"Di! Are you ready yet? Everyone is waiting." My cousin sister Vanya says knocking on my door.
"Yes I'll be down in two minutes!" I call out and then hear her footsteps retreating.
Sighing, I look at myself in the mirror. I am all dolled up for a marriage I don't want, with a man I hate. Right now, I almost hate my dadaji for putting me in this position. Why did he have to promise Dharam Malhotra that I will marry his grandson, who is by the way, the worst candidate for my husband.
"Saanvi?" My Dadaji coos from outside the door, "Beta, can I come in?"
"Yes." I say timidly. The door opens softly and in walks my dadaji, Mahendra Rajput. His footsteps sound against the tiles with authority, afterall he is a retired army officer. He comes and stands beside me, I look up to find him smiling with tears in his eyes.
"You look so beautiful. Just like an angel." He wipes a lone tear from the corner of his eye. I bite my cheek and look at my reflection in the mirror. My hair is done in an intricate braid, and my red lehenga looks gorgeous with the diamond set. I just wish I felt as happy and did justice to such a beautiful look.
Saanvi's outfit
"I can't do this dadaji. I can't marry Abhimanyu Malhotra. I hate him!" I say gritting my teeth. Dadaji sighs and holds me by my shoulders.
"He is not a bad man. I know you both have your differences and I know it was stupid of me and Dharam to promise eachother that we will get our grandchildren married when you both were very young. But it is what it is right? My bestfriend is not alive anymore and I want to fulfil the promise I made him." He explains tearing up.
Dharam uncle and my dadaji met in NDA and went on to become bestfriends. My father and Abhimanyu's father are both bestfriends as well. So clearly, in both of our families we are the only anomaly. The two black sheeps that despise eachother.
It isn't my fault though, Abhimanyu and I never really got along because he was a year older and always behaved as if he was better than everyone else. Make no mistake, he is still the same.
"I know dadaji. I know how much he meant to you." I say sighing. I don't want to hurt my grandpa, I love him dearly but this is just exasperating. Marriage is supposed to be one of the most important step in one's life, but im my case, marriage is turning into a joke.
"You know I wouldn't ask you to marry Abhimanyu if he couldn't care for you. He is a good man, Saanvi. Give it some time and you'll realise that too."
I nod, "Yeah sure." I mutter. Dadaji holds my hand forcing me to rise up and look at him. He plants a gentle kiss on my head,
"I didn't love your dadi when I married her. We also had an arranged marriage, but in less than six months of our wedding I fell for her and she for me. You have to trust me, beta. I would never marry you off to someone who doesn't deserve you."
"I know dadaji. I am just scared, my bestfriend's husband loves her to the moon and back and I want to have something like that too. But I trust you." I hugged him, sobbing.
"So are you ready for the wedding now?" He questions, I nod in answer and follow him out of the door. Loving Abhimanyu is a far fetched idea but I guess I could grow to tolerate him or divorce him if it gets too bad.
How wonderful, actually, a bride is thinking of divorcing her husband to be even before the marriage.
*******
"Vivah sampann hua!" The Panditji (priest) says finally telling us that the marriage rituals are over. We've been sitting for hours in the same position around the havankund. I am tired and hungry.
A kurta pajama clad Abhimanyu sitting beside me yawns. I roll my eyes. How disrespectful.
"Come on both of you, now we can go and eat." My mother says gripping both of our hands and willing us to walk.
I pull my hands out of her grip. I know I shouldn't be mad at her for what is happening but she could have stopped this if she wanted. She knows how much me and Abhimanyu dislike eachother. This alliance will bring nothing but unhappiness to everyone involved.
When we reach the food stands I quickly take a plate and fill it with all the three types of paneer gravy dishes, pulao, naan, rasmalai, jalebi, and some curd rice. I immediately dig into the food and within ten minutes manage to finish every morsel. As I am biting into the last thing left on my plate that is a jalebi I hear someone tsk behind me.
"Good lord, Saanvi! I will never understand how you manage to eat so much and still remain as thin as you are." My bestfriend, Trisha Khanna says chuckling.
I glare at her and go back to devouring my jalebi. Nothing comes between me and my food.
"But really, have I told you how stunning you look? I swear Abhimanyu must be thinking of how much fun he is going to have with you tonight." She teases.
I roll my eyes, "That guy hates me as much as I hate him. Nothing is going to happen tonight." I tell her. She shrugs, "Maybe, maybe not. But if anything does happen you have to give details."
I shake my head and laugh, "Ofcourse, you'll be the first to know." I promise.
"What are you ladies talking about?" Trisha's husband, Kunal Khanna asks as he comes to stand behind Trisha wrapping his arms around her waist.
