ARSHI FF: Gustakh Dil...

Chapter 20(B): "...ik na aag bachegi..."

"Hum jal jaayein raakh bachegi

Ishq mein ik na aag bachegi

Phir bhi inn seeli aankhon mein

Aakhiri lau tak aas bachegi"

                              - Raakh, Arijit Singh

Rishi speaks: "So where should I begin with?" as he looks at all the expectant faces waiting for him to reveal the mysterious past of Khushi. He thoughtfully says, "Guess I should start with all the family background and things like that."

NK almost vibrating with excitement: "Yes please, just start already..." being the hopeless romantic, can't wait to know about anyone's love story.

Rishi collected his thoughts and began telling: "Raichodhary family was one of the richest, most influential and elite families of Kolkata. Vikram Raichodhary started textile business along with his younger brother, Atul Raichodhary and got success in quite short time. Later Atul uncle started his import-export business which was a success and also helped their textile business expand internationally. Vikram uncle's wife, Aradhana auntie and Atul uncle's wife, Rekha auntie were the forever encouraging wife to their husband and life was pleasant for them with all the success by god's grace. Then Vikram uncle and Aradhana auntie had their first son, Abhay followed by a year later Atul uncle and Rekha auntie also having their one and only son, Arko. Almost four years later when Aradhana auntie was in second trimester of her second pregnancy, Vikram uncle's best friend passed away leaving behind his four years old daughter, Radha with no immediate family to take her and he adopted her as his daughter. It was not much hard since Radha Didi was already familiar with them and Aradhana auntie was almost like mother to her already as her real Mom has died giving birth to her. Anyways, few months later Aradhana auntie and Vikram uncle's second son was born Aditya or Adi as everyone called him...the perfect happy family they were. Our families knew each other and so we were like best friends since baby-days and we did everything together. So, as we grew up and after finishing school joined University...lucky us that we got the chance to study in Presidency College. That year Abhay Dada, Piya Boudi and Radha Didi had just freshly graduated with their degrees and Arko Dada and Ishita Boudi were in their final year while I, Adi and Gayatri joined first year. Now, I took LLB along with Business while Gayu was Architecture major and Adi had taken up Architecture major along with Business Management, so he had fair classes with both of us. As the year began and classes started, we met our other classmates and it was all normal like it is always, new class, new friends and all... in Architecture major in Adi's batch was scholarship student, Kashish Sharma. The girl was from Lucknow and didn't speak or understand Bengali also very few students knew Hindi, so Gayatri was asked by professors to help her since she was the only girl in class knowing Hindi. Now Kashish being so beautiful had all heads turning to her but she never noticed such things while Adi fell for her sort of love at first sight." a soft nostalgic smile graced upon his lips remembering the old times fondly.