All Strings Attached

Chapter One

"You can't be serious," Dhruv argues with his parents, his excitement at their agreement to meet Dhriti's family quickly dissolving as he realises their condition. "Who in their right mind is going to marry Dhushyanth? And that too, on such short notice?"

Dhushyanth, who had only just joined the conversation at his mention doesn't take his parents seriously enough to be riled up by the condition. Why did Dhruv want to marry so soon anyway? He was barely twenty-six. "You don't set timelines for me, kid."

Dhruv groans, raking a hand through his hair. "You guys simply don't want me to marry Dhriti. You're finding ways to make me stay off the idea— there's no other reason for you to make me wait for Dhushyanth to marry. He doesn't even want to marry."

Dhushyanth finds himself agreeing partly with Dhruv. Yes, he didn't want to be married right now, but he would marry in the future. He would have a successful political career, a wife, kids. He would have it all.

"That's not for you to decide," he retorts to Dhruv anyway, unappreciative of Dhruv's tone.

"Exactly," Sarika Reddy agrees, "because I decide that Dhushyanth will marry, and he must marry, and he must marry before you do. If you do not have a sister-in-law at your wedding, consider that you do not have a wedding."

Dhushyanth's eyebrows furrow deeply. How serious about this marriage business were they? "Are you serious?" He questions. "I am not going to get married just so your precious lawyer son can get himself a doctor wife," he declares, hoping to clarify for their parents, once and for all. If Dhruv wants to marry his girlfriend, he could do it whenever, how ever he wants to do it. Their parents shouldn't be putting forth conditions that included Dhushyanth himself.

"They don't want me to have a doctor wife," Dhruv interjects, frustrated by our parents' repeated insisting on baseless things to postpone his ideas of a wedding. "They want me to never marry, because obviously, no girl is ever marrying you."

Dhushyanth, annoyed by Dhruv's tone and petulant behaviour, glares at him from the corner of his eyes. "Say that one more time, and your Doctor will have to find you a new face."

Dhruv sighs, muttering things under his breath, knowing fully well that his brother was all words and no action. Dhushyanth would never hit his younger brother of all people. Dhushyanth chooses to ignore Dhruv, choosing not to have his patience tested ahead of a long day.

"Dhushyanth," Mahendra Reddy addresses his elder son, quite affably. "This is not about Dhruv. This is also about you," he explains, "Politicians without a marriage do not have peoples' confidence."

"When is anything in this house ever about Dhruv?" Dhruv demands, his own wounded child reciting his lines dutifully. "Everything is about the party, about the great Mr Vilakshan Reddy, his son, and his grandson who wants the politics—"

"Go whine elsewhere, Dhruv," Dhushyanth tells off his younger brother's ignored younger son act, as he realises his parents are indeed making a heavyweight suggestion. "You want to marry the doctor? Grow some, and marry her and bring her home. What is with the same conversation at the table every fucking morning?" The elder son's temper had been tested, presented by a situation that seemed to be pressing on him. Marriage for his political career? It didn't seem right to him. But the possibility of an impact upon his career? The pressure suddenly seemed suffocating, making him lash out.

"Dhushyanth." Their mother seemed to realise what he was instigating his brother do. "You can't tell your brother to—"

"Amma, if he wants to marry, let him marry," Dhushyanth says, making a successful effort to reign his annoyance.