YHM - A Love Story; A Parody.

YHM - A Love Story; A Parody

A story of a couple whose relationship transcended the boundaries of life and death

27th April 2017

Two women shrieked as they sweated profusely, their screams echoing in the rooms they respectively occupied as they underwent the most unbearable pain imaginable.

At almost two AM, way past midnight twin cries echoed across the isles of St. Teresa's maternity home.

A healthy beautiful baby girl and a healthy beautiful baby boy had arrived.

_

Three days later, as Shagun Abhimanyu Raghav arrived in Delhi she knew what exactly she had to do, as she looked at the pink blanket in her arms and smiled.

A horrified man, on the other end in Delhi went silent, then still and finally lost his nerve and mind as he shrieked panicked and finally collapsed when he realized what was in the package that for him, had just arrived.

-

27th April 2039.

Across the parking of The Grand Imperial Mumbai, Ishita Raghav and Raman Khanna stepped out of their automated iCar and GMobil; unaware of each other, they almost crossed paths as they stepped into the Imperial where their respective friends awaited them eagerly.

"Hey Ishu."

Three girls chirped, waving frantically to the birthday girl as they awaited to wish her and engulfed her in the fiercest of hugs as soon as they met; while a lot of backslapping and hugs greeted Raman as he met his five closest friends.

The groups blissfully unaware of each other, walked to the entrance of Eros to dance the night away.

Ishita and Raman collided on their twenty-second birthdays when accidentally one of his friends spilled his drink on one of her's and all hell came loose.

While she and her friends argued, he did it purposely; Raman defended his friend.

When the matter came in front of police, the cops learned that the boy to lighten the situation cracked, a joke filled with innuendo and thus set in motion the events of the future to come.

After avoiding each other for over two decades, three figures came under a roof when their children called them for help and they, despite their best efforts to do so, could not possibly deny as an old mutual acquaintance called them gleefully.

Shagun Raghav, Ashok Khanna and Nidhi Chabbra found themselves aghast as they were called into the same room and were flabbergasted beyond belief when they eventually gathered their wits and witnessed the scenario before their eyes.

The faces of their past were before them, only younger and fresher than they could remember; while Shagun had become immune to her daughter, whom she had named after Ishita, having an uncanny resemblance with her namesake, it was the sight of Raman Khanna that shook her completely.

On the other hand, Ashok and Nidhi, who had found each other again after years and cohabitated, as they raised...with money and contempt his only biological child who resembled Raman eerily were horror stricken at the sight of Ishita in the flesh in front of them in reality.

Shagun Raghav, owner of Raghav Industries and joint MD of Bhalla industries; Ashok Khanna, Chief Minister Delhi, owner of Khanna Textiles and Mills and Nidhi Chabbra, Law Minister, Delhi and owner of Chabbra Petrochemicals were joined by Tanushree Dasgupta, owner of Jhatka & Lafda news channel and news agency.

The sly woman smiled at them as she explained how exactly she found herself in the company of the children of two of her oldest and dearest friends, Shagun and Ashok and decided to call them.

The influence of the trio was overwhelming for the poor inspector who dismissed the charges instantly.

As the trio sent their respective kids home, Ishita with a cautionary warning and Raman with the reminder that he shall have hell to pay, they decided that it was imperative that they reunite again, and successfully.

Over drinks and snacks, the former lovers and the former partners, all sat down as they confided their secrets.

Ashok went first, he spoke of his son whom he had fathered unknowingly and unwittingly in an one night stand with the ambassador of a woman who represented a very powerful foreign ministry, whom he couldn't quite antagonize.

"But why name him Raman Ashok?"

"Dumbass here has been so in love with your ex husband always that when the boy came he fainted from the shock and would pass out at the mere mention of the boy in those first ten days. When Suraj informed this to their never-dying grandmother, she came from London all the way to meet her great-grandchild. Moron here kept mumbling Raman so much in his hallucinations and sleep she assumed he loves the name too much and named him Raman and got all the documents and everything certified as Raman Ashok Khanna before knucklehead here could gather any wits."

"Enough Nidhi."

"Shut up Ashok. As if she doesn't know what a clown you are already. Need I remind you she slept with you for six years you miserable excuse of a wimp?"

As Shagun laughed and clinked glasses with the current squeeze of her former partner, he turned his sights to her and asked, banging his fist on their table quiet harshly.

"And what are you laughing at? Do you see me teasing you for naming your daughter Ishita? Hell she even looks like Ishita any explanation of that?"

"Relax Ashok and stop yelling. I have perfect excuses for all your questions. She resembles Ishita because when I was expecting her Ishita lived at Mani's to take care of me and even after, when he died...and I shifted with the Bhallas permanently again and it's said that the child resembles the person the pregnant mother is most around."

