Choti Si Duniya - ArShi FF

29. Who's important, Di or-?

It was a regular Saturday morning in Shantivan where everyone was enjoying their breakfast amidst varied plans over the weekend. Varied because, as much variations the assembled Raizadas had in their age groups, their "ideal weekend" plans were as different.

Like Khushi and Payal were going to go for shopping in the evening for Payal's upcoming baby, Manorama mami was going to take Piya to her singing class, Akash, Mamaji and Arnav were mulling over having a quick meeting with their investor who was only available this afternoon for a bit, Kavish had an important match to watch this evening, Pari had a play-date with Teddy and Aru, well, Aru had a lot of plans too! Like some hide-n-seek with Piya, watch her favorite songs on Akash-chachu's phone, talk with Pari and Teddy(Aru would do the talks of course :P), and then she was looking for her own "meeting" with her mamma-dada with lots of cuddles and piggyback-rides on Arnav's back, something he used to do with her and Pari a lot! Right now, seated in her dada's lap, Arnav was feeding her a small bite of butter-toast when she reached for a salt-shaker on the dining table.

"Aru, No! that's salt, baby, that makes food salty. You don't need it for your toast hai na?" Khushi who was in next chair stopped her. They were training the twins about "tastes" these days.

"Anjali bitiya kab aa rahi hain?" Mami ji asked. Anjali was supposed to join them for lunch today.

"Aa rahi hai nai, aa gayi mamiji (she is already here mamiji)." Came Anjali's voice from the background. There stood Anjali, her 4 years old son Pratham, and Anjali's mother in law, Sarita.

Anjali had met her now-husband Navin Sharma more than 5 years ago at an event organized by her NGO. He was a widower and childless. They instantly connected and got married, which brought another celebration in Raizada house shortly after Kavish was born. Anjali's son Pratham came a year later and everyone was happy to see her settled. Her mother-in-law, Saritaji however was a difficult lady. The only good thing was she treated Anjali well. So no one said anything when Saritaji's backhanded comments and taunts offended them.

After a round of hugs and taking blessings from nani, Anjali joined them on the breakfast table. However, she felt bad that Arnav did not even get up from his chair and continued to feed Aru her breakfast.

"Hello mamu, hi Aru." Pratham greeted him and Aru and was about to pull Aru's cheeks but Arnav shielded her. Everyone knew Arnav didn't like anyone pulling his babies' cheeks, he didn't trust anyone (except himself and Khushi of course).

"hey young boy!" Arnav greeted back and Pratham gave a small smile before taking his seat. Anjali once again didn't like her Chote treating her son dismissively.

--*--

After the breakfast, as adults were lounging in the hall, kids were playing around, Kavish with newest fascination, his brand-new car (albeit a toy-version), a shiny black Mercedes S-class!

Arnav had gotten a toy-model of Mercedes S-class for Kavish, from his recent U.S. trip and to everyone's surprise, it had caught Kavish's fancy. Until now they had seen him only giving attention to cricket with this much passion, and when Arnav couldn't get anything cricket from the U.S., he had taken a chance bringing this car. But to his relief and surprise, Kavish had been crazy about it!

"Wow. Its so cool, mujhe bhi chahiye." Pratham said trying to reach out for the car, but Kavish didn't let him touch it. Pratham ran to his dadi, asking for help.

"let him play too beta, he's your brother no?" Saritaji tried to convince Kavish, which got all adults' attention.

"But he breaks my toys. I don't want to give this one to him." Pratham always used to play nasty, break Piya and Kavish's toys and trouble them a lot but everyone kept ignoring it to not get into kids' fights.