Obsession

16. Marry her?

Flashback

"Shehryaar son, go make your life. Until when you would continue to be like this? " his father uttered with tears filled in his eyes while he sat next to him.

His father's health was deteriorating day by day. Shehryaar knew what had been eating him from inside. He was aware his father didn't have the will to live left in him. Since the day his mother was caught with another man in the bedroom she shared with his father, his father had been heartbroken.

His father, Haider and mother, Jaha Ara had been bonded in an arrange marriage but more often they seemed like a couple immensely in love with each other. As if it wasn't an arrange but a love marriage.

Haider fell in love with Jaha Ara the very day his eyes fell on her. She was standing in the middle of that garden full of roses, azaleas, lillies but to him, she was the most beautiful flower. He had requested his father Shabbir to get him married to Jaha Ara.

His father and Shehryaar's grandfather who was the mafia don at that time went to every length to get the girl married to his son yet both the families were not aware of the secret love of Jaha Ara with a guy names Umer. She continued to be in a relation with him despite being married to Haider. And the day she got caught was no less than an apocalypse for Haider.

He thought Jaha Ara loved him but she didn't. Since the day his wife committed suicide, the will to live within him diminished. Haider also came to know Jaha Ara had taken money from his father to get married to him. That piece of information destroyed him. He tried to kill himself too but his father stopped him.

This incident had an impact on three of his children. His eldest son Irtaza, the middle one, Shehryaar and the youngest daughter Dua.

Yet the most affected was Shehryaar. Haider had seen him growing distant from others over the course of time. He had seen that hatred and rage within his eyes for womankind. He didn't trust any woman apart from one or two that were family.

He had began to thought that all woman were alike. Just like his mother. If a mother could abandon her children for someone else then any woman could go to every length just to get what she wants without any care for her family.

That was also one of the reasons he wasn't getting married. He had began to thought, his wife would also betray him, just like his mother, she would also come after his money, just like his mother.

He began to see all women from that same angle. Shehryaar knew that wasn't the sane thing but he grew in to what he had witnessed and experienced in his childhood.

The impact was deep, engraved and he couldn't help but consider her just a piece or an object.

"What do you want?" he said, "do you want me to end up like this too?"

"Like what?"

"You know what I'm speaking about, baba,"

"Not every woman is like your mother, Shehryaar,"

"If she can be then anyone can be. Wasn't she the epitome of a good wife and mother? Wasn't she? But what she turned out to be? Look where are we now just because of that single woman,"

"Not everyone is like her," his father reiterated and he just scoffed.

"Get married, have children, set your life. I want you to see you getting married while I'm alive,"

"I don't want to get married," he said with a note of finality

"Look at me, son," he pulled his arm but Shehryaar didn't look at him, "look at me," he said again and this time around he turned his head towards his father.