Disclaimer: I don't own the characters or places.
Here goes nothing ...
"Then why don't you let her go?"
"Because she does things. And it brings out the best in me, it brings out the worst in me but either way I'm me. She makes me feel ' alive. And I am not going to let that go."
Prologue
It was every eight weeks that Arnav Singh Raizada visited the small village of Laxmi Nagar in matters regarding business. To any other pair of eyes it would seem odd; he was after all a business tycoon and could get any employee working under him to come to the small town for him. Which was true. He could possibly do that, but didn't. There was something here that brought him back every time.
Or someone. A girl.
It was three years ago when he first came to Laxmi Nagar to buy back Sheesh Mahal for his sister. It was a hard day for him and all the daunting memories of his past could only be washed up at the shore of the lake he used to visit with his mother.
He first saw her there, sitting on a rock by the lake. A girl, who looked not a day over 19. Her long, black hair was in a plait, her clothes blindingly bright, and her lurid jewelry shining in the sunlight.
And then eye-contact was made. She looked at him with shy eyes and smiled and then let him share her rock with her and they both sat there enjoying each other's presence. That was their first Sunday together.
He decided he would come back at every opportunity.
On their third Sunday together she brought with her a box of jallebis and cried while she ate them. He sat there patting her head awkwardly and hoped it came across in a comforting manner. As she let out a rather loud wail, he offered her a handkerchief. She took one look at the piece of cloth and promptly blew her nose into her dupatta. He remembered his initial disgust but he also remembered the smile that wouldn't leave his face all the way back to Delhi.
On the sixth visit, the sixth Sunday, they both they realized they'd been coming to the lake for a whole year. They had shared the same rock, basked in each other's presence and silently comforted each other. That day they celebrated by staying with each other until nightfall.
On the seventh Sunday Arnav bought her jallebis. Not because she was sad, but because it was his birthday. And he wanted to give her something special.
Today, as Arnav sat on their rock in his three-pieced suit he contemplated that it was this day, two years ago that they'd first seen each other. He waited with baited breath, his hand grasping red chooriyan, a gift for her. He looked at the blues and greens in the lake, and at the reflection of the sun hitting the water.
By 2.30 she still wasn't anywhere to be seen. And that worried him.
By 4.00 he knew something was wrong. He paced around the rock, the red chooriyan clutched tightly in his hand.
At 6.37 he saw her.
She sprinted towards him, her hands gripping her lehnga. When she was in front of him he could see the distress upon her face. Her teary eyes looked at him for a minute before she wrapped her hands around his waist.
"They left my Bau ji no choice. I have to get married to him, they threatened our family!"
That was when he first heard her speak.
That was the day he found out the girl's name. Khushi Kumari Gupta.
Anupamaa
Real Estate
14