Only Yours - The Vow | ✓

Chapter - 3

Maithili Sankhla is twenty eight years old, unmarried and the only daughter in her family of six people. Her mother, Sheetal Sankhla is a homemaker and her father, Aman Sankhla is a B.S.F officer who stays out of town mostly because of the different postings once every few years. She lives with her mother, younger brother, Atharv and her retired grandparents.

Maithili has never been the pampered daughter but the eldest daughter who has to do everything right because Atharv will follow her footsteps later on. Atharv and she have a two and a half year difference between them. Being babied by everyone is not her fate in this life at least.

She has molded herself into a mature and responsible elder daughter over the years. Her father's absence at home plays a big role in it but that's how it is. Someone has to take the responsibility and Atharv has been a great support over the years and after he suddenly went from a guava tree to being a coconut tree things have been much easier— except for the part where she gets a daily dose of annoyance everyday.

Her life, by god's grace, has been pretty normal. She joined Dahiya Groups after working in another firm for two years after her MBA. Now it's been three years since she's been working there. She has been working as a business analyst for quite some time and is now waiting for another chance for getting a promotion.

When it comes to promotion, Nikshit’s elder brother Vidhart Dahiya became the President of the company two years ago and after that Nikshit has been working hard for a promotion himself.

Competition between brothers has never been kept hidden. Everyone knows the company and everyone talks. Maithili is no different than any other employee either. Lunch and tea breaks give her an insight of a lot of gossip about everyone that's working at the same company, be it business or personal.

Since Viren Dahiya and Nikshit stay here, Vidhart has been taking care of the Panvel branch for quite some time now. Vidhart visits the company here in Delhi very rarely for very important board meetings only. They say his wife doesn't like her in-laws so she has been forcing Vidhart to settle down there separately but other than that, Vidhart himself has a very good relationship with his family here.

When it comes to Nikshit, he started from the lowest and he's about to go from being the Executive director to the Managing director of the company soon. His jumps haven't been favored just because he's a Dahiya either, it's quite a known fact.

Viren Dahiya’s chest swells 56 inches when it comes to his children but the only itching problem under his nose these days is Nikshit’s continuous denials whenever they're trying to introduce someone to him. According to Nikshit, his career has just started stargazing and there's still a long way to go to reach the pinnacle. He can't get distracted in any way for the time being.

Nikshit is not ready for such a huge responsibility as of now. Marrying someone is not the only thing to do to have a ‘married’ stamp on his head after all. He still has no specific plans and savings for the future he has always dreamt of since forever. His life decisions  will have to be taken after considering his partner’s convenience as well.

He's right at his place. He has the right to take such a big decision of his own life and his parents decided not to put any more pressure on him anymore. Or so they said until Nikshit gave up resisting and told them to do whatever they wanted to do. He was tired of the everyday pestering.

Maithili wasn't in the picture until a month later when the Sankhla family was invited to the 50th anniversary of Dahiya Groups. That was the day when Maithili was introduced to Nikshit and his family officially as family friends.

It's not that their families have never invited each other to parties or poojas before. Maithili and Nikshit just never visited each other’s house or can be said that they never got the chance to. The last time she was supposed to visit Dahiya house was six years ago for a reception party when Vidhart got married, unluckily she had exams ongoing in the college at that time.