Reality Ever After

Chapter 67: Pawn in the Game

Hey guys,

How are you all?

So here's a new chapter. Unfortunately, this has no MaNan but I'm hoping this would be an interesting read. And hopefully, I've done justice to a big missing puzzle from the show. Something which kept troubling me all that time. But I have finally managed to create a backstory behind it and define Manik's life.

I'm very keen on knowing your thoughts on this one.

Thanks,
- SV
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Nyonika was lounging in her first class seat on her flight from New York to Mumbai with a very satisfied smile on her face. She was in New York for the last month trying to tie-up with a big conglomerate to enter the US market. This was one of her biggest achievements in her career. She had set a goal for herself to achieve this before she turned 45 and here she was 2 years earlier, already achieved her goal. However, she wasn't surprised. Looking back at her life, she knew she was always an over-achiever. Her goal was to become rich and famous as soon as possible and she had made that possible by hook or by crook.

She was looking out of the window, sipping her champagne and reminiscing about her whole life, especially her achievements and the struggles that got her here. She remembered when she had first stepped into Malhotra Industries as nothing but just a summer intern during her final year in college and although Malhotra industries was not as big as it is today but it was one of the biggest industries in India during those times too. She had the privilege of interning right under Srikant Malhotra during all of those 3 months. She got to follow him around in all his meetings to take down notes and help him with all his paperwork. She remembered how smitten she was with him just by his mere personality. The way he spoke to his clients, the way he cracked his deals and also the way he lashed out his crazy temper at his employees but they still respected him beyond measure. And why wouldn't they? He was, after all, one of the youngest entrepreneurs to have achieved greatness at the age of less than 35. He had set up the whole of Malhotra industries by himself at such a young age. But the most charming thing about him was his plain raw self-confidence in everything he did. She had fallen hard for that very typical trait of him that there was no looking back for her. It didn't matter to her that he was 14 years older to her. She was attracted to his personality, his ruthlessness, his dedication towards his work and his passion for growth and reaching heights. She had made up her mind at such a young age that she was going to make Srikant Malhotra her mentor and she was going to learn everything about business from him.

And hence, soon after she finished her college, she joined back Malhotra industries full time and demanded to be in the same team she had worked as an intern. Srikant and his executive team which now included her, started spending a lot of time including days, many late nights and even weekends together working their asses off to launch a new product into the market. For Nyonika, those were the best days of her life. She had learnt so much in those early days that she just couldn't comprehend. She realised she got an adrenaline rush everytime she worked and achieved a new milestone, just like she had today.

After a year of working at Malhotra industries, she had managed to become Srikant's right hand and managed everything for him. Srikant had noted her exceptional talent and even trained her for the job. But after spending almost every day and night with each other for more than a year, the two of them found themselves very attracted to each other and were in a relationship before they even knew it. For Srikant, he was finally happy to have found someone he really liked and also shared the same vision and passion as him and for Nyonika, Srikant was her mentor who she adored and was helplessly attracted to and to top everything, being in a relationship with him accelerated her career tenfold. However, what they didn't realise is that the two of them were at completely different stages of life. Nyonika was young and ambitious and wanted to achieve a lot of things in her life whereas Srikant was nearing his forties and had realised that he had given so much time to his work and his business that he finally was in a state of mind where he wanted to get married and slow down and enjoy life a little bit. He had even realised that if he wanted kids, he needed to have them immediately so that he could be healthy and alive for his child's milestones.