Celebrity Castaway | COMPLETE | MaNan Fiction

31| A Villain Is Born

A/N: Firstly dears readers, Eid Mubarak!

"Remember: Prayer is not about punishment or reward; it is about cultivating a genuine connection with God. The deep purpose of prayer is not to obtain a certain outcome; rather, it is about having an intimate conversation with your Lord." ― A. Helwa

Now coming to the story, I have to say having episode banks really help and now that I have run out of them, I had to actually sit on Eid to write this chapter! Once I thought, I would inform you all that I will resume writing from next Sunday, but then I saw I have an average of ~1K readers, and on the pious occasion of Eid, when the idea is to spread love, kindness & happiness, I cannot make 1K readers upset! So I pushed through and put on my writer's hat and freshly churned this chapter out of my head, just for you folks! You can consider this, my Eidi :)

Happy Reading on that note!

***

It had been a quarter of an hour since Manik was sitting here with Cabir, & Dhruv had been re-pitching his script to him. Manik had no clue as to what he was saying, or what the plot of his script was. He didn't pay attention the last time he narrated either; last time when Dhruv met him for a narration, it was just after he had come to know about his bloody family legacy & was going berserk while looking for Nandini. This time however things were slightly different. This time he couldn't focus on the unfortunate script owing to the same Nandini, who was now sitting opposite to him & hearing Dhruv's pitch with mild interest on her face.

Manik didn't let Cabir dilly dally too much before accepting Dhruv's invite for his script narration. He was dying to meet Nandini and ensure she was unscathed. He wanted to see how she was doing & more importantly how she was holding on from all her emotional losses and thereafter the ugly feud that ended with her character defamation in the press.

Cut to two days later, here they were, sitting in the narration room of the DV Films' production house & Nandini Murthy was sitting before him, in perfect poise and in absolute pink of her health. In more ways than one, Manik was happy to see her coping well, but that didn't stop him from being surprised. There was no trace of hurt, baggage or even fatigue in this woman & if anything, she seemed to find a new zeal for life, if her open laughter to some of the lighter moments of the script Dhruv was narrating, were to be believed! Nandini was already sitting in Dhruv's office when Manik had entered in a rush. His eyes had fallen on her charming laughter, as she responded to something cheeky that Dhruv might have shared just before he entered. Manik stopped in his tracks seeing her, as they both turned their head towards him acknowledging his presence. Manik could barely take his eyes off Nandini as he nodded to Dhruv's warm welcome & ever since then all Nandini did was nod at him once with a small smile and turned her attention to Dhruv, who decided to quickly start the narration without much explanation as to what was Nandini doing with him. Cabir had just motioned to address Manik's question, but Manik eyed him to hold on. Nandini sitting in Dhruv's office to hear a script that was meant for Manik didn't make any sense, so he realised he'd let them lay out their plan before he intervened.

"So, Manik, what do you think of this action sequence, it's the high point of the story and..." Dhruv's boring talks brought Manik out of his reverie.

"..DV, you know right, that Manik never performs action scenes since his spinal surgery after that action sequence went wrong in his movie one year back? We will need a body double here for the long & wide shots." Cabir chipped in with a professional tone.

"Sure, of course, we can manage that. However, in the close ups, the emot..." Dhruv only began to be cut short by Nandini.

"Umm, Dhruv, I would be doing all the action sequences myself. You can recommend me a trainer for that"