OS: Veda-e-ArHi
Disclaimer: Long. Read at your own risk.😆
"Ask most people what they want out of life and the answer is simple--to be happy. Maybe it's this explanation though of wanting to be happy that just keeps us from ever getting there. Maybe the more we try to will ourselves to states of bliss, the more confused we get--to the point where we don't recognize ourselves. Instead we just keep smiling--trying to be the happy people we wish we were. Until it hits us, it's been there all along. Not in our dreams or our hopes, but in the known, the comfortable, the familiar. "
Her head was resting on his chest, sight spread out in the lightening of her own room, the solace which they had acquired after an extremely tiring and exhausting day. It had been one of extreme happiness, grave tension, heightened sense of excitement, probably something in her that was skipping so fast she had lost count of its irregularity already, and yet right now when she sat recollecting all those memories, a small vary smile etched up on her face lightening up her blissful features.
Khushi Kumari Gupta Singh Raizada, was in her room, the very room which she had despised coming into, the very room which she had felt disgusted to come in due to its gayness, and now the very room which had become such an integral part of her life, that maybe a day without the person inside it and these very walls, would make her feel like something in her had started to rot away. Eyes glistening with pure happiness, it lingered on the large portrait of her and her husband, Arnav Singh Raizada, the happily married couple in the picture itself lost in each other's eyes, a random click that they had developed out of Nk's camera.
"How did we get here?" She asked in a lost, heavy with emotion tone, her eyes still fixed on the portrait, as Arnav looked down at his wife, and then at the portrait she was staring at, looking back at her with an expression of utter confusion.
"What?" he asked her puzzled, with her refusing to look up and point blankly still too engrossed in her analysis and thought process regarding the portrait of them.
"You and me. How did we end up there?" she elaborated on her question, pointing her dainty creamy white finger towards the picture, causing a small fond smile to grow on Arnav's perfectly chiseled face, a look of recollecting memories surfacing on his face.
"It was a long journey. Very long. Very rough. *pause* (staring deep into her eyes) But we made it." He said his captivating smile, portraying the trillions of emotions that had consumed him up, and lead him to saying this, to saying everything that one would want to listen.
"Do you remember how?" she asked him conversationally, not breaking the eyelock that had prevailed between them, her eyes fluttering now and then registering to the effect of the crimson red color that was appearing on her cheeks, making her look like a doll out of a fairytale.
"Do you think I can forget?" he replied back with a large smirk on his face, and she inched in closer towards him, cuddling into him like the small 6 years old did with their teddy bears, and adjusted her cheeks on his chest, at the point where his heart lay, the exact point where the comfort of an eternity lay.
"The fashion show." She said, transported to another world of remembrance and flashbacks, the world of memories which would forever live in her heart, even when there was nothing, it had always been there, when he was not there, when no one was there, it had been there, Memories- her best companion.
"The fashion show" he repeated after her as together the two not so sound minds, hands enclosed with each other went on a journey to look back at their life, and the year and a half that had passed.
He looked at her, with all the intensity he could muster up, scrutinizing every detail of her. She looked back at him, with her eyes wide open, scared of the intensity of his gaze. It affected her so much, that she tripped on her own foot, her other feet landing on the pastel shaded dupatta that caused her to slip and fall off the ramp. He cushioned her fall, as he let her land into his arms clutching the back of his neck with her soft palms. She gazed into his eyes, looking deep into his soul with such innocence, that it somewhat healed some of the pain he was currently feeling. The party bombs blasted somewhere near them, which caused the girl to jump up in his arms, making her clutch his hair harder. She was capturing him, and he did not liking the effect one single bit on himself. Everything was in control or so was shown as he let her go roughly, causing her to stumble awkwardly and grab onto the edge of the ramp for support. She turned around swiftly to look at him, fear clearly distinct in her eyes. He gave the nearby security the "look" which caused them to drag her away from him. As they dragged her duppata still firmly caught under his shoe, slide down from her head as the guards pulled her away, giving him access to see her bare back laced with a string of pearls, her sharply turning back and looking at him like a doe who had lost her path. That moment was that one when the security dragged her away from him far far away, but it wasn't the end to their meet, it never was the end, somewhere she just knew,- this was the beginning.
"The beginning" he stated after sometime, breaking the silence that had blanketed around them, and she blinked her eyes twice to drop her mind out of her reverie to find herself registering the sound of his words in her ears, and nodding her head slowly in a drowsy motion, her eyes yet again finding their way to his which were busy looking down at her.
