Choti Si Duniya - ArShi FF

Interlude III - Sneak-peek Year 2037

Yes, it was ASR, Arohi Singh Raizada!

"I am fair Ronit, very fair when it comes to giving right treatment to boys like you!" she said and turned on her heel as other boys kept staring at her back...she was a feisty beauty, and there was no word as 'fear' in Arohi's dictionary, her father had ensured that!!!

This wasn't the first time though that she had heard someone insensitively commenting on her body. Even 4 years ago when she was a chubby kid and even now when she worked hard on maintaining her weight, people still had rubbish to say. When not her weight, they commented on her dusky complexion, as she was not as 'white skinned' or 'fair toned' as her other two siblings or their mamma, but more like her father, a dusky beauty. But her parents had taught her to not let her color define her beauty but her courage do that! And she was doing just that...

--*--

Payal and Khushi were arranging dinner table and waiting for their respective husbands. Mamaji and mamiji used to mostly eat in their rooms these days, while Nani had passed away a few years back.

"Mom, I am getting late, I will eat at my friend's house. We are studying together for our finals." said Payal's youngest son Palash, as he picked an apple from the table and dashed to the door. She shook her head dismissively and almost called piya for dinner when she realized, Piya was in Mumbai for this week. 

Piya had made a career as a playback singer and recently launched her first ever album called 'Sapne ka sapna (dream of a dream)' which had garnered good response. For that, she had been making trips to-and-from between Mumbai-delhi these days.

And that was when Anjali, her son Pratham and Anjali's mother-in-law Sarita walked in. It was a surprise visit but given the increasing number of these 'visits' to their house, it wasn't surprise anymore. The reason was Pratham's college admissions!

This was the second year when Pratham had not got into any good college in entire Delhi NCR. And he didn't want to leave his luxurious life in Delhi so applying for in any other city's colleges was out of question. So Sarita wanted Arnav to put in a word in one of these colleges, so Pratham would get an admission. Last year, they had somehow paid huge money to get him a seat in a tier 3 college for commerce class. But he had very low score in first year and now Sarita was back again to request or rather demand Arnav to use his name and get Pratham an admission in a good college.

Added to the fire was a recent internship program AR had launched for high schoolers and freshman's (first year college) students to get them industry experience. Pratham and Pari both had interviewed at AR for internship but Pratham got rejected. And that had irked Sarita and even hurt Anjali.

"Arre Di, aunty, aap kab aaye(when did you arrive)? Please have a seat." Khushi said politely.

"Arnav kaha hain khushi?" Sarita directly came to the point and luckily Arnav had come downstairs by then. He saw them and understood what the real reason of this visit was. To be honest he was fed up with Anjali and her MIL constantly pressurizing him for Pratham's career.

"So you kept telling us you don't interfere in any of your relatives' children, including yours but it's not applicable to Pari is it? How did she get an internship at AR despite hardly being able to put 2 sentences together while Pratham got rejected?" Sarita demanded

Arnav took a deep breath to calm his nerves. But he had to end this topic for once and for all now. He scratched his eyebrows to show his dislike of this topic, then got his laptop from the study room and opened 2 files. They were resumes of Pari and Pratham, which included extra ordinary GPA of Pari despite being home schooled for most part of her school, and poor grades of Pratham throughout!