Yours, With Love

They agree

"Rajeev beta, please sit here. Come."

Anupam affectionately called out to him.

His health was continually and steadily improving under doctor's observation, and everyone couldn't be more glad about it.

Ever since he had come to know from Vijaya about the extent of Rajeev and his parents' help, Anupam couldn't help but feel extremely ashamed of the words he had uttered in front of and about Rajeev.

While he shared a close bond with his daughter, he wasn't obliged to help a man who was literally his stranger and who had said such horrendous things to him, insulted him, yet Rajeev stepped in and did everything which Kartik would have done for Anupam. He realized how much of a selfless man Rajeev was and could not help but feel truly humbled and gratified.

He had been doing a lot of thinking all these days, which was in a stark contrast with what the doctor had said. But hey, the doctor had advised to avoid stress, and here, Anupam was thinking about his daughter and her future and about Rajeev. That was allowed, he had decided.

His mind took him back to the time of Kartik's outburst and all of what he had stated about raising Radhika and how their mannerism of parenting her had affected a lot of things, in a negative manner. Though he did not share quite a lot of his thoughts with Vijaya as he had been accustomed to over the years, she knew the turmoil her husband was in.

It was as though their dynamics over these years together had been affected by Kartik's words. They were forced to think what they could not think throughout and what they did not know. Kartik's outburst had hurt the both of them, but it had also brought some sort of a change in their thought process. They felt it obligatory to think about the other side of the things which had been known to them, to go beyond their regular perceptions of thoughts and norms. It was difficult and they still did not know how to get used to thinking in this sort of a manner, but at least this was a start.

They hadn't yet changed wholly, because let's be honest, change does not happen overnight. If you have been used to thinking a particular way, being a particular way, you just cant wake up one fine day and think about things in some different manner. That's not how it works.

Hearing his father in law, well at least he thought of addressing Anupam as such, call out to him in such an affectionate manner had become the new norm for Rajeev since the past few days.

"Ji uncle."

"Rajeev.", Anupam placed an affectionate palm on his shoulder, "beta, please forgive me for all of what I had said about you. The berating words, the insults I hurled at you. That was so not done, and so very unfair."

"Uncle. Its okay. I understand your perspective.", Rajeev assured him with a warm smile.

Seeing his hesitance, Rajeev iterated, "I really do uncle."

"That's the thing, hai na beta? As your elder, I should have been the one to understand you. I should have been the one to recognize that you were nowhere at fault in what happened with you, but that's not how I was raised and conditioned Rajeev. Vijaya and I, we were raised in an altogether different manner. In the same manner in which we tried to raise Kartik and Radhi. Perhaps that type of parenting might have been right during our time, but we had nowhere to look up to, to change our ways when it came to our kids. Especially Radhika."

Anupam's eyes had turned slightly glossy, and Rajeev realized how much of an effort he was making, considering the fact that he was not the kind of man to openly portray his emotions in front of someone, leave alone someone he had not been much acquainted with.

"Rajeev, the notion of yours and hers not being what we deem to be normal, or what the society has deemed to be normal - having kids of your own, unsettles us. When we first heard about it, it terrified us. We had always been the ones to fit in with the society, to go with the flow and never against. Especially when it came to Radhi. In our insistence of raising Radhi adhering to the societal norms, we did not realize that we were in fact suppressing the person that she was. We got used to her obedience, and then when it came to such a crucial matter, of hers still being insistent on marrying you despite of your infertility, we just did not know what to do."