𝐇𝐄𝐑 𝐋𝐎𝐕𝐄 : 𝐇𝐢𝐬 𝐄𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐲𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠

SIXTY ONE🐾

Author’s POV

A week passed.
Not quietly but wrapped in movement, lists, laughter, and tired smiles.
Both houses had finally finished the preparations, and with that, the real wedding season arrived.
Relatives began pouring in, some announced, some sudden filling the Bansal house and the Sharma house with voices, suitcases, and stories that had waited years to be retold.

Chaos bloomed beautifully.

Children ran through corridors like loose kites, their laughter echoing off walls already dressed in Lavenders and orchids.

Women gathered in corners, hands busy with rituals, mouths busy with instructions, memories, and gentle arguments over traditions that had been followed for generations.

At Adrija’s house, her sister balanced everything at once one arm holding her baby, the other pointing firmly as she guided the decorator.

“No, not there. A little higher. Yes like that.”

The baby slept peacefully, unaware that he had arrived in the middle of a season where love was everywhere.

The haldi ceremony was held inside the house, just the way it used to be no stage, no spotlight, only tradition breathing quietly through every corner.

Five small chulhas were prepared, their warmth symbolic rather than loud.
The haldi was meant to be put on the bride by the unmarried girls first an old belief, tender and hopeful.

The pandit tied a sacred knot for both Adved and Adrija, murmuring prayers for harmony, understanding, and a marriage that would grow stronger with time.

The haldi had come from the groom’s side, as tradition demanded.
And both, bride and groom were strictly told no seeing each other’s faces from today.

Not out of restriction, but reverence.
At Adved’s house, one by one, the girls stepped forward, laughter tucked behind shy smiles, applying haldi to him.
He sat calmly, dressed in a simple yellow kurta, turmeric staining his skin like blessings settling in.

Somewhere between the teasing and the chants, his smile carried the quiet knowing of a man about to begin a new life.

Miles away, yet emotionally close, the same ritual unfolded for Adrija.
She looked ethereal wearing a yellow and baby-pink lehenga, soft and radiant, adorned with jewellery made of real red roses.
The fragrance lingered in the air, mingling with turmeric and incense.

As haldi touched her skin, her eyes lowered, lashes trembling not from nerves, but from the weight of the moment.

Cameras clicked softly, photographers capturing not poses but feelings a laugh mid-air, a glance exchanged, a hand resting protectively on a shoulder.

Nothing felt rushed.
Everything flowed like air, like breath, like destiny unfolding exactly as it was meant to.

........

A little later that afternoon, just when the houses had begun to settle into a familiar rhythm of rituals and laughter, two familiar silhouettes walked in fresh from the airport, smiles wide, energy louder than the luggage wheels they dragged behind them.
Trisha and Lakshya had arrived.

There was a sudden spark in both homes. After a quick change, destiny split them.

Trisha stayed back at Adrija’s house, and Lakshya headed straight to Adved’s.

As if the universe itself had planned the timing.

At Adrija’s place, Trisha walked in just as the haldi ritual was flowing smoothly.
Without wasting a second, she scooped up haldi in her palms and gently applied it to Adrija’s cheeks slowly, loving, almost ceremonial.
Adrija laughed, then did something instinctive.
She took haldi from her cheeks and rubbed it Trisha's cheeks, smiling mischievously.
“Ab tumhari bhi shaadi jaldi hogi,”
                she said softly, half-teasing, half-believing in the myth that had travelled through generations.