Manjha A String of Complicated Relations

Storm on The Horizon

The classes went on and one teacher came in after the other. Raghav wanted to shout at the teachers to give them a break as he had to meet his sister. Shambhavi could see how impatient Raghav was getting. During one of the lectures, Shambhavi had pointed out Raghav to Anisha and told her exactly who he was.

Anisha was surprised. She had known Shambhavi's story but never knew the name of her father or any other person related to him, and she certainly did not know that Shambhavi had a brother.

Shambhavi had told her the rest of the story as well, then the girls had gone on to look at Raghav who was giving an angry pout towards the lecturer. While Raghav thought he looked menacing and scary, to Shambhavi and Anisha he looked as cute as an angry rabbit.

They had to hold their laughter and get through the class. It was 1:30 by the time the classes were over. Shambhavi and Anisha had gone out first because they were closer to the door and Raghav had ditched his friends as soon as the class was over. He all but ran out to look for his sister.

Shambhavi was standing there with Anisha, finally laughing at how cute Raghav looked when he spotted her. He ran to Shambhavi and hugged her, she had been knocked off balance because of the force and sudden attack.

Shambhavi was unmoving and overwhelmed for a few moments and then she hugged him back. In twenty-three years of her life this was the first time that she was holding her brother, well half brother, but that did not mean that he was not her brother. He still was and would always be her brother.

"Bai sa," Raghav called her and Shambhavi had a very big smile on her face, "Well Bai sa is better but I don't know just..." he was ranting and Shambhavi was elated to hear him trying to figure out what to call her.

"Bai sa is fine, Raghav," Shambhavi said as they disentangled.

They had tears in their eyes, both of them could not really speak and just continued looking at each other. They both had trouble expressing themselves and their feelings.

Shambhavi would never admit it but it was a trait that both of them had gotten from their father.

"You are a Cadet," Raghav said in awe.

"So are you, Raghav," Shambhavi replied and they both laughed at his stupidity.

"I know. I mean, I never thought I would meet you here in IMA. How are you here? I mean, NDA cadets have to come here. I have been requested by him to attend but you are here, in front of me," Raghav said and then he blinked and cringed at his own statement.

"Obviously you are here in front of me. I can see you. Oh God I am terrible at this," he said finally, with a sullen expression, and Shambhavi who had been watching in amusement all the while Raghav tried to talk to her, burst out laughing.

"I am here because I topped my midterms in the written exams at IOTA," Shambhavi told him.

"IOTA? Ma is really going to be happy to hear that. You were always her favorite," Raghav told her and then went on to inquire. "How are Adhya Bai sa and Nitya?"

"Firstly, Choti Ma does not have a favorite. Adhya and Nitya are fine. Was this why you could not come to the wedding? You were at NDA," Shambhavi corrected him and told him about her younger sisters.

"Yup. If I had gotten a written leave, then everyone would have been informed, and then they would ask why I was back at home, and then it would have been a whole new Tamasha," Raghav told her and Shambhavi nodded.

"How is Choti Ma?" Shambhavi asked about Raghav's mother. She was also a victim of their father's family. They had basically bought her from a person who had owed them some money.

Aarti Yash Vashishth was a good woman herself. When she found out about Sakshi and the girls, she had written letters every week to her mother, always starting with an apology even though it was not her fault that she had been forced to get married to their father. When Sakshi Vyas had been ill, Aarti had visited them and promised to look after the girls.

Whenever Shambhavi had faced financial trouble and could not submit their college fees, or get things for the home because of late payment from her job, her problems would always be solved miraculously. She knew it was Aarti but she never knew how her Choti Ma figured out that the girls needed help.

If Aarti could have helped the girls in any way other than financial help, she would have, but her hands were tied in the fear of somebody finding out about it. It would have blown up for her. But that did not mean that she did not love the girls. She had a promise to keep and look after the girls, so she did that.

"Ma will be attending the main function with him. You can meet her then," Raghav told Shambhavi.

Shambhavi said that she would meet her. Raghav was called over by his friends, "Go, we will talk later, we have the entire week," Shambhavi told him and Raghav smiled, hugged her once again and left to join his friends.

Shambhavi was elated that she got to meet her brother, that they would probably be able to keep in touch from then on. She was ecstatic that she would get to meet Aarti. She was a good mother and a good woman. But she was torn.

She knew that Yash Nayaran Vashishth would also be attending, she would try her hardest to not come in front of him, to not cross paths with him, but she just knew that something was going to go wrong.

Shambhavi's intuition would turn out to be true but not how she was imagining it to be. Right at the moment, what she thought was going to be a storm was just going to be slight turbulence, the real storm was much more vicious and much more lethal. Would she be able to identify that storm in time to stop it, was still debatable.