Dheere Dheere Se

Rituals

Paridhi's POV:

Never in my thoughts I imagined getting arranged married, but here I'm standing in front of bunch of strangers, even so, there is something that puts me on peace, is it this man standing next to me? Rishabh. My husband, I met him or rather 'saw' him at my cousins wedding for the first time. Navy blue kurta, rolled up sleeves popping his forearm veins, fluffy hairstyle and black sunglasses. Soon later, his parents initiated the conversation of our marriage, and me being the obidient kid of my parents, I agreed to meet him. Rishabh isn't as talkative as me, but through his actions he has always made me feel at ease. I'm not a party person rather I hate crowds, and yesterday I was the face of crowd, everyone's eyes were fixated at me and Rishabh, nervousnes and anxiety Kicked In me during our vows. The priest made me put my hand into Rishabh's and maybe he realised I was trembling, so he rubbed my knuckles under his hands. The sensation of his touch brought so much peace to me, almost all the world went blurry. The fact that he noticed I wasn't comfortable and the way he didn't even had to ask, just a fraction of his touch did wonders to me.

"Paridhi beta, come, seat here" Gayatri aunty, my mother in law made me seat on the mattress. Rishabh sat opposite to me, his face glowing and his eyes on me. It reminded me of earlier, the way we were so close to eachother, just two of us in the room, a pleasant silence, his hands touching my back and a current sizzling in my body. My heart was ready to pop out with all the fast beating and then when he slowly wispered 'you look beautiful' in my ears, looking at me through the mirror, everything stopped around me. The world had stop functioning or maybe it was my brain? The voices around brought me back to present, There was a huge bowl between me and Rishabh. Anuradha aunty put a ring in that bowl. Ah, it was the finding ring ritual. My lips turned into a curl with the thought of me touching Rishabh's hand underneath the water and in front of everyone.

"Bhabhi pe nahi bhai, ring pe dhyan do" Vedika called out Rishabh teasingly, his eyes were fixated at me since I sat there, as much as I loved it, I couldn't stop blushing, it was a huge distraction from the game. Our hands touched and even under the cold water I could feel his warm hands. 'bhabhi bhabhi' the cheers went along, courage took over me and slowly-gently I tucked my pinky finger in he's, his eyes wavered at my sudden initiative, I took the chance of his distraction and pulled out the ring. Rishabh's mouth went into a 'o' and I couldn't help but laugh at it. "that's cheating!" He said it loudly in disbelief and his cousins gave a us a teasing look. Embarrassment flushed on our cheeks and widened my eyes at him, trying to hide the huge grin.

---

Im pretty good at cooking, as much as I won't die out of hunger and neither kill someone due to hunger, but this concept of making the sweet dish for whole family after marriage is just to stressful. I come from a family of 3, just me and my parents how am I supposed to make sweet for 12 then? I wish I was good at maths. Cause cooking ain't doing any thing here! While I was immersed in my thoughts, I heard someone clear their throught "uh um, seems like someone can't cheat here, huh?" It was Rishabh, standing all tall next to me, leaning on the kitchen counter with his neck tilted looking down at me. Well I must say, I've got a handsome husband "excuse me? Who cheated? You were the one touching me" opps that came out a little unfiltered and also with a unnecessary huge smile "ohh~ well um. I- okay, I did" confidence boosted in his voice as he continued "you didn't like it?" Ugh. Was it necessary to ask? Ofcourse I liked it. But dude like come on you can't just ask me like that. Wait what? Did I just called my husband dude? Woah. "I didn't mean that way...." Damn I need to change this topic "uh, by any chance do you know where we keep our dry fruits container..." he didn't even hold back his smile at my foolish attempt to change the topic.

Rishabh handed me the dry fruits container and stayed by my side till I made kheer. I've been so nervous about serving it to his relatives my hands are almost trembling. "Achaa, suno na.." I turned around to Rishabh who was standing near the fridge.
"Bolo na"
"Can you just taste this and tell me if it's okay? Or like I need to add anything? I'm good at cooking otherwise but you know everyone's out there waiting for me to serve I don't want to disappoint them" I don't why I was talking so much but the amount of anxiety I felt was unbearable.
"Shushh, relax. Well it looks appetizing" he took the bowl from my hands "let me try" he looked into my eyes with admiration as took a spoonful of kheer "it's.. it's perfect!" He exclaimed and put his left foot ahead leaning closer to me, butterflies flew in my stomach as he wispered "just like you" Damn. My heart pumped so hard he must have heard it from the distance that we were standing. Was my husband flirting with me? Gosh.

"Beta, ban gayi kheer" Gayatri Maa, Rishabh's mother asked as she entered the kitchen. Within fraction of seconds the closeness between us was gone, I turned around trying, rather acting to clean the counter, while Rishabh looked up admiring the cabinets, interestingly. For a moment we forgot we are literally married and turned into two accidentally caught teenagers. "Tu yaha kya kar raha hai?" Gayatri Maa looked at Rishabh in suspicion.
"Woh me Pani pine aaya tha, toh Paridhi ko dry fruits chahiye the, toh, uh, mene nikal ke diye" he looked so cute trying to convince maa that he wasn't here ogling me while I cooked and flirted with me just before maa came "Achese bhar-bharke daalna dryfruits " Rishabh said while leaving the kitchen slyly.

It went pretty good and I also received shagun from Anuradha aunty. By evening almost all relatives were gone, so we sat opening the gifts we had received when I saw Rishabh sneaking a gift box in our room, werid.

---

"Rishabh, Paridhi, yaad hai na kaal kuldevi ke darshan ke liye jana hai. Paridhi beta kaalke din sirf Sadi pehen lena, baki time tum jo chaho woh pehno bass kaal mandir jana hai na toh koi achi Sadi pehenna" sarees look gorgeous but carrying them is such a task.

"Maa me bhi Sadi pehenungi, bhabhi ko company" Vedika winked at me and we highfived. She was like a bestie to me in this house. Later we spent most of the evening deciding what saree to wear.

---

Now that the guests were gone, we finally got the room for ourselves. Butterflies danced in my core as me and Rishabh lied down on either sides of our bed. Both of us pretended to use our phones avoiding the interaction but we couldn't take off our eyes from each other. He looked around when I caught him and I acted extremely interested our bedsheets when he did the same. It was funny and cute how none of us knew where to take this, so I just rolled on the other side hiding my blush when Rishabh uttered "umm, Paridhi.." I turned back as I heard him say my name. "Would you mind if I posted our pictures on my social media?" He asked hesitantly. "No, ofcourse not. We are married why would I mind" I chuckled at his innocence.

"Cool, wanna select which ones to post?"
"Sure"

We spent our night selecting the pictures, laughing and cringing at some and adoring a few. I didn't even realise how and when we fell asleep.

When I opened my eyes halfway due to chirping of birds, I see Rishabh and me are sleep holding our hands, his other hand on tightened around my waist. My right hand underneath his head and we are entangled into each other like some puzzle pieces. The warmth of his body and the chocolatey smell radiated around me, smuggling even closer I rested my head on he's and slept a little more.