Dilkash

(v) husn

"Dekho dekho kaisi baatein yaha ki,"

Inayat's POV

Here I am, standing in front of the mirror as Vaidehi uses a curler to wave my hair. The door opened and a few people entered the room. I didn't turn around to see who it was but I could recognise them by their voices because they were having a conversation. It was Kabir, Yashvi, and Pranay. These two were finally here, I'm meeting them after six months.

These two being here was a relief. For I had just been going from school to home, home to Vaidehi's studio for fittings since the last two days. Before that, on Sunday, I slept in just to absorb everything that occurred in the two days before that.

Yashvi came and stood next to me and passed me a smile. She gestured to Pranay to come there, but he didn't. As Vaidehi was finally done with whatever the hell she was doing with my hair, I turned around. I found Kabir and Pranay sitting on the bed.

"Why are you even here if you just want to sit down?" I asked and my anger was clearly visible. I swear I wasn't angry with them, it was just that the last few days had made me go crazy and these were just the side effects.

"Woah, chill," Pranay commented, "Mai yaha baithu nahi toh kya tujhe ghuru? Batana toh hai nahi kis se shadi kar rahi hai aur kyu kar rahi hai aur chahti hai ki mai tujhse phir bhi baat karu." He said irritably as he rolled his eyes.

(Should I stare at you if I'm not sitting here? You don't want to tell who you're getting married to and why you're getting married and then expect me to talk to you.)

"I'm sorry, okay? I swear I'll tell you everything once these morning rituals are done with." I looked at him with puppy eyes and sighed.

Before I could choose to say something else, Didi came inside the room to call us all down. Everyone started walking ahead of me and I walked slowly behind because of the saree. Maa and Chachi were waiting for us by the stairs. We started walking towards the doorway to the garden and then out of it.

I looked at the two chairs positioned right in front which faced all the other chairs. One of those was occupied by the man I was getting married to, the goddamned prince of Udaipur. As I started walking towards him, my heart started beating faster for some reason. Some reason? It's anxiety. Our eyes met for a second and I blinked immediately and so did he, apparently.

I went and sat down next to him after adjusting my saree. I looked around for a little bit. But then, Kabir came and stood right behind me. He put one hand of his on my shoulder to calm me down and believe me, that helped.

A few minutes later, his mother, Badi Rani Sa came towards me and applied a Tilak with some rice grains on my forehead as the Pandit instructed her. She then gave me a basket full of gifts and on top of it was a one rupee coin and a dried coconut with a dot of Kumkum on it too. She then made me eat a piece of the halwa too.

The coconut and coin signified that I was officially to be the younger daughter-in-law of their family, it was more or less like a token. The gifts with it just showed their love and affection for me. My father did the same with him and also put a token on him being the younger son-in-law of this family.

Funny how I couldn't have even possibly imagined this would be happening today even a week ago.

The Pandit said some shlokas and explained something to the two of us about marriage and responsibilities, that's funny considering my conditions. I nodded, acting like I was understanding what he was saying completely.