"Humiliation. Insult. Hatred. That is the definition of beginning in our dictionary. If someone would have told me I would love you the night we first met, I'd have given them a ticket straight to Agra and would have gotten them admitted there. (looking intently into his eyes) But even I could not deny, behind that thick veil of darkness was the red which I knew I couldn't escape" she said for a moment her tone going bitter, flashing the pain in her eyes which she had endured in those far, lost days the pain which she could not forget, however much she wanted. Sometimes the past is something you just can't let go of. And sometimes the past is something we'll do anything to forget. And sometimes we learn something new about the past that changes everything we know about the present.
Arnav felt at a loss of words greatly right at the moment, the pain that her eyes were mirroring, broke him, just the way it did back then, when he acted in an unaffected way, but somewhere, somehow a part of him shattered with every tear that rolled down her cheeks. She would never know that, not till date, how much pain he had endured after making her feel demented and unwanted.
"None of us could deny what was going on. The only thing we knew, was something was going on." He mumbled to himself, but fortunately enough she heard it, and squeezed his hand, the one which was deeply intertwined in hers, making him give her a small smile, however they both knew recollecting memories was not easy, it was a difficult task, but someday they had to do it. That someday was TODAY.
"It drove me to Delhi. It drove me to the point where I had to be the bread winner of my family. I knew the reality was hard but at points it became unbearable. It became unbearable, when I thought that destiny was bringing me to you. It pierced me so much, I would wince in pain until my body couldn't keep me going anymore and succumb to the pain of it all. (a tear rolls down her eyes and lands on the enclosed mound of their hands) Because it was evident. It always had been. I was attracted towards a pole that was restricted" she said gravely smoothening her hair with her free hand, and letting them fall straight down his chest, a shivering feelings consuming her but what startled her more was his frozen rigid body, which could scare her to death.
"Arnav? I am just plain stupid. I shouldn't be talking about such things today. It has been an immensely joyful day. I am so sorry. (moving away from him) We should go to sleep its getting late." She said hurriedly, feeling guilty all of a sudden for starting the entire topic in the first place, and moved her head away from him, only to be pulled back by one rough tug on her shoulder, as she looked up searchingly into his mystified curious eyes.
"No. I want to hear the end of it today. We both should hear the end of it today. At the end of the day, there are some things you just can't help but talk about. Something's we just don't want to hear, and some things we say because we can't be silent any longer. Some things are more important than what you say, they're what you do. (Khushi opens her mouth to say something) Don't argue. I want to hear it. Everything. You will tell me everything you understand?" he told her in a demanding voice, and she gazed at him for a moment with dilated pupils but brought them back to normal, though not breaking the eyelock.
"Will you tell me everything too? Everything?" she asked him keenly, hope and an assurance sprouting from her voice as he nodded at her, and calmly enough she moved back closer to him, restoring her position to as it was before.
"You were my boss, so you bossed me around. But I knew I had a score to settle for everything you had done to me. I am a fighter, I have always been a fighter, and though you were not competition you were that man with the bad fat ego who I had to save myself from being crushed beneath in. However little did I know, you were more ruthless than human's were made to be. I had never come across anyone so beastly, so it shook me, you drove me to the edge. To the edge of everything, and with me, my heart raced towards a whole new avenue which I was yet to discover" She said flinching a bit at the harsh use of words but then she had little choice where he was concerned, he had demanded the truth and she couldn't really deny anything he wanted. Arnav slightly moved, and his reflexes seem to have lost lubrication as his body became stationary and it was only the fidgeting of her fingers on his hand which brought up his back to restore some activity into his body.
"I let go of you in the balcony because I wanted to show that I didn't care for anyone. I was a rock, and rocks couldn't be tampered with. But I was so wrong. So, so wrong. You heated me up so I would melt, I would change shape, I would do things that I wouldn't think of doing otherwise. I told you to do things that contradicted your rituals, because that is what I desired for. To break your virtues, to break you. Because it irritated me, it annoyed me that someone with no status compatibility could have the audacity to stand up against me. However, everything I planned for an instance went wrong. I was supposed to break you, but I never realized when breaking you had started breaking me. My dead heart was rising up and it felt weird. I had to unleash my anger, and so I set you that guest house challenge, because I wanted to push you to the extent of defeat, so that you would go away from me. Forever away." Arnav went on to continue his side of the story and Khushi for instance seem to be too stunned to even respond verbally, physically or mentally, iced by his cold yet honest words. She knew he wasn't lying, that is how those times had been, the hard, difficult times, however him saying it did prick her somewhere, but she knew she had no go reason to be effected now, those days were now over.
