yun hi tu mere saath rehna

Chapter Forty Nine

Quick Recap

The story picks up from where Rohit ousts Armaan at Poddar & Associates. One of the pro-bono clients that Armaan was working with was Asha Kiran, owned by Abir & Mishti. Mishti is Naira's cousin, who was close to Akshu and had been looking for her for years. Due to the case, Abir & Mishti ended up meeting Abhira and realized she is Akshu's daughter. They immediately adopted her into the family. They moved to Udaipur to be closer to her and Abhira moved out of the Poddar Outhouse into their home where other members of the Rajvansh also settled in to spend more time with Abhira & Armaan.

Abhira & Armaan both grew immensely close to Mishti & Abir and started seeing them as parents. Abhira learnt of her connection to the Goenkas through Mishti and she served Manish Goenka with papers to transfer Naira's dance academy to her. This caused tensions to escalate with the Poddar family as well. In the end, Manish Goenka did end up transferring the property to Abhira. Naksh & Keerti also came out in support of Abhira and worked their issues with Mishti out.

Armaan ended up quitting the firm and joined Asha Kiran alongside Abir & Mishti, post which Poddar & Associates slowly started sinking due to Rohit's incompetence and Sanjay's negligence. When Kaveri learnt that Abhira was related to the Singhanias and also found out that she had been named heir apparent to the Singhanias’ law firm helmed by Naksh & Keerti's son, Krish, she decided to accept Abhira into the family and give Armaan permission to marry her, hoping to leverage the Singhania influence to revive the Poddar & Associates law firm.

While the rest of the family were overjoyed by the turn of events, Mishti, Abir, and Madhav were skeptical and advised Abhimaan to be cautious, even suggesting to live separately.

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The days blurred into weeks. Armaan & Abhira didn't reach any conclusion about the debate that had been sparked by Madhav and Abir & Mishti's words. They both were reluctant to leave the Poddar Mansion, though Armaan understood the need for it. Abhira was still skeptical, though Armaan knew that was more for his sake than hers. She didn't want to be the kind of wife who took her husband away from his family, and no matter how much he tried to make her see that that was not the case, that he would never blame her, would never let anyone else blame her for it either, she was scared.

Armaan could understand her fears. Afterall, society was not kind to women, and especially wives, even more so when they formed negative opinions. And for them, they didn't even need the added burden of societal expectations to make them feel small. His family was enough. He could already imagine the outburst if he ever said he wanted to live separately. It wouldn't take a second for everyone in the family to turn on them. The people who approved of Abhira would become her mortal enemies. He knew Madhav would understand. Of course, he would. He hoped that the Chorus Gang and his Chachi Sa and Chachu Sa would too. But everyone else? He knew they would all spin it into an ugly narrative about how Abhira was not fit to be Armaan's wife, how she was breaking their family apart. He knew Abhira was afraid of the inevitable villainization she would face if they made the choice to live separately.

So, they spoke about it. A lot. Some days, Abhira felt they spoke of nothing else. Yet, they didn't reach a definite conclusion. She watched as Abir & Mishti sat by silently, never interrupting them, though she knew how much they wanted to. She could see it in their eyes, that they just wanted to shake her and make her see that living separately was the better choice. For in her heart, Abhira knew it too.

She knew that all of their fears were bound to become a reality after the wedding. She had already experienced what happened the moment she wasn't their perfect daughter-in-law, moulded by the expectations of this patriarchal society, and even more patriarchal family. Everyday, she would be subjected to accusations and taunts, would be made to feel that she wasn't a part of the family, that she was an outsider. She had already been through it once.