Meherbaan (Hinglish) [Book 1]

18 IV | Maula Mere Le Le Meri Jaan

"Are you smoking?" she asked and he looked away.

He wasn't.

"You're smoking!" she repeated.

And he hid his laughter.

"Raman! You promised not to," she chastised, only this time she pushed herself away from him.

"I'm not, I promised I wouldn't remember," he said as he snapped his fingers against her forehead, albeit lightly.

She massaged the area he has affected.

She was still in his arms. Her eyes closed, as if trying to catch up on lost sleep.

"Raman, adi raat ko Devdas bane kyun ho?"

He didn't reply, chucking he asked her to catch up on her sleep if she could.

"Tum kya kar rahe ho?"

"Listening to your playlist,"

"You're what? My what? Raman, wapas karo,"

He moved away, teased her about her song choices and she chased him trying to get her instrument back.

"You know what, you're short. I can jump and get it away," she would say

"You're fat, you can't jump," he would chuckle and she would jump as he moved.

It would be a while after which she gave up. When he nonchalantly replied saying that he was just seeing that she exercised, she too replied saying that every song in the list had a motive, and all the songs that he heard so far, she would see that it would was completed. He flung the device as if it was hot potato.

He knew her and her motives. And none of them were decent.

Laughter and comments later she asked for a time out and he commented saying that she was getting older. And she replied saying that she had him, her budape ka sangat.

So she sat herself down opposite him, cross legged, a beer bottle in hand (the only one he allowed her to have) and his for company as she firstly lectured him about threatening Shagun for no reason, whatsoever. And the strict atmosphere turned into something mellower as she mentioned Adi.

"Mummy, Papa, Amma and Appa are going for their vacation next year. Bala and Akka are going to be busy. And Mihir and Mihika need their space, we don't want what happened to us to happen to them. And Ruhi has two years till she starts formal school. Shagun wants us to petition for temporary custody. She feels the atmosphere she is and is forcing on Adi is scary for him when he is already so influenced. And he too has a year or two before high school. We need to tackle his problems now, accusations or not. So I was thinking, what if we moved away for a year or two. I know you're not keen on the American education system, we could home school Ruhi and admit Adi into a school that considers such behavior and works towards helping them out. And probably get him some psychiatric help, living with Ashok and Shagun could mess anyone up. I am not saying that there is something wrong with Aditya, but such aggressive behaviour is a symptom of a bigger trauma. He needs to talk it out, learn to come in terms with whatever is haunting him. He is a kid, I know. But care taken before hand is better. We can have a trial session, just one and if the psychiatrist finds it's needed we can move ahead with it. Or else we can scrap it. You don't have to listen to me, you have a whole team watching over Adi for all I know,"

"Ishita, about Adi, Amma's accident and Shagun," he started off as he played with his fingers.

"We are not discussing this Raman. We both know how this ends. It ends in a screaming match which neither of us want. And you're changing the topic, forget that I even mentioned it,'