A Typical Indian Bride? [✓]

P2: Small World

Rajeev's POV: 

Human beings! What a creation we are, aren't we? We are so consumed in our own constructivity, dreams, problems, milestones and to sum it all up, LIFE, we just forget the existence of the bigger world around us. But lately, even this has become an irony with me.

It has essentially been a month since Pavi's father's demise. The definition of family has somehow deepened, the boundaries of my family has broadened and we've all been hanging in there with this realised truth. In the course of the rituals, Pavi and me had missed out on a lot of important classes and sunce our exams were nearing, we had been zoned out in preparations. 

Our room was filled with books, papers and all sorts of markers and stationary that you'd need for the preparations. It looked this way just one time before, when Pavi and me were preparing for the entrance exams! But ofcourse, since Dev was residing in Pavi's tummy, we had a lot more space. Now, we had to accomodate his crib, toys and rest of his "property" as well!

Manish had dropped by every night for group studies, since a major part of MBA involved making presentations and pitching talks. Though we spent hours together, we never had the time and opportunity to discuss about, ah well, Sindhu! 

This is exactly what I meant by "Small World". Even in the wildest of my dreams, I did not expect Manish to date one of my sisters-in-law! 

But tonight, Pavi and me decided that we had to host a private dinner at our floor of our home, with Manish, Sindhu and Dhrithi. It has been long enough since we have been kept under the veil of curiousity. Gladly, everyone had bandwidth and time for tonight and so, Pavi had plunged into cleaning our hostel-like home! 

Dev had now been enjoying the pampering and attention from his "Re Re" Bhua! Ma and Baba had gone to the stationary shop to look into our business. Essentially, everything seemed to be sorted! 

On this note, the familiar door bell rang! Pavi sprinted right trhough me to welcome her sisters, and may be her prospective brother-in-law. 

"Pavi!!", I called out to her, but ofcourse, it didn't seem to reach her ears. 

"Please come in!", she almost shouted in excitement. 

Our guests entered the hall, almost evidently sniffing the delicious dinner cooked by my wife. Oh, did I miss out on explaining that Pavi spent the entire evening in preparing a delicious biriyani, sabzi, raita and kheer, all from scratch.  She also made some homemade chips and chopped some raw onions and lemon to get along with the biriyani. It almost felt restaurant-like services. The eye-catchy element ofcourse was the lemon soda that Pavi had stocked up in our juice jar. 

"Pavithra, you seem to have put in a  lot of efforts into this-", pointed out Sindhu. 

"Hey, nothing like-"

"God, Pavithra, why are you so modest?", teased Dhrithi. 

Everyone laughed and it is something that felt musical to all the healing souls as Pavi swatted away the tinge of embarrasment and shyness. 

"Please make yourselves comfortable."

As everyone was directed into the dining hall, we took our respective seats. Pavi played a perfect host as she served sumptous amount of biriyani to all of us. 

"Pavithra, why don't you sit down as well?", suggested Manish. 

"Yes Pavi, Manish is right-" 

Pavi hesitantly took her seat and self-served some biriyani onto her plate. But she was just waiting for Manish or Sindhu to open their mouths not just to take a bite of the food, but to actually spill out the beans. 

YES, IT WAS EVIDENT! 

"Sindhu, Manish! Can you please talk!", Pavi jumped and addressed the elephant in the room! 

"Pavi, subtlety!", I almost gasped at her reaction!

Everyone chuckled and Sindhu sort of blushed to be under the spotlight. 

"Ok, alright! I know we owe you all a great explanation." said Manish. 

He slowly reached out to Sindhu's hand and looked deeply into her eyes. I could see that this moment of confessing their love to their closed ones, did mean a lot to them. 

After taking a deep breath, Manish continued. 

"I met Sindhu during our college days. She was silent, just into her work, no-nonsense kinda person and was extremely determined. I would not say, it wa slove at first sight, because she essentially wasn't my type and neither I was hers. I was and still am an outgoing person, but Sindhu brings an aura of silence along with her. 

We were not even in the same friend-circle. But everytime I saw her in college, I felt a certain amount of heaviness in her silence. One day, I reached a saturation point and reached out to her. 

I still remember that look! She felt so offended, strange and angry." 

"Yes-", interrupted Sindhu. 

"I felt exactly that! Because, in my life, because of our family situations, noone really could understand eachother and this guy, with a single glance just told my deepest secret. 

My ego did not let me confess to him. But somehow, we slowly started becomung friends. " 

"I was not in it for friendship-", accepted Manish with a bright smile. 

"Despite all the pain, she was strong, beautiful, determined and extremely caring.I don't think even Raj knows this, but I lost my parents when I was really young. My grandparents took care of my financial needs. But it was Sindhu who tendered to my emotional ones." 

"I knew he was a 100 pages ahead from where I was, but he gave me time-", said Sindhu. 

"We eventually fell in love.", Manish said slowly. 

There was an essence of contentment that filled all of us. Pavi seemed to be satisfied with their explanation and Dhrithi smiled like a teenager. It was beautiful and deep. 

"But none of us expected such a kind of twist!" , I said jokingly to lighten the mood. 

Everyone cracked up into laughter as the room echoed with the vibes of long lost joy!

It is a small world, indeed!