"You failed at it, didn't you? You couldn't drive me away, because I had seeped inside you. I was in your life now. (Arnav looks down in her serious thoughtful eyes startled) I know it Arnav. Remember I told you I can read your eyes? (Arnav gets puzzled) Yes I can read your eyes." Khushi told him with an air of confidence in her voice, and she looked away from him, out at the starry sky from the glass windows, and then at the moon which was shining out from the blanket of shadows it had been draped in earlier. It shone its white light bright on their portrait bringing it to light, making her smile at it softly.
"That moon. It was the same moon the day I carried you out of that guest house that had become shambles of nothingness. That was the first time when I had seen you getting seriously angry, reflecting the morals, the values and beliefs that you were brought up with. Your priorities and focused approach amazed me. That day for the first time, I met the iron willed girl that you are" Arnav said after some time, his sight too resting on the moon and at the light it was casting on their portrait, as Khushi craned her neck upwards to look at him, planting a small kiss on his cheek.
"Have you ever realized how special it is for me, of you to confess all this? You wouldn't believe, but I have waited for this all this while. All this while, I have waited for you to open up to me. Today is lucky. You finally did it." She said in an ecstatic, dreamy kind of a tone, and craned back her head so it was back to looking in front, as Arnav buried his face on the crook of her neck, shielding himself from the impact of her words.
"You have always waited for me. I can't thank you enough for that." He said in a soothingly, pleasant voice as she shifted slightly in her place, finding another comfort spot, causing a bit of distraction to him.
"It was worth it. Trust me. It has always been worth it. You know, when I gave you that resignation I thought I had finally gotten rid of the disease you were, but who knew destiny was so busy playing games with us. She brought me back to your door step again, this time by Di, to mentor Lavanya ji, and well, in the process of mentoring her to be the perfect Raizada bahu, I did not realize when sub consciously I had started craving for the same spot. I fell in love with you of all people. And somehow, I did notice you accepting it. Like in the hospital. Like in the detergent packets. At the Nainital trip. The rangoli making. You did all that, for me." She said fondly, her mind flooded with the rush of memories that had drawn their way into her mind, and started pouring themselves out to him in words.
"But the most obvious example of your acceptance was that almost kiss. I thought I was the only one who was in love, and that made me feel so helpless, so delusional. But later I realized what your actions meant. You loved me. you just didn't want to admit it. Too bad. I'd have accepted you with all your faults, because I loved you despite them. I loved you because of them." She said tears rolling down her eyes, as he turned her towards himself to look at him, face to face her eyes all misty and vision extremely blurred.
"You knew all along? (she nods her head in silence) I wanted to make you feel demented just the way you made me feel when I came to know that you were engaged to another man. I couldn't bear it. I wanted to inflict the same pain to you, as you were doing to me, unknowingly I figured that out, but you were doing it." He said locking his eyes with her, an extreme sense of grief and pain overshadowing the slight bitterness that was present in his words. At other times, such straight words would have caused her to inch back but right now, she sat rooted to her spot, and looked into his eyes understandingly, he was right, when he said they should hear the end of it, something's that we don't want to hear, are the things that we need to know the most. Knowing is better than wondering, waking is better than sleeping, and even the biggest failure, even the worst, beats the hell out of never trying.
"Anyways. Those were the bad times. The hard times when things were going out of control. We both had mutual black mixed with red for each other, and we both in one way or the other were causing pain to our own souls. In the face of helping out family we had to join hands yet again, and we were successful. Jiji and Jeeja ji were one now. But then on the engagement day, Lavanya ji left. I knew you would be behind it. Because that is what I believed you were, not deserving. However now when I think out of it I guess Lavanya ji knew all along about us. What we couldn't see, she had figured out way earlier" Khushi said, her eyes lightening up with the thought of the bimbooish, yet sweet and caring Lavanya, who had been a bad ass in the beginning but then had appeared to be the bestest friend Khushi could crave for.
"She knew about us. She hugged me, and she told me before she left that one day I would realize, and I would marry the right girl. Lavanya knew who the right girl was, YOU." He related to her truthfully, of the day when he had Lavanya had officially broke up and she had said her last partings words to him. For the first time that day he had felt guilty and pained seeing her depart like this, after his mother's death it was a whole new experience to feel human again.
"Lavanya ji was amazing. I miss her badly. *pause* What happened next? (thoughtfully, and then plastering a huge grin on her face accompanied with a deep red blush) Jiji and Jeeja ji's wedding. The best moments."
