"Happy Married Life, Shivya Pathak" I weakly smiled seeing my condition, mangalsutra dangling in my neck, vermilion in hair and both hands filled with gold bangles.
"Come out quickly or do you want me to break the gate," my husband knocked again...
Guys, as you know, my health is not well, so I can't give updates every two days. My neck and shoulders start hurting if I use a laptop or phone for more than an hour. That's why I increased the target.
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Vedant was leaning casually against the pillar, his arms loosely crossed as his gaze remained fixed on his wife, who was sitting on the soft grass of the garden, as she gently played with the maid's five-month-old daughter resting comfortably in her lap, while the cat sat loyally beside her, its tail swaying lazily as if it too refused to look away from her.
Leaving his pending work midway, he had come back home solely to have dinner with her, and the moment it was done, he had rushed back again to attend to his responsibilities.
And now, it was quite late when he finally returned after finishing his work, yet throughout the entire day, even while he had been surrounded by responsibilities and endless decision-making, it had been her who occupied every quiet corner of his mind, slipping into his thoughts uninvited and refusing to leave.
And now, as he stood there after hours of exhaustion, he realized that the fatigue that had clung to him so heavily had begun to fade the very moment his eyes fell on her-on the way she smiled so freely, on the way her laughter carried something so light and unburdened that it reached him even from a distance.
A quiet thought crossed his mind, one that he didn't immediately push away this time. Maybe someday, if she wanted, he would return home just like this again to this very sight-his wife sitting in the garden, playing with a child who would be theirs. The image settled so naturally in his mind that almost unaware smile touched his lips at the thought of them becoming parents.
It was almost unsettling how easily she undid him, how effortlessly she slipped past the walls he had built over the years.
And if life had ever offered him the privilege of choosing something for himself without consequences, without responsibilities weighing him down, then he knew with an unsettling certainty that he would choose this, he would choose a world where she never had to learn what pain truly felt like, where sadness would never find its way to her, where her eyes, so full of warmth, quiet innocence, and mischief, would never be burdened with tears.
Because somewhere along the way, without him even realizing when it had happened, her happiness had become far more important to him than his own.
"Tum tol ho?" (Are you a thief?)
Vedant blinked and looked down, only to find Gauri's eldest daughter, Chikki, standing right in front of him with her tiny hands planted firmly on her hips, her little face scrunched up in suspicion as she glared at him as though she had just caught him doing something illegal.
He blinked once before shaking his head slightly, trying to suppress the amusement rising within him, but before he could respond properly, she narrowed her eyes even further and added, "Toh phil tum usto aise tupke tyun dekh lahe ho?"
