I've been working on this OS for couple of days, I am posting it now, to make up for updating my FF so late, and to Thank everyone for their patience.
Hope you enjoy it!
This my hope and wish, I doubt this is how we will see it in the show. But its a nice thought.
OS: Gurudakshina
Ahem paced from one end of the room to the other. It's been over an hour, and he has been waiting for Gopi to come to their room. He wondered what was taking her so long. Yeah her exam is over, but her study time is not yet finished. He needed to talk to her about what's next. They needed to make decisions as to what she wants to do next. He would rather she completes rest of her studies thru correspondence course instead of attending the traditional school setting.
He walked to the door, and glanced out to see is she was coming, but no the hall was empty and he didn't hear the chimes of her payals or kangans. He continued his and his thoughts returned to Gopi and her studies. If someone had told him ten days ago that he would be eager to spend time with his wife, he would have laughed in their face, but now he would have to agree. So much has happened in last ten days.
His wife has managed to shatter the image of her he had of her originally and replaced it with a completely different image.
In the past he hadn't given her much thoughts, any time he had admired her giving nature, her courageous acts or just plain her love for his mom, those thoughts were easily put aside, and forgotten. He never looked back on those thoughts; he never analyzed any of those situations in his mind.
He realized he never took the time to get to know her, if he had he wouldn't have wasted so much time calling her gawar, instead he could have started teaching her long time ago. But now that he knows how much she wants to study and with little discipline and guidance from him, it won't take her long to get her basic education.
It isn't that Gopi is not smart or doesn't know how to use her brain, but she is too easily swayed by people and assumes that everyone is of pure heart like her. She only sees the good in people and if by any chance the other individual's evilness is revealed to her, she will claim the individual was only trying to help her.
He would have never realized this until her birthday. He truly believes that Gopi does not realize that either her cousin or her mami told her it was her parent's shrad on her birthday to ruin the day for her. He hadn't figured things out until he read her essay and linked everything together.
The first thing she had wrote was that her mama had called her to wish her happy birthday, until then she had forgotten it was her birthday. He remembered her saying she had been happy until she found out that it was her parents shrad. It was obvious her mama is not the one to tell her this, and if it really was her parents shrad, wouldn't her mama had mentioned this to her, or wouldn't she have already known this? This was really puzzling him, but he was sure that it was not her parent's shrad and her mami and Rashi had a hand in her thinking it was. He had put those thought to the side for the moment to think on later, after Gopi took the exams.
Later in the week though things became really puzzling, he couldn't understand why Gopi was not following his instructions to study during the day, yet stayed up late to catch up on her studies. He had known, its not because she didn't want to but something or someone was keeping her busy during the day, and it had been easy to figure out it couldn't be anyone but Rashi, as there was no one else beside her who would stoop so low. He knew his mom and Kakiji would never stop Gopi from studying to do the work in the kitchen.
He had put a stop to that by taking the last two days off from work. He had brought important work home to work from home and delegated everything else to his kaka and Jigar. And now both of their hard work is paid off. Gopi passed the exam with 100%, just like he had wanted. When he was with her, she hadn't missed a step, and no one dared to distract her while he was there with her.
He once again walked to the door to see if she was coming, but no sign of her yet. He knew Rashi must have left her to finish up all the work in the kitchen, claiming she was sick or had a headache. He is going to put a stop to Rashi's behavior towards Gopi soon. He now knows that only he will be the one to make Gopi see Rashi's true nature, he will succeed where his mom has failed many times. He is ready to move his and Gopi's relationship in a different direction, because in these last ten days he has realized that no one could be a better life partner for him than Gopi.
He is not yet ready to reveal his feelings to the family, but he does want Gopi to come to a realization that he is ready to move forward with her.
He hadn't known how to do this, but then a perfect idea had come to his mind. He will ask his wife for a Gurudakshina. She will not be able to deny him this age-old tradition of gifting the teacher after an end of a lesson. He didn't just want one thing from Gopi; he wanted three things from her. The first two he will ask for and the third one he will leave up to her, to see if she gives him what he wants, what he has denied himself the previous three times.
Just then he heard the sweet sound of her payals, he went back to the bed and started working on his laptop. He watched her from the corner of his eyes. She placed the water pitcher on the bedside table, then went to her wardrobe to get her night sari and went into the bathroom. While she was in the bathroom he got up to close and lock the door. He went back to his computer to pretend to work. She came out of the bathroom, went straight to her dresser to take off her ornaments and payals.
She finally turned towards him. "Ahemji, did you want anything?" He closed the laptop and put it aside. He got up from the bed. "Yes, did you forget something?" she looked at him with a puzzled expression on her face. "Ji?"
He stood in front of her and crossed his arms giving her a stern look. "Gopi how come you know how to recite Geeta from memory, but forget the age-old tradition of gifting your teacher for the lessons given to you by him?"
Gopi's eyes widened in surprise and her mouth gaped open. "Ji, woh mein…I mean Ahemji, I forgot all about it, please forgive me." She gave him a pleading look.
Ahem kept his expression the same, didn't want to give away too much of what he was thinking, but she looked very cute when she was worried. "Since you forgot about it, you will have to make up for it by giving me three gifts."
Gopi was perplexed by his behavior and request and was thinking what has gotten into her Ahemji, he has never acted like this with her in the past. She waited for him to ask for what he wanted. She gave him a questioning look to let him know she was ready for his request.
Ahem uncrossed his arms and moved close to her. Without taking his eyes off her face he reached up and removed the pallu from her head. "First request, no more pallu on your head." He raised an eyebrow to see if she understood, when she slowly nodded her head yes, with an awed expression on her face, he smiled at her. "Second request no more sleeping on the floor, you will sleep beside me on the bed." He held his breath and watched to see how she would react to this request. At first she frowned, as if she didn't hear what she heard. He could imagine what she was thinking, she probably thought, that she couldn't have heard him right. When she looked up at him stumped, he figured he better clarify. "You heard me right, I am not joking, I think its time we move forward with our life and not look back on the past. Ok?"
It took her moment, but she finally answered with a soft yes. She then waited for him to ask her for the last gift. "I am not going to ask you for the last gift, you have to decide how you are going to thank me." He waited to see what she would do. He had a feeling of what she might do, but he will let her get to that point first.
Gopi thought long and hard about how to thank him, and decided the best thing to do was shake his hand like he had on her birthday. She would have liked to hug him, but he hadn't liked it in the past, and she didn't want to repeat her mistake.
She slowly extended her right hand towards him and waited to see if he will understand what she is trying to do.
Ahem knew it, he knew this is the course she would take; his wife was a fast learner. He extended his hand towards Gopi. She placed her smaller hand in his larger one and squeezed gently. "Thank you Ahemji for teaching me and helping me pass my exams." He tightened his hold on her hand. "You are welcome, but this is not how I wanted you to thank me." The fear was back on her face and his heart squeezed at that expression on her face. He knew he has hurt her many times in the past but no more.
Ahem gently pulled Gopi towards him, he lifted his left hand to her head and placed her head on his chest, rested his chin on top of her head and placed both his arms around her, holding her tight. He waited for her to hug him back, but she did not put her arms around him. He pulled back and looked down at her. "Gopi I know I have lot to make up for and we will talk about all those things and more, but for now I just want to hold my wife in my arms, and want to be held in her arms. Will you do this for me? I really need you to hug me back." Ahem gently wiped the tears on her face and brought her back to his chest and hugged her, he felt her arms go around him and hold him just as tightly. Ahem knew that he did the right thing. He will spend the rest of his days making for not accepting her and ignoring her. He finally felt at peace.
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