"The ties that bind us are sometimes impossible to explain. They connect us, even after it seems like the ties should be broken. Some bonds defy distance. And time. And logic. Because some ties are simply meant to be. (Khushi looks up at in an odd manner, a bit lost in his complicated words) Don't look at me like that. I read it somewhere, I don't have enough time to think that up myself." He told her defensively and she chuckled, digging her elbows slightly into his chest, and then resting back calmly on his chest as she began to relate the story after that.
"Those were the perfect days. When I knew clearly, that I had feelings for you. That I loved you. But I was scared to fall again, I couldn't afford to lose you again. I feared that you would back out, but at the back of my mind the sense of love was too strong, and gradually it over powered all these feelings. The waiting. The anxiety. And remember New Years night? That was destiny at its best." Khushi said in an overwhelmed manner as Arnav wound his hand around her waist, shuddering with the thought of what had happened the night he wanted to confess his love to her.
"I had realized too. I had realized why it all mattered to me, that is why came on the terrace that day to confess before you me feelings. But what I saw left me baffled, it snatched the soul from within me, and I was left staggering back with the force of it. I had seen you hugging Shyam- my sister's husband. I felt ditched. Betrayed. Lost. So without saying anything I walked away from the horror of it because that terror that pounded on my brain was too much to take." Arnav said recalling those freezing cold moments, when his life seemed to have no path to follow, and a burning rage of revenge and hatred had ignited back within him.
"I was left in shatters. Battered with the pain you had given me, the wounds that my family had made within me. That was the moment, when you blackmailed me into marrying you, that I knew you could never be the prince I wished you to be. You were a beast, who had spoiled my life and left me with nothing. You had made me yours, and yet you were never mine." Khushi said in a low erry tone, that haunting tone of sorrow which only people used at the gravest of times. She stared blankly outside the poolside area, and remembered how the first night of her wedding she had spent shivering on the tiled floor, the doors of this room closed on her. These were things which couldn't be forgotten, the hollowness that had crept in her heart back then, that emptiness which had resulted in her being a far off women of no values and pride.
"Nothing that I can ever do can replace the atrocities I caused you, isn't it?" Arnav asked her in a pained skeptical voice, and she turned back to looks him straight in the eye, a bit scared at the dejected way he was looking at her.
"No Arnav. Everything can be replaced. Everything is replaced. You love me and I love you. This is the present we are living in and that is the truth as of now. Our past, its only for the sake of memories, nothing more. I have full faith in you the power of Devi Maiyan that all of that hurt will never return" Khushi told him soothingly, her voice cracking down a bit as she kept her palm on her cheek and he doubled it with his own, removing it to plant a small lovable kiss on it.
"I shouldn't continue anymore." She said in a serious manner however as before he held her back looking sternly in her eyes, and that one look could say what a lot of words couldn't. She was not to stop.
"Every time you cried a part of me fell down. I had built up barriers around me, but after we supposedly got married those barriers seem to appear more and more meaningless. The more I saw you the more I fell in love with you, the more I realized how much I needed and wanted you. But there was that horror of the terrace scene which I couldn't get rid off. Your goodness, and purity made me doubt on the truth of it, but that is all it did. I wanted to believe that you were the real face, and all of that was a faade but I couldn't do it, I don't know, maybe I just didn't trust you enough." He revealed to her truthfully and tears rolled down her eyes as she remembered all the blissful memories they had shared and the harsh words he had hurled at her all along during those days.
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"Because you have no character!" he screamed at her, shaking her poor form who was in complete bewilderement, he could half feel her legs collapsing underneath due to the force of his words, but he didn't care, she was the one who had betrayed, it was all her fault, all her fault.
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"App ko ais baat ka tab pata chala ga, jab hum nahin hogey"
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"Arnav ji is dunya key sab sein ache pati hain"
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"Jab tum mere paas hoti hun, tou tumharein dil key saath saath mere dil ki dharkane bhi mil jaate hain, humarein dil key dharkane aik hojati hain"
"Humarein dil ki dharkane'"
"Aik hojati hain"
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"Do you ever feel like you're disappearing?" she asked his suddenly and he looked at her in curiosity waiting her to explain her question but she took a deep pause and stayed silent, her mind deep into figuring out the roots of the days that she had spent alone in this very room, when the loneliness of it came to haunt her like anything. She felt murderous, and on the verge of collapsing completely, but it was the strength of their love that kept her going all along, kept her going when she knew her hopes were merry fake reflections.
