PicOSthon: 39 OSes | Catch up with the ones u hv missed! :) - Page 50

Originally posted by: crazy_neha

Thank u so much Pallavi di...
Ur comment means alot to me coz ur d starter of dis topic so ur comment was something which I was waitin for
But it was worth a wait.
Ur most welcome di. 😊
RaRu relationship is something which has been explored much on YHM.. 😭
Jst want EK to realize dis soon.. 😊
Which I think won't happen.. 😛 😉 😆

Originally posted by: peace..

@clover i loved ur OS to bits! U worded it beautifully, esp I loved how u explained d post marriage changeover in Ishita. 😊 I loved how u merged these 2 sequences on d show (dis pic n d Asia head scenario) I loved Raman's style of flirting with Ms Iyer almost leaving her in tears first😉 I am glad d bracelet giving was a happy moment here! 😊

Again, really well done. Thanks for writing and being d first one to agree writing here. Really tht meant a lot to me. Cant wait for ur next one 😊

Originally posted by: clover

Thank you for the wonderful comment. I had no idea I was the first one to agree, but I am glad I did. If you enjoyed reading what I wrote, I enjoyed writing it. 😃

A little tidbit for everyone... I am working on the second OS right now and hope to complete it and post it before this day ends, i.e. before 12 am.

I barely watch the episodes these days, in fact I just fast forward through most of it, hoping and waiting for the day when all will be well again. I understand the need for drama, but what they are showing right now just makes me cringe, like the Amma accident-Raman supporting Shagun track did.

Well, anyways... do not read the next line if you do not like spoilers.😛

Spoiler: It is set in the future with echoes of the past.

Journey to Love

Raman sat on the couch in his very own bedroom, reminiscing the good old days. He was feeling particularly reminiscent today, maybe because it marked a milestone in his short life. He was in his late forties and felt like he had lived an entire lifetime. But it still wasn't enough, definitely not where his Madrasan was involved.

His trip down memory lane, even though he was delving deep into his memories made him feel like he was watching scenes of somebody else's life.

Raman remembered when he was a boy and the only tension in his life was how to get away from his mother's smothering love and how to score good marks in his exam. Don't get him wrong. He loved his mother very much and he was a mama's boy, but Mrs. Toshi Bhalla could also be too much sometimes. Too inquisitive, too motherly, too intrusive, too loud and very embarrassing in front of his non-existent friends. That was another one of his problems. He had no friends. He did try to make friends, but nobody wanted to be associated with a bespectacled, greasy haired nerd, with a funny nickname like Happy. He knew that wearing that much coconut oil on his head was a serious social faux pas, he did it anyway to appease his mother, as she wanted to prevent him from getting bald in the future. Maybe her remedy did work, he had a head full of hair today.

Leaving that aside, no friends means no social life, and all the more time to just study. No one invited him for outings, or study groups, or for overnight stays, or festivals, or coffee or anything at all. Except Rajiv, his best friend back in those days. Because he and Rajiv were very much alike. Both had oily hair, both were bespectacled, and most importantly they complimented each other. As much as Raman was good in his studies, Rajiv was bad. And the good boy that Raman was, he helped Rajiv get through school, and then even through college. You could say that they were joined at the hip, always helping each other. If Raman was the left brain, Rajiv was the right brain, and together they helped each other develop into their own personas. Today, Rajiv was in Chandigarh, leading a happily married life, with one son and wrote screenplays for the local soap operas.

12th grade is when Raman remembers he had his first crush. Sonali Kotnis. He did tell this story to his wife, Ishita. But then seeing the jealousy and restlessness it brought out in her, he didn't tell her everything and made her believe he was just making it all up. He told her about how one fine day Sona and he started meeting up for study dates, but he didn't tell her the story of how she broke his heart.

Like all the boys in his class, he too was attracted to Sona. And when she had walked towards him that day after catching him staring at her, he felt like the luckiest person in the universe.

"Hi..." she said. "Raman, right?"

"Does she really know my name?" is all he could think, staring at her.

She snapped her fingers in front of his face bringing him out of the trance. "Umm... I... Y...Yess... Raman... I am... Raman... Raman Kumar Omprakash Bhalla."

She stood there a while considering him, and then smiled that charming smile of hers that had him floored. He would write off everything that he owned to her just for that charming smile of hers.

