As she walked to the mandap, she could feel everyone's eyes on her. There were only a few workers, Amma, Keerthi, Farhad, Harish, the pandit, and Raghav in attendance. Pallavi could handle everyone's stares, but not Raghav. This man had no right to talk to her, let alone look at her, but instead of taking away any chance at him bothering her ever again, Pallavi was making the insane choice of tying herself to him for the rest of her life.
She silently sat down in front of the fire, and felt Raghav take a seat as well. As the pandit started chanting his mantras, Pallavi actively avoided looking at Raghav. She looked straight at the fire, at how free the flow of smoke was. It couldn't be stopped by anything, nothing could hurt it. How she longed to be as free and invulnerable. Raghav had to grab her hand in his because she didn't hear the pandit ask them to start offering flowers and other things to the fire.
As Raghav took her hand and placed it in his he felt a surreal shock. Her delicate fingers shook as they offered the flowers, rice, and other things to the fire. So finally the great Pallavi Deshmukh was afraid. Raghav glanced at his soon to be wife and was taken aback by the completely broken expression on Pallavi's face. It was a mixture of sadness, fury, and complete exhaustion. For a moment, he regretted everything that had happen the past couple months. He regretted ever meeting Pallavi on that night and burning her sarees. Deep in his brain somewhere he knew that this woman had nothing to do with taking Keerthi's photos and sending Amma and her to jail. But despite all of that, despite any of her so-called good qualities, this woman took money from him when she needed it, she spared no moment to insult him, even if she wasn't behind sending Amma to jail, she wasn't a good person.
Pallavi tried her best to hold back from actually crying. She couldn't give Raghav the satisfaction, and on top of that, it seemed that Jaya Aunty and Keerthi were actually happy with this, even if Keerthi was masking her happiness with worry for Pallavi. She shuddered slightly at Raghav's touch when he took her hand, and when both of them stood for the saath phere, Pallavi had to stop herself from untying the gathbandhan and running straight out of the house. She felt Raghav take her hand again, holding it tightly, and almost dragging her around the havan. Pallavi and Raghav thought about the seven vows that the pandit was talking about as they moved around the fire, neither of them made these vows to each other during this wedding. They only made one vow to each other, silently: to make sure the other didn't have a moment of happiness for the next seven lifetimes.