"Khushi? What do you mean by that?" he asked her shaking her by her shoulders, and in a choked slightly disintegrated words she related to him her feelings during the whole kidnapping issue. The sensation and fear of losing him that he had evoked inside her when he said I love you to her. Back then everything seemed to be disappearing, she had missed him badly, more badly then she could ever imagine. He in turn told her of his rugged life during those days, the guilt of hurting her never left him, he day dreamed about her, he saw her every where, because there was no denying at that point. He missed her bad. Real bad. He told her of how when he thought she was almost dead, he felt like drowning in the pool of his own blood too and committing suicide. Distances had brought them closer than ever before, there bond had strengthened, they had finally realized the worth of each other and the importance that they held in each other's life. It was the moment of truth, to accept the fact that they- completed each other.
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"Khushi wadda karun key tum mujhe chor kar nahin jao gey. *pause* Main tumharein bagair jee nahin paoo ga"
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"Mazaq me mein bhi aise baat kabhi mat karyein ga. Nahin! Humein aisa mazaq bilkul bhi pasand nahin, agar aap ne humein chor diya tou hum..tou hum..maar jaye gey"
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"There was so much more to happen after that. None of us could have guessed it back then could we? (Arnav nods) I completed you and you completed me, but our relationship it lacked the stability it needed. Time grew that. Distances were beginning to fade away, we were beginning to accept ones love for the other. Nothing could drift us apart. Neither Garima Maa and your fathers past. Yes it left us at a crucial point but we stood through it all."
"We did, and it wasn't easy. When Dadi told me about the roots of Garima Aunty and Papa I was over powered by my past. I was left at the alter, to choose either of you or the injustice my mother had to go through. However, moments of isolation made me actually realized that not marrying you was never an option. I knew what I wanted. You. Only you. Nothing else mattered when YOU would be there." He openly brought before her just the way he had done that day when he had been mindless enough to leave her hanging in between, on the day of their marriage and delayed the whole thing to a whole new level. Khushi froze on his dear, loyal words and turned around to hug him tightly, tears of joy and thankfulness to her Devi Maiyan cascading down her rosy red cheeks.
Suddenly they heard the door creaking a bit, and in entered a drowsy headed Aarav, rubbing his eyes continuously in a dysfunctional manner, making both of them exchanging knowing looks of what had happened next, but through their eyes they had reached the mutual agreement to never talk about it.
"I can't sleep in my room. Can I sleep with you?" Aarav asked in all his innocence, vary of the tiring day they had had, and mumbling something more, Khushi got up from the bed and walked towards Aarav kissing him on his cheek, him even in his sleep sporting an annoying look at her affectionate gesture. Making space for him in the middle, Aarav went to sleep soundly, both Arnav and Khushi staring at him lovingly.
"Arnav? You always knew what life wanted from you?" Khushi asked him still looking starry eyed at Aarav, giving Arnav the break to look up and smile at her.
"I always knew" he said in a confident manner, even though he knew it was not entirely true but Khushi just knew better. She had expected this as an answer from him, after he was true to his name still- Arnav Singh Raizada.
"I never did. But now I do (Arnav raised his head to look at her) Conquest. Adventure. Treasure. That is what life wanted from me." She stated simply, as he drew up a puzzled expression on his face, apprehensive in assuming anything from her puzzling words.
"Life knew Conquest and Adventure would lead me to my treasure- YOU. That is why we met in a palace, because our story was supposed to be a diametrically opposed fairytale"
"You found me. I found you. Happy ending I suppose?" he concluded finally, resting his head on the soft pillow, as she on the other end did the same and they linked their hands on to where Aarav's waist off, staring dreamy eyed at eachother.
"Perfect Endings." She mouthed out, and closed her eyes with him doing the same, both succumbing to the welcoming entrance of the slumber that had consumed them.
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P.S: Yes I know many of you are (hopefully) teary eyed recollecting all those memories but so am I. Its been a long while since I wrote anything, my writing journey had started with ArHi, IPK has given me a lot of things to cherish and well I cannot thank it enough for that. It doesn't matter how short these 1.5 years have been, they have been memorable, and extremely joyous, I know I will always remember 6th June and 30th November all my life.
I am going to miss it. Everything about. 7:30 (PST) will no more be the same as it was. Something will always be missing, Iss Pyarr Ko Kya Naam Doon will always be missing. :'(
Anyways, do like and comment, as this just might be the last of any OS I write, since no one can be as inspiring as ArHi have been, not if I can ever but remain loyal to Indian TV anymore.
Love,
Batool
My Other Works:
*For more works by me check out my index.
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