"Woah... your name is too big, why don't I call you Ramy, and you can call me Sona like everyone else does. Okay?"

Raman would have agreed to anything she said at that point, so it was only right that all he said was "okay".

"Soo... Ramy, I need your help with my studies. You see, the board exams are closing in on us and I really need someone to help me study Maths... will you?" she asked, pouting her lips and blinking her eyes like a damsel in distress, and Raman couldn't help but be her hero armed with all the possible Maths formulas they needed.

They met regularly, every day, for over a month, till the last exam paper(which was Maths) was done. He was a very good teacher, and he thought they had become good friends. In fact, his mom and Rajiv would tease him, telling him that his Sona definitely likes him, or else why would she choose only him to tutor her. She had other options she could choose, why then did she choose him? Raman was to soon find the answer to that question. He should have remembered, his mother would always be biased when it came to him. She thought he was the most handsome boy in the world when he believed that it was quite the opposite. And his friend always wanted the best for him, he was looking for treasure where nothing had ever been buried.

After the last bell rang for grade 12, signalling the end to their final exam, he ran to Sona's classroom to find her. He wanted to ask her how her paper went. Did she solve all the problems? Did his tutoring help her like it should have? He wanted to ask her what she had planned for hr future... where would she go to college? What was she choosing to study? When he had asked her previously, something had somehow always stopped her from answering. Today, he would get all his answers. He had just reached her classroom's door when he heard her speaking with her friend.

"So, Sona, are you still going to meet that Raman today?"

Sona looked at her, offened. "Are you, like, crazy or something? I am done with the exams, and I am done with him. Uff... why are you even asking?"

Her friend was a little puzzled. "Just like that... I thought meeting with him and spending time with him every day had made you guys friends..."

Sona decided that it was time to interrupt her, "we are not friends, period. And will never be. Hello! I am soo out of his league. I mean, did you even take a look at his face? It's so yuk! You and I both know I had to pretend to like him so I can get a tutor for free. Dad would have killed me if he came to know that I had spent my tuition money on dresses and he was the only option I had left... Otherwise, never even in his wildest dreams would I ever be seen caught with a geek like him. And now don't ever mention him again and spoil my good mood."

Sona did not see nor hear the heart that she had broken that fateful day. And he never allowed anyone to change his name to anything ever again... well, almost.

That was Raman's first brush with rejection and heartbreak. He learned a very important lesson that day... never trust a rich and beautiful girl with your heart. And even with this lesson, he wasn't able to prevent his heart from breaking a second time.

Raman went back in time to the day he first met Shagun, his first wife and mother of Aditya and Ruhi Bhalla, his beloved children.

Like any mother, with a son in the prime of his youth, Toshi Bhalla had set off to find her son the perfect bride, and find the perfect bride she did.

That was the only word that came to Raman's mind when he saw her for the first time. She was a beauty with a perfect face, perfect manners, and such grace that he had fallen head-over-heels for her. He thought that she would reject him seeing as how he was no match for her, but she said yes for the marriage, and he had no reason to say no. His mother trusted that Shagun and her family were good people. Also, she was not rich, like Sone, so she wouldn't be here only to play a game. Maybe she genuinely liked him, or that was just the pretty illusion Shagun created to climb her ladder to success.

The first few months, or rather years, of their marriage were quiet successful, in his opinion. They lived with his parents and siblings. She was a dutiful daughter-in-law, she was friends with his siblings, and seemed to get along well with all the neighbours as well. She was a model citizen. And when Adi came along, there was nothing more he wanted in life. Now he had everything. And if he was to be just a little more greedy, if there was one more wish he could make, then he would wish for a daughter.

He didn't even realize when his world started falling apart. He had joined a new company in the fifth year of their marriage and things just started a downward spiral then on. There were fights every day at home. Things went so out of hand one day that his father pledged never to speak to him again. They moved into an apartment of their own, which was luckily just next door. Shagun demanded she needed space from his family, and he never doubted her when she complained. He didn't doubt his parents either. He always thought that it was a misunderstanding that would get cleared someday. And get cleared it did. His trust on Shagun started wearing thin when he caught her lying to him. At first, he thought it was an isolated incident and he was reading too much into it, but then it started happening quiet often. He could also see her openly socializing with his boss, and called it socializing when asked about it. He let it go, thinking maybe that's how it's done in high society. And when Ruhi's arrival's news came through, he was happy again.

