It should have been you

3. A Sacred Desire

About this scene: Khushi had already refused shyam's marriage proposal once but eventually accepted on buaji's emotional manipulation. Meanwhile, she had also finished her job of training Lavanya to be an ideal Raizada bahu, the Raizadas bid her farewell, and she and Arnav had a fight (duh-uh!) while parting ways. This scene takes place just after that, where Arnav-Khushi exchange rings (almost!). (Epi S3-E43 on Hulu/Hotstar, Ep143 otherwise)

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So, this was it. This was really the end of it, no more visiting the Raizada house where she felt an odd sense of belonging, no more reveling in the warmth of kind-hearted Raizadas like Naniji who always showered her with motherly affection, and definitely no more seeing him, the one and only, Arnav Singh Raizada!!! She had seen him for the last time today, she would never meet him again, she knew, and she was relieved about it.

However, the strange thing was even after all that, she was finding it hard to close that "supposedly nightmarish" chapter from her life and look forward to another "supposedly happy" one, that was her impending engagement with Shyamji! Why did it feel like it was the exact opposite? Why was her intuition telling her to stop and run back into the waiting arms- well, ok, not waiting but angry arms- of the same rakshas, laad governor? What kind of madness was this?

She got down from an auto rikshaw and climbed the stairs of the temple while thinking over her future which was supposed to make her excited and happy, yet all she felt was confusion and gloom.

After fighting her destiny for a long time, it was time to accept what was written for her. And it seemed it was Shyamji in her destiny! Even thinking about it was giving her chills, she had never felt comfortable around him. Wasn't he too old to be married? She frowned. If she could, she would have said to him that she always saw him as her elder brother, if not an uncle! She was barely 20 and he was what, 40 maybe? Besides there was something odd about this man that made her want to stay thousands of feet away from him.

But, then her buaji convinced her that this was the right thing for her, and mainly the family. Buaji in fact implied that it was time to repay what they had done for her all these years, she couldn't refute that argument. And she gave her reluctant acceptance...

How will she live an entire life with that man, when just the thought of getting engaged to him was making her feel so repulsed? She needed a lot of strength to do it. Which is precisely why she was here today. In this temple. Praying to Devi Maiyya and asking for strength to do the right thing. And yet, all her prayers included and mentioned was one name, Arnavji!

If the tremors she felt thinking about Shyam were like one felt thinking about creepy crawling animals, the thrill she felt in Arnav's surrounding was like one would feel when sitting on a roller-coaster ride or those giant wheels in the local funfairs she attended. You are scared of taking those rides, you feel as if you are having near-death experience, yet you know that given a chance, you will take that experience again. And again.

And she couldn't afford that right now. Arnav Singh Raizada was a roller coaster ride she was better away from...

"Hey Devi Maiyya, I know what you have decided for me is the right thing for me. Please be with me." she finished praying, having full faith that her devi maiyya has chosen the right person for her. All she must do now is forget that-

And then she felt it. The sudden change in the air around her, the sudden pace her heart had picked up, all of it indicating his presence around her. Impossible as it may sound to others in this world, she had always felt Arnav's presence even before her eyes found him. She sometimes wondered if she was blessed with some divine power to know people's presence around. But what kind of a power was this that only worked when he was around?