Shall We Ever Fall In Love? ✔

Chapter 65

Chapter 65

***BACK TO INDIA 🇮🇳***

Walking silently through the vast expanse of the lush green fields of Karnataka, Jiyasha's eyes viewed as far as they could amidst the plain tracts of greenery. She stood gazing where the paths forked into two narrow bylanes. She took the path of the open landscape while the other path led to some forest nearby.

The countryside stretched before her like a combination of green and brown quilt dragged over the vast surfaces of grasses, shrubs and harvests of the monsoon season. The rains hadn't yet arrived adequately and the scorching heat wave was burning Jiyasha's skin like never before. She was in the habit of staying at better places for the past four years and had almost forgotten the extreme conditions of a village life.

Gliding with difficulties along the muddy lanes of the kaccha road, Jiyasha finally succeeded to arrive at the doorstep of her destination, the house where she had spent her childhood along with her other siblings. She had an elder brother Ankit, who was Aditi's husband and nearly nine years older to Jiyasha. She also had an elder sister Kriti who was only a year older to her. Not to mention, both the siblings of Jiyasha were her half siblings, Jiyasha's mother being different from theirs. Also, both Kriti and Ankit hated Jiyasha for being their half sister, but Jiyasha had always tried to win them over to no avail.

The biggest predicament that Jiyasha had suffered was from the clash between her two mothers, Veena and Kasturi, the former being Jiyasha's biological mother. Veena was Jiyasha's father Baldev's childhood sweetheart but could not get married to her under odd circumstances.

Their village had a very polluting ritual, men were mostly illiterate but were needed to get married to educated girls in exchange for a bride price. The higher the girl's education, the more bride price the girl's family would obtain from the male's family. In case any boy took the elementary education, he could get married for a lesser bride price. But the male members of the small village were mostly skilled in village betting and gambling and harvesting crops for subsistence. They spent most of their time gambling and fighting against competitors. 

Jiyasha's surname was Mehta since her original family belonged from a village in Gujarat. Her great grandfather living in Gujarat had married a Karnataka girl but the conservative Mehta family could not accept the illiterate girl belonging from a lower community of a remote village. Thus he had abandoned his house ages ago and started living in the village along with other members of the community. The great grandfather was an outsider to the villagers who had brought enormous money and jewelry with him. He was also skilled in betting and that eventually grew into gambling in the future. He was made their village supremo and since then the ritual had been started there. Thus every girl was educated in the village in exchange for a bride price because the first village supremo had suffered from such a consequence in his life.

Baldev fell in love with Veena at a very young age but Veena's family was poor. They could not educate their daughter and therefore, Baldev was forced to marry a more educated Kasturi by his family. But he could not give up on Veena and married her secretly later. Baldev performed his duties for Kasturi but he was equally responsible to the relationship he had with Veena. Thus in the process, after the birth of Ankit and Kriti, Jiyasha was also born.

Kasturi was the mother of Ankit and Kriti but unlike her own children, she had a soft corner for Jiyasha. It was because she got attached to Jiyasha when she was only a year old. Baldev had brought her home from her real mother at such a tender age when Veena had persuaded him. Baldev had told Kasturi that he'd found the orphan little girl from a roadside. It was Kasturi who had looked after her since childhood but when Jiyasha was growing up, Veena demanded for a secure future for Jiyasha. Baldev could not agree and one fine day, Veena had disclosed the truth before Kasturi.