"Why name her Ishita too though?"

"Because you idiot, your girlfriend here almost got me arrested too for blowing up Ishita and Raman all those years ago. She wanted revenge from them and poor Mani got sacrificed involuntarily and Mani preferred to die while saving Ishita and Raman rather living for me and our baby, so I wanted them to suffer for the suffering they caused me."

"Still doesn't explain why call her Ishita Shagun." Piped in Nidhi between another round of drinks,

"So, I am getting to it. When we joined hands for our revenge, we knew it wouldn't be easy. The kids doubted me, they almost caught how I helped you in the plan so I had to pretend that I'm so hurt with their words and allegations that I couldn't tolerate listening to them anymore. I left Bhalla house and went to Shimla. I knew they'd follow me especially Aliya who couldn't leave me alone as I carried the only child of her Appa. They found me soon as I knew that they would; only for me to go into labor. Thankfully I hadn't put my faith in them to regret it. I had a daughter and I thought that the best way to convince everyone that I'm not involved with the tragic deaths of my poor ex husband and his wife is to name my newborn child after one of them. Since I had a girl, she was Ishita. Simple."

"And I se that the Bhallas are eating out of your hand even now."

Nidhi smirked as Shagun wrapped her up little tale.

"Of course. Aliya made me come back to Bhallas as Adi's wife and the older sister/bhabhi of Ishita. And I won everyone when I brought home Ishita."

The trio laughed unaware as their cackles were about to turn to cries.

As Ishita got grounded for a whole month for her mischief making at her home by her grandmothers and Raman had his car taken back by his great grandmother, both vowed revenge on each other.

Their friends added further fuel to fire as they traced the whereabouts of their new formed nemesis. Soon Ishita and Raman learned that both of them had joined Bala sir's classes for their course and the institution became their very own ring.

Bala couldn't punish Ishita his favourite niece neither could he be harsh with Raman the boy who uncannily resembled his friend and brother-in-law Raman.

Once Amma and Toshi found themselves face to face with Raman they knew that they had been right all along. Their kids were back. Not just their Ishita but their Raman too.

The oldies tried to make them understand without revealing their former lives the connection between the two but each time Ishita would brush aside her grandmothers as they talked about Raman and Raman ran the other way upon noticing either of them, like a bat out of hell after his first meeting with them.

The aged women found solace in each other and prayed that God would reunite their children and hoped that their husbands in heaven would help them with the job too.

Adi, Ruhi and Pihu; all busy and settled in their lives refused to believe that their parents had reincarnated. They just assumed Ishu was the lookalike of their dead mother and loved her dearly as they all navigated their own lives and problems.

Adi looked after his twins in his free time, after Aliya eloped with a hippie deserting him and dumping him unceremoniously thirteen years ago and Ruhi constantly tried to strike a balance between her husband and their kids, biological and adopted and Pihu desperately fought for the right to marry her longtime girlfriend in India legally.

One day however things changed when the siblings found Ishita fighting outside Bala sir's academy with a boy from afar. The overprotective siblings stepped in to help the youngster only to be jolted by the resemblance between the boy who Ishita called Raman and who was the spitting image of their late father.

The siblings instinctively knew that they had to accept what their grandmothers had been saying all along and help Ishita and Raman reunite in this birth of theirs too.

No one knew what to do though or moreover how to do it when suddenly the archnemesis of Jhatka and lafda news, Sannate Se Sansani tak found pictures of Ishita and Raman Bhalla from an anonymous source as well as the pictures of the heavily guarded Ishita Raghav and Raman Khanna.

In a matter of minutes, news spread like wildfire and the duo who until the day before couldn't stand the sights of each other were now perpetually linked with each other. Their friends and strangers alike, flooded their social media accounts with questions about their former lives and ridiculed their current one.

Hounded by everyone, drunk out of their minds Ishita and Raman found each other while in hiding. What started as an argument with each other, wherein both blamed each other for the mess that's become of their lives, ended in the very drunk duo broadcasting live their nuptials on their YLL ( your life live) accounts for the world to witness as they exchanged garlands and took the sacred vows of marriage with a pandit instructing them on the same via the instant matrimony app on Raman's iPad version 28.5.66.16.3.169

The ceremony paid for in advance and with hundreds as witnesses on their social media accounts if not a thousand, was found legitimate once the duo tried to file for an annulment. The judge ruled Ishita and Raman must abide by the standard procedure for dissolution of marriage if they still wish it and had them live together for at least a period of six months and return again in case they still need to be free of this matrimony.

Against their wishes, the duo started staying together only if all that they did was fought with each other.

Shagun, Nidhi and Ashok schemed and plotted to make sure that the status quo of the couple stayed that way however they were no match for fates and the love of two very determined families.

