Loving You

Chapter 15

When I walked downstairs next morning, things were in chaos. For once, it didn't bother me. I had a similar chaos going on inside of me. This somehow fit into how I really felt.

"Do you have the thali?" Mom yelled out, scrambling around a number of other thali that were lined up downstairs.

Shalini Maa held her hand, "Sit down. Dont worry about a thing. We will sort everything. Just sit."

"How can I calm down? There is so much to do?" Mom panicked.

"And you have all of us to handle things," Shalini Maa assured her. She looked around rallying everyone and assigning tasks to them.

I wondered how she managed to stay so calm and get things done when so much was going on.

"See, everything is getting sorted," Shalini Maa told Mom ones tasks had been assigned.

"Ruhi!" Mom yelled seeing me, "Come have breakfast. You have to get ready for Haldi afterwards."

Haldi.

That was today. The marriage functions were beginning.

"Why are you just standing there?" Mom called out again.

I shook my head and went along with her instructions. She was in a state today!

"We have to go get Haldi," Mom told me as she served breakfast. Her eyes widened as she said that. She turned to Shalini Maa, "Shalini, we have to get the Haldi from Tarun's family."

"I know," Shalini Maa was still her calm self

"No. You don't understand. Everyone is busy. Who will take us there?" Mom asked waving her hands around.

Shalini Maa stilled for a second before quietly saying, "Sahil will take us there."

Sahil.

I felt a lump in my throat.

Mom must have been surprised too, because I heard her gasp his name too. She and Shalini Maa shared a look before Shalini Maa left.

***

Sahil did help them out, even if I never saw him at it.

As Mom and the others in the family applied Haldi, I could see them getting emotional. I could see some protective gestures, some wistful looks and some painful glances.

Strangely, I felt that they had as much to do with me and my marriage as they did with Sahil.

As more layers of Haldi got laden on me, it started to hit me as well.

I was getting married.

In two days, I was going to be Ruhi Kakkar.

In two days, Sahil would be gone from my life. This time forever.

***

"Roo," Tarun said softly on the call, "we are going to get married the day after. I cannot wait for you to be mine."

I looked at myself in the mirror, looking all yellow.

"Do you know what I remembered today?" he said, "That time when I had a sore throat and you made Haldi milk for me. Do you remember?"

I hummed in agreement, "I added too much haldi and made it bitter but you still drank it without complaint."

"You had made it for me. How could I think it was anything but sweet?"

"That was really a cheesy line."

"What can I say? I become cheesy when it comes to you?" he laughed.