All his illusions only broke the day Shagun handed him the divorce papers and told him she is leaving him for his boss, Ashok. That he was richer, more successful and better looking and that she was done living a middle class life. She could have everything she wanted with Ashok, and it made no sense to stay with him any longer when she had opportunities for something better. No amount of pleading, begging or reasoning made her reconsider, and she was out the door even before make sense of what was happening.

That day, when Raman faced the second big rejection and betrayal of his life, he learnt another very important lesson - Never trust a beautiful girl, period.

If Sona's betrayal had made Raman grow closer to his family, Shagun had ripped him apart from his family. He was left with nothing when she left him. No job, no home, no family, no love, no nothing.

It didn't take long to make an embittered man like him to achieve what he did in the six years after Shagun left him. He had all materialistic pleasures he could ever ask for, but what he really craved was a family, which he was too broken to have.

It was at this point that he met his second wife, Ishita Vishwanathan Iyer, now Mrs. Ishita Raman Bhalla, his soul mate and better half. She inspired this strange sort of restlessness in him, which immediately freaked him out. He didn't understand it and reacted the only way he could to keep her away, by taking out his anger on her. It didn't frazzle her though. She only came back at him with ten times the force and even more dirt against him. Sona had charmed him, Shagun had him infatuated, but the restlessness Ishita made him feel was what he didn't know how to take care of. To make things more complicated she and his daughter had to go fall in love with each other.

It took a while for him to realize that the restlessness he felt was in fact love, of the true kind. He realized it was love after torturing her for days, after getting tortured by her for days, after exposing his vulnerable self to her, after seeing how vulnerable she herself was, after seeing how much love she had in her. He realized he loved her not because she was beautiful, but because she could see the beauty in everything around her. She could see through to the real him and still stick by his side through thick and thin. In the beginning, for his daughter, and later, for him, when she accepted that he is her husband, when he saw how much she trusted him.

It took him an even longer time to confess that love to her. Even though they both already knew what was in their hearts, he was apprehensive. What if the proposal was not good enough? What if she didn't feel the same and still loved only Ruhi and not her father? What if he was not a good lover? All these questions plagued him for weeks on end until the day arrived when he finally confessed. He did not plan for it, in fact he himself did not see it coming.

She came straight to him that morning while he was fixing his tie at the dresser. He turned around to face her when she caught his attention. She looked beautiful. She had just showered and the wet hair face making her look like an angel. She forwarded her right hand towards him, and when he looked down, he saw that there was her sindoor box nestled in it.

When he gestured to ask her about it, she replied saying "it's our wedding anniversary".

Realization dawned on him, as to what it was nagging him at the back of his mind that he had forgotten about. She didn't look too angry about it, and he couldn't help but ask, "why do you want me to put it on today? You do it yourself every day."

Ishita pouted at that. "But today is not every day, Raman. It's our anniversary. First one, at that. I... I want to feel like a bride again... I will if you just fill this in today."

Again, Raman couldn't help but ask, "are you planning on doing this every year?"

Ishita replied with a "maybe".

Raman still had one last question for her. This time he looked directly in to her eyes while he voiced it. "Do you love me so much, that you are ready to wed me every year for the rest of our lives?"

"Yes" was all she whispered, hoping that he would grant her wish.

Her acceptance gave Raman the courage to move ahead. He was high on euphoria. He felt like the luckiest man on Earth.

He moved closer to her, took a pinch of sindoor from the box in her hand and spread it on her parting, marking her as his wife again. He then moved even closer to her and simply whispered in her ears, "I love you, too..."

Raman was jolted back to reality when he heard the door to the bathroom open, and saw Ishita emerge out from it. Fresh from her shower, she looked beautiful as always. She hadn't changed a bit in the ten years that they were together. The only thing that did change was the amount of possessiveness in her regarding him. It just kept increasing every year and he loved every bit of it, for his own selfish reasons.

Of course, she came straight to him with her box of sindoor, like she did every year on their anniversary, so that they could renew the vow they made to each other that day, ten years ago now. An like he did every year, he took a pinch of the sindoor, spread it in the parting of hair on her head and whispered in her ears, "I love you... too".