Trisha and Kunal met in college, and since I went to the same college I have seen their love story first hand. It's been two years to their marriage and six years since they started dating but they are still disgustingly in love.
I always wished to have something like Trisha and Kunal, but I guess love wasn't in the cards for me.
"I was just telling Saanvi how pretty she looks, and how much fun she is going to have tonight." Trisha winks. Kunal laughs.
"Yes you do look beautiful." Kunal compliments. I smile and say a quick thank you before gulping down some water. He continues, "Remember how much fun we had on our wedding night?" He asks Trisha. At the mention of their wedding night I break into a laughing fit and Kunal joins me. Her face pinches in embarrassment and she slaps his hand, rolling her eyes dramatically.
Basically, Kunal is a Punjabi and that meant there was some alcohol in their wedding and Kunal's cousins managed to make Trisha drunk and on their wedding night, Kunal was waiting for Trisha for two hours but Trisha was busy getting shit faced with his cousins. When she finally did come into their room, and Kunal went to hug her out of relief, Trisha threw up all over him. That whole night instead of having a fun or whatever, Kunal ended up having to take care of Trisha while she threw up some more and later passed out.
"Stop laughing, duffers." Trisha scolds both of us. But the story is hilarious.
"You have to admit it, it's some of the best-" I am cut off mid sentence when my energetic mother emerges from nowhere. She takes me hand and announces that it's time for the vidai. Trisha and Kunal follow behind us.
"Maa...calm down I'm coming." I try to loosen her grip on my hand but she is too strong, and glares at me before going into a small lecture on my "chilled out" attitude.
"It's like you are not at all happy for your marriage..." She complains.
Her words are the last straw. Does nobody in this house care about me? I dig my feet into the ground and come to a stop. My mother turns around looking at a me with an annoyed expression.
"What is it now?" She snaps.
"Yes maa." I grit out, "I am not at all excited for this. Because guess what? I do not want to be married to Abhimanyu Malhotra. How can you be so insensitive. It's like you don't care about me at all."
Her face softens. "Saanvi we have talked about this. This means a lot to your dadaji."
"So I did it na. I did what you wanted me to. Can you just....you know what.... forget it. I don't want to talk to you." I huff and walk away. She calls my name but I ignore her.
When I reach the entry of the park where our wedding took place, I find every single close relative standing there along with Abhimanyu. Dutifully I go stand at Abhimanyu's side.
Me and Abhimanyu start doing the ritual where we have to bow down and take blessings from each elderly relative, and when we reach my parents my mom cries and hugs me while my dad talks with Abhimanyu about taking care of me well.
Ten minutes pass by and my mom is still crying. I swear, she is just acting at this point, I have lived away from home during college anyway plus Abhimanyu's family lives barely three hours away from my parents house, so there's not much reason to wail.
"Take care of yourself okay? And please make sure you make tea for your in-laws atleast on weekends. And stop eating all that junk food every-" I cut mom off,
"Yes maa. Don't worry, you've already told me all this a hundred times." I say wiping her tears.
She sniffles before letting me go. I move to my little brother Aryan who is four years younger than me and is currently sporting a wide smile on his face. "Why are you so happy? You're supposed to atleast act sad, Idiot!" I hiss at him. He shakes his head and pulls me in for a hug.
"Now your room is mine." He says laughing. I slap his chest and groan, "Your going to remove all my posters and decorations aren't you?" I ask.
He snickers and nods.
"Ahhh! Fuck-" My mother's death glare cuts me off. "Language!" She scolds and me and Aryan laugh at that. I am definitely going to miss this.
"Let's go beta, the car is waiting." My new mom-in-law, Gayatri Malhotra says gesturing to the waiting audi. Abhimanyu's father
Anil Malhotra owns a real estate company which he started when he was fresh out of college and over the years Dharmaya Properties has expanded so much that it is one of the best property developer firms in India. And yes, he named the company after a combination of his parents' names, i.e Dharam and Jaya.
Today it's a company of 40 million dollars and their family is seriously rich. Infact, Abhimanyu works as a vice president in his father's company and you'd probably term it as nepotism but he came second in his batch in IIM so even I have to agree that he is smart.
I sit inside the sleek car and Abhimanyu enters from the other side. The whole ride home he doesn't say single word to me and I choose to ignore him too by looking outside the window.
The last time I met him before this whole wedding thing was three years ago in his "Graduated from IIM" party. His grandpa was alive then and he had thrown the party to celebrate his grandson's graduation with such great marks.
Three whole years of not seeing eachother and now suddenly we are husband and wife, seems funny and weird. Neither of us would have ever imagined that one day we'd be married to each other, life can be such a pain sometimes.
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Heyy! I hope you enjoyed the first chapter. As you read further, pls keep in mind that your feedback is always welcome as it is my first full-length book.