Choti Si Duniya - ArShi FF

102. Lucknow Diaries - part 5

Q/N - A mid-week update, as I promised. Enjoy reading :)

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It was the fifth day of their stay in Lucknow. And least did they expect it to be so eventful!

It so happened that, early that morning, Khushi had declared they all would go to Aminabad, a famous place in Lucknow where Khushi and Payal often went to during their school days. It had the capacity to fulfil all their needs, with chaat shops, golgappe thelas(panipuri stalls), bangle shops, chana(roasted nuts) stalls and so on. Aakash was also expected to arrive by noon, thus Payal too was in a happy mood. Both Gupta sisters were excited to show their favorite childhood picnic spots to their husbands and their kids!

The day had begun on a fairly good note. Buaji had found some childhood photos of Payal and Khushi, individual ones as well as together ones from later days. Garima had gotten Khushi's early childhood photos, and almost all of them had a chubby kid(baby Khushi) with either a laddu or a jalebi in her hand and posing for the photo! Everyone teased Khushi a lot on that while Arnav whispered in her ears, "So, your love for jalebis is a childhood issue."

Khushi turned delicious crimson and nudged his chest with her elbow in mock anger. But she herself felt like smiling looking at her special liking for sweets dating back to her young age.

"Ee dekho ye choti payaliya toh bilkul Piya bitiya laagat hai (Little Payal looks just like how Piya looks now)." Bua ji exclaimed indicating towards one of the photos of Payal.

Piya curiously took that photo from her bua nani and felt happy looking at her similarities with her mamma.

And then they found one photo of Khushi's where she was 3-4 years-old and dressed as a boy and everyone wholeheartedly agreed it was not her photo but Kavish's! They were that identical!

Chiku yelped in surprise seeing his mamma dressed as a boy and nearly looked like he did 2-3 years ago...

As if that wasn't enough, they found another photo of Khushi's, dressed in a frill frock, looking like an angel and Arnav gasped in surprise as they had designed a very similar dress for Aru and Pari and had their photos in the same. Arnav opened the photo gallery of his phone and sure enough, Pari looked like ditto copy of Khushi that age! While Aru was less like khushi (they probably had to look for arnav's childhood photos to match aru's baby looks), except her hazel eyes of course which were inherited from khushi, they agreed all the kids had some or more features from their mothers!

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In the afternoon, Aakash arrived, and the neighboring aunties soon arrived to meet and greet the second daamad ji of Gupta family.

"Are, ye toh wahi wale daamad ji hai na jinhone hamari bitiya se bhag kar shaadi ki thi (Isn't he the same one who eloped with our daughter)?" One lady asked, but loud enough for all to hear!

"Are nahi Malti ji, woh toh khussi bitiya ke woh hai, jo usse bhaga kar le gaye the (No Malti ji, it was Khushi's husband who had eloped with her)."

Guptas felt awkward as the neighbors still referred to arnav-khushi's first marriage despite most of them knowing about the second grand one. Khushi too became flustered while Arnav was both ashamed remembering his regretful act and awkward not knowing what to say.

Thankfully, chiku came to rescue by asking, "Nani, bhag kar shaadi matlab (What is eloping)?"

Bua ji answered in her unique style, "Woh ka hai babua (It so happened), your papa wanted to marry your mamma quickly, so he decided to run away and marry her."