Whisper in the Night|18+(hold)

Chapter 11 : Vighnaharta

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Kaira's POV:-

The cool marble of the bathroom floor offered no comfort to my increasingly frazzled state. I stood in front of the mirror, half dressed—just a blouse and an underskirt—wrestling with six yards of fabric that clearly hated me. It was a beautiful saree, a deep emerald green with delicate gold work, chosen with an ambitious hope to look sophisticated, womanly. Instead, it clung to me in all the wrong places, a rebellious entity determined to make me look like a clumsy child playing dress-up.

On my phone, perched precariously on the edge of the sink, a YouTube tutorial played for the tenth time. The woman on screen, with her graceful movements and knowing smile, draped her saree like she'd been born with pleats in her hands. Each fold fell perfectly, each tuck was effortlessly elegant.

Me? My pleats looked like crushed papad. Crumpled, sad, and utterly defeated.

It wasn't compulsory to wear a saree for the puja—a simple kurti would've been perfectly fine, even preferred given my lack of expertise. But no. Miss Kaira Singh had to get all ambitious. "Today I will look like a proper grown woman," I told myself this morning, my voice brimming with an optimism that now felt like a distant, cruel joke. And here I was, looking like a tangled bedsheet, ready to declare war on a piece of silk.

More importantly—the sheer absurdity of it all made me scoff, a bitter laugh escaping my lips. "Mujhse toh dupatta bhi nahi sambhalta, toh saree kaun sa tameez se sambhal jaayegi?" I muttered under my breath, my reflection staring back at me with wide, frustrated eyes. The irony was suffocating. I, Kaira, who perpetually tripped over my own feet and struggled with anything requiring grace, had chosen this formidable foe.

I had asked the helper to bring me one, because Rishav himself had said, with that casual, charming ease he possessed, "If you want anything, just tell the staff." He'd made it sound so simple, so effortless. I'd seen the women in his family, elegant and poised in their silks, and a foolish desire had sprouted within me to emulate them, to fit seamlessly into this new, unfamiliar world.

But... God really has a cruel sense of humor. The universe, it seemed, had conspired against my sartorial ambitions. Zindagi mein ek bhi mauka nahi diya mujhe saree pehne ka? The thought twisted in my gut, a peculiar pang of longing and resentment. Why had I never learned? Why had no one ever taught me this fundamental skill, so ingrained in the women around me?

My subconscious, of course, chimed in with its usual sarcasm: "Diya tha. Mummy ne pehnaya tha tujhe. Yaad hai?"

I froze for a moment, the emerald fabric slipping through my numb fingers. Yes... once. A flash of memory: the soft, floral scent of her, her gentle hands guiding the fabric around my small frame, her laughter echoing as I twirled, feeling like a princess. She had draped it around me, a miniature version of herself, for some forgotten family function. But that was before. Before my eighteenth birthday. Before the sudden, inexplicable shift that had transformed her loving gaze into something distant, her touch reserved. Before she suddenly began treating me differently. Before even Papa's smiles started feeling... forced, like he was playing a part.

The air in the room grew heavy, thick with unspoken questions. Sometimes, I can't stop myself from wondering—are they really my parents? Am I even their daughter? The thought was a relentless ghost, haunting the corners of my mind, especially when these strange, unexplainable gaps in my memory or understanding of my past surfaced.