Happy Birthday Sharon 🤗🤗Sorry my wish is a bit belated, hope you had a wonderful day and wish you many, many more wonderful birthdays to come.
Nynu---you truly are the sweetheart of the forum---perhaps across all forums. 😳🤗 Giving the gift of your time, affection and commitment to create such wonderful threads---shows how wonderful a person you are, how marvelous a pal.
The sequel to Yuan Fen was so sweet---it made me recall how much I had loved that birthday gift of yours for Lucky, and now we have a tale to round it off, as it were, to give us a picture of Sanskaar and Swara's marital life.
It was all so warm and cuddly yet so very practical and sensible---Sanskaar's way of saying that they needed some time to develop the solid grounding of affection before moving to a marital relationship, Swara's earlier part nervous, part snarky response to her Dadi's 'tutoring' 😆, the way Swara felt guilt after receiving the shawl, and of course, the final reveal which left the couple with such joy in their hearts. For they were in love with their soulmate even before they realized it; and it is a supremely delicious irony that each had resolved to place their full commitment in the person they were going to marry, deciding firmly to 'forget' the way they had each felt an instant connection with that stranger they'd glimped so briefly in Sikkim. 😳
I loved the Swara---Ragini bonding here. They seemed more understanding and affectionate as jethani--devrani here than they ever were as half sisters in the serial. 👏👏
And the part of describing Ragini as a statuesque idol, with the ornate mangalsutra and the lavish spread of sindhoor...😆 🤣 That was pure gold. Your customary gift of a flash of humor and insight, tucked in as a delicious treat in between the narrative. 😳 Brought back so many memories of watching Ragini decked up to the nines in the serial. But somehow, Teju managed to carry it off, no? She looked so much, like you said, a sculpted idol. A fascinating character study, of how someone looking so serene and exquisite can hide such a turmoil of destructive emotions within (in the serial character portrayal I meant, not the Ragu here, whom I loved to bits. 😳)
I completely loved the tale...and if I may be so bold, I think O' Henry would have loved the initial adaptation you customized for SwaSan and this delectable sequel, too. 👏👏
Loads of Love & Hugs,
---Viji