As Raman came closer to the Bhallas and Iyers, Ishita endeared herself to Raman's only ally and well-wisher in family, his great grandmother Kasturi Khanna.

When things seemed to be settling down between the couple, the terrible trio panicked and planned to ruin them as a girl who Raman had briefly dated until a couple of months before returned claiming that she's pregnant with his child.

A heartbroken Ishita returns to her maternal home even as Raman tries to prove his innocence.

"Ishita believe me, I am not the father of her child. Yes I dated her briefly but I promise you that she's lying. I would remember losing my V Ishita please believe me."

"If you can marry me drunk you could have impregnated her drunk and lost your V Raman. Don't you think that I'm going to believe you after what you did once already."

"You agreed to marry me drunk too! How the heck am I the only one responsible for that? Huh? Tell me. The decision to marry wasn't forced on you."

"You suggested that in the first place and so it's all your fault and it is final. I'm going to my mother's."

"Fine! Go to your mother! Go to hell! As if I care."

The argument ended exactly as the terrible trio wished only they never saw the move of the Bhalla trinity coming.

The siblings decided enough was enough and knew just like they interfered in every matter of their parents' first life so must they do now.

Boundaries be damned.

This is how Ishita and Raman found themselves on their way to the Shiv Temple of Kaali mountains where they listened with rapt attention and horror the details of their previous life's last moments.

How they had come to pray for the well being of everyone in their families and were caught off guard when a bomb exploded killing them in their car.

Flashes of their own laughter and last moments came back to Ishita and Raman as the Bhalla siblings left them after getting a call from now AACP Abhishek Singh who had been working on solving the mystery of the deaths of Ishita and Raman sincerely.

Ishita and Raman recalled that they had been laughing and happy before the abrupt ending of their lives and Raman had jokingly asked her what would she wish from him if their lives had a do-over, based on the ridiculous conversation about a reincarnation movie that they had ended up watching the night before they died. The parodic movie had them in splits and before they knew it they were laughing and falling all over each other and it had worked their appetites as they collapsed post their extremely tiring and energetic lovemaking. The last one of their former lives.

Ishita had giggled and said she wouldn't mind if in their next lives he wouldn't keep playing marry go round quite so often as he did as counting the number of times that he married her, he had been a groom for a total of five times already.

They remembered how he had promised her that and then went out on a limb and promised her that the only woman who would have his sperms and his kids from them in their next life would be only her.

Their memories restored Raman and Ishita decided to reunite as the Bhalla siblings learned from AACP that Shagun and Nidhi had been behind the bombing and Ashok had used his connections for the coverup. The witness who had given them the statement had a massive heart attack and passed away before he could take the stand and testify.

The disappointed siblings start working on a plan to trap their birth mother and the two fiends who had helped her kill their parents as the reincarnated parents realized their children and families were hurting post their deaths so enormously.

Struggling with the thought of their worst enemies being their parents in this life they didn't know which way to swing.

How could they forgive them and yet how could they punish them too.

Badi-dadi as Kasturi Khanna was called, helped the duo out of their dilemma as she let them on the road of Krishna and taught them that nothing overpowers or overrides Karma.

They should pick their battles and win them.

Strengthened extremely by their new resolve they decided to find clues about how Shagun could have helped Nidhi and how Ashok helped both of them while coming closer to each other more than ever.

And their love finally found itself culminating when they had a night away from everyone else and had finally been rid of their constant nightmares involving fire.

On the darkest of nights as the world lit lamps celebrating Diwali, Ishita and Raman let the fire of their love consume them and light up their lives as they made love.

As if the world was waiting for this union too, the dominos started falling into their places post that eventful night and soon evidence long buried and witnesses long vanished came to light and the darkest villains paid for their crimes.

1 January 2050.

Ishita and Raman completed their family yet again in this birth as Raman kept his word and Ishita gave birth to their second child a son after a daughter.

Adi, Ruhi and Pihu gleefully watched their parents having children of their own in this birth as they remembered their dead grandmothers and knew in their hearts they were watching over all of them but most importantly over their Ishita, Raman, Ityadi and Yunhi, who grew up resembling her aunts Ruhi and Pihu.

Unaware that the fathers and mothers in heaven heaved a sigh of relief, as they uttered.

"Chalo changa hai jee Bhallaji ab sab theek ho gaya hai."

"Ha Toshiji, ab humare bachhe unke bachhon ke saath khush hai."

"Aiyyoo, par ab inko pata chalega Santoshi."

"Kya Madhu?" Appa chimed in.

"Ke kitna mushkil hai parivaar ko sambhalna."

"Oye Madhu, chinta na kareee... ab yahin se hogi inki nayi shurwatein."

"Aur chalti rahegi inki yeh musibbatein."