How to Wed A Devil

Chapter 8

Arjun Kashyap

Today is the day we are supposed to go to Sharanya's house for a casual gathering. I am meeting everyone almost after 15 years.

After we left Noida, I completely lost touch with Sharanya, Srikanth, and Pinky. I met Sharanya accidentally last year in Delhi and since then, we were seeing each other. It was going great.

Sharanya is a very easy-going girl. She never asked me all the things that a typical girlfriend asks, you know like talking with her on phone 24/7, giving her gifts, going out on dates. Can you believe we never had fought in the past year that we were together? She is exactly the kind of girl that I need in my life. There is less drama with her. I don't have to worry about coming late to dinners, canceling dates, forgetting about birthdays. She doesn't even mind when I won't call her for days. It's just like being with a friend. I am glad that we found each other.

I am a neurosurgeon. I am always busy and my life will get busier when I will be a board member for Care Hospitals and it will be chaotic when I takeover my dad. I mean, it won't happen for another ten or fifteen years since I need much more experience, but when it happens I want to have some peace when I come home. I don't want to spend every single second of my free time with my wife or my family. I mean, I need to de-stress and I would need some alone time. So I would need a person who doesn't nag me on all these things and Sharanya is that person.

Karthik disagrees with me on that. He says that we are in love with the idea of us being together but not really in love with each other. He articulates that there is no spark or passion between Sharanya and me. He declared that if we really love each other, we would want to spend every day, every second with each other and that we will squeeze time so that we can spend some time together.

He also states that not having any fights with each other is the biggest problem in our relationship because we don't have any expectations of each other and that is why we do not fight. And when I told Karthik that Sharanya and I are getting married, he tried to discourage me by asking me not to mistake friendship with love and that we both don't know what we are looking for in a partner.

I just don't understand him. He is a romantic at heart. All things that he is talking about only happen in movies and fairytales. I think he is confusing reality with fairytales. I think friendship is more important in a relationship than love and I believe that good friends make a good couple.

No one in the hospital knows that I am the successor to Care Hospitals except Karthik and some members of the board and I would like to keep it that way until I become a board of director because otherwise, the people in the hospital would gossip or try to get close to me because of who I am. So nobody from the hospital will know that I am getting married or will be invited to the wedding.

I shook my head and then went to the surgery with Ananya and Prof. Acharya. After the surgery, Ananya came and asked me permission to leave early. I wondered why. In these two years, this is the first time that she is leaving early.

She hates me though. I deserve it. On my first day, I was in a bad mood that everyone is trying to talk with me and I don't do good with people. So, I kind of vented on her. Ever since I scolded her for trying to talk with me on that day, she kind of ignores me except for work conversations and I think she also finds me uncomfortable. But I noticed that she is very comfortable with other people, She is always seen with that Pediatric surgery resident Siddharth. Karthik told me that there are rumors that those two are dating since they were always seen together.

I was pulled out of my thoughts by a phone call from my mother. She reminded me that I need to be a Sharanya's home by 8 PM. My mom also doesn't like that I am marrying Sharanya. She thinks that I should marry a doctor since they can understand my profession and its responsibilities. I feel like my dadu is also against this marriage but he had not said anything against it.

When I entered Sharanya's house my family was already there. I was first hugged by Indira Aunty, Sharanya's mom. She is like a mom to me. When Pinky kind of stabbed me on my head with that blasted pen she was the one who held me and took me to the hospital and she had beaten the daylights of Pinky. I don't even know why I irritated Pinky but after that stabbing incident, we became friends. She is nowhere to be seen.

After greeting everyone, I took a seat on the couch and started observing the house. Everyone is discussing the engagement venue and has finally decided that it is to be done in Sharanya's home since it is going to be an extremely private affair and there would be hardly 30 guests.

Just then I found the family photo on their wall and I was shocked to see Ananya Prasad in the photo.