built qualities of men and women are married to each other, so that their is a completeness. Universe has given us lots to learn and understand.

शिव वैराग्य हैं, तो शक्ति सृजन की ऊर्जा हैं। दोनों एक-दूसरे के पूरक हैं।

Well, you narrated her worries, concern her being all up the whole night, not knowing where she is going she found the mandir. The moment she cleaning the idol, it started coming up into it's original form, this is refreshing to read, Tulsi ki bhavanoan pe jo dhool chadh gya tha, shayad usska ek layer hat gya hai. She remembering all her old days then her youth, father, baa and bapuji, then suddenly that innocent, charming Mihir's entry. And her comparing the Mihir whom with she lived, loved, played with to the Mihir of six year before, till yesterday wo khud hi kashmkash me hai, which one is right. Her whole life has been rewinded in her mind, this piece is beautiful❤️

She is restless too, but again women can hold the pain for longer, until she heard he is alright. She leaving her place quietly, pretending she doesn't know anything and allowing her kids to take Mihir to the Hospital was just her presence of mind and her worry, probably not for husband, but for the person once she shared her everything with.

Pari n her first day at office, Tulsi teaching her from the scratch, is nothing wrong. This is how Indian Gurukul shiksha used to be. Even prince were made sit on the ground and learn everything along with others, so that they understand human beings, and the difficulties of any work, a trait to learn so that one day can become king the ruler.Not because he is King's son, but bcoz he is efficient and deserving.Similarly Tulsi's vision is to make Pari the same, liked Pari's acceptance to it.

Rithik arriving late, her mind is after Mihir's health condition, she cannot ask directly, she asked indirectly, Son can't reveal, kasam jo hai papa ka.

Then her heart is not at peace until she heard from Kamla Sahab has come for lunch. And after that, the relaxed breath she took says all. Her going home and having a sound sleep of 2hrs boosted her up again.

Mithali ka she needs to work out wisely.

Well dining, she need not have to look at him, neither he to look at her, there silences and every breath can humm a song, it's bcoz of the year old bond, they noticed every single movement of their body and soul.

She is relived seeing him.

Last me tadka tha, 😂😂 chai pe chupke se aajavo wah.

Chalo let's restart with Chaiii..

Bgm me ye song...

मिलो ना तुम तो हम घबराए

मिलो तो आँख चुराएं

हमें क्या हो गया है

हमें क्या हो गया है

I loved this paragraph so much❤️

She was not excusing it. She was not collapsing the distance between his failure and his suffering. Both were real. They did not cancel each other out.

But she was sitting with both of them. For the first time. Without managing the distance between them.

Thank you writer. ❤️

Originally posted by: ElitePerfumer

hey that’s one of my all time faves too! I also love the other one from the same movie- Aap aaye toh khayal-e-dil-e…

I love few of Mahendra kapoor and Mukesh songs so much❤️

Originally posted by: TianaWrites

Beautiful--- that's all I can say. The suspense the thrill... Both the chapters have an amazingly fulfilling read. I love love love ur version of Mihir --- You have made him a man worth rooting for and Tulsi... oh my... her dignified response is so heartwarming. You have left at a cliffhanger... Waiting for the next one.

Hi, thank you so much 😊 I am so glad you are enjoying this read! Yes, show’s Mihir is quite disappointing tbh. Although I admit I too like him a lot because of AU’s charm and TuHir’s insane chemistry which takes the flirting scenes to another level! I really don’t think on the show, Mihir will ever understand the seriousness of his mistakes! Anyways, sorry I got carried away!

I am so glad you are liking my characterizations. I actually love cliffhangers and dramatics but this story requires a restrained approach so it’s a big challenge for me! The reconciliation if it happens has be very slow - else this story loses its charm

You know inspite of Mihir's excellent interview, the thing that really touched me were the children shielding her. Those precious moments you captured of Angad, Rithik and Pari... sigh... I wish the makers atleast copy that... Just for once I would like to enjoy that on screen

Hey that scene is my fave too - all 3 genZ kids actually showing they’re raised by TuHir, especially tulsi- by their actions! The ink on Ritik’s shirt- that’s such a poignant moment and both TuHir see and absorb what it means!

Actually even I am hoping the show copies my story- would be such a treat to see phenomenal actors like SI and AU portray these tracks!

My responses in red.

Thank you so much