Chronicles of Life

chap9 #chroniclesoflife #Sagas_by_Irvika #sweetlovestory

Mr Verma somehow muttered, “Dilipji, we are here till tomorrow evening. If you want to arrange a second meeting, we are fine with that. The kids can meet up, not a problem.”
Mr Shah couldn’t douse his hopes further, and gave a short reply, “Sure Anilji… will let you know.” And they disconnected.

To be continued….

Mr Verma just slumped in his place; helpless as a father. Mrs Verma, Shruti, Rohan, Mr and Mrs Parmar all gathered around him, and continuously started asking as to what exactly happened that made him so upset. Shruti got up and got a glass of water to cool him down first. He looked up at her, with uncertainty in his eyes, took the glass from her hands and drank the water. He then looked up at all of them, who had so many questions in their eyes, and didn’t know what to say.

Finally, he mustered up some courage and faltered, “Mr Shah… h..he.. he said they need more time to think.” Everyone was desperately waiting for him to continue. “He said we can go back to Nashik and that he can’t keep us waiting, as they haven’t discussed  or come to a conclusion.” He then just broke down saying, “I... I don’t know… he said it very politely, but didn’t sound positive at all… as if they have already decided against this match.”

Shruti just couldn’t digest all this; was it really happening with her? She felt as if blood had drained from her face, as if someone had choked her, she just went blank but then regained her composure for her parents’ sake.

She put on a brave face, and tried to console her dad and mom. “It’s really ok dad. Why do you have to be so upset about it? It’s not as if we had officially said yes or anything. Please don’t get so disheartened over such petty things. I will not allow this.” She said half heartedly, trying to hide her pain behind a fake smile. “Whatever happens, happens for the best. May be I will get someone better than Atharva. It’s not the end of the world.”

Her mother could see right through the farce she was putting up, knowing very well that her little girl was just trying to act strong. She knew very well that Shruti was an emotional fool and easily trusted people, and that she had already given her heart to Atharva. She felt completely powerless, unable to shield her daughter from the pain.
But she didn’t want her to break down, so supported her saying, “Yes you are right Shruti. My daughter deserves only the best, so we can simply move forward. No need to cling to something unnecessarily.”

Shruti just excused herself and went and locked herself in the washroom. She splashed water on her face, trying to hide the tears that were running down her eyes; refusing to hold any longer, as if they had a will of their own. She couldn’t understand what had gone wrong. Her father was a man with very astute senses. He couldn’t have been mistaken to such a great extent. She tried to just chuck out any feelings whatsoever that she had felt for Atharva, but couldn’t. It was now that she confessed even to herself, that if was more like a love at first sight. How could he do this to her?

She rebuked herself and thought, ‘Why am I crying for a person who doesn’t value me? Why am I behaving like a fool?’ A voice came from the deepest corners of her heart, ‘There’s a part of me that’s going to be in love with him, forever.’ She simply couldn’t take it anymore, and hid her face behind a towel.

Her mom had purposely given her time to calm down, as she knew her inner turmoil. She gently knocked on the washroom door. “Shruti? Beta come fast. Everyone is waiting for you, dinner has been served.” She replied, trying to avoid the wobble in her voice, “coming mumma… just give me 2mins.”

She finally steadied herself somehow, plastering a fake smile on her face and sat down on the chair. It was very obvious to all sitting over there that she had cried but nobody wanted to comment about it and insisted her to have her favourite Chole bhature. It seemed a task to eat each morsel of food but she did it for her parents’ sake.