Truly, Madly, Deeply- a Devakshi story.

Dev - the five lost years -III

Pick the good out from the past

"Sometimes attraction lasts, sometimes it dosent; it dosent matter. But if friendship remains, respect stays, then any relationship has a helluva lot of chance of surviving. Because that is the stuff of which human relationships are built- liking, respect and camaraderie."

Absolutely true for Natasha and Dev. They shouldn't have had any relationship at all, as their past was dotted with landmines of a failed engagement, betrayal, unrequited attraction and bad business decisions. Who would have said? But they also had a past of trusting each other's moral choices and business ethics, mutual admiration for their business sense. Above all, in that very past, each had gone out of their way to be a better person for the other, when Natasha had let Dev free of the engagement with the most grace possible and when Dev had not retaliated to hurt the Gujrals' business. So each was able to carefully pick out the good and let the bad go and build a new friendship. Natasha was now based in New Delhi and her oldest and strongest friendship in that city was still with Dev.

There was another thing common between them, both had burnt their fingers in marriage. Natasha had actually married Parag in an arranged marriage, soon after her engagement with Dev had broken down. However it had been a disaster from the word go. After a few months of an abusive marriage she had decided to part and had gone through an acrimonious divorce. She was relieved to be out of the empty relationship. She decided to focus on her career and not have to live through another heart-break. She had given up on love, wasn't actively looking for it. She did not really trust her emotions any more. The more she thought about it, the more she understood that she had swept into both her relationships without really making sure that the other person was fully invested into it.

In Dev's case, she fully understood that she and her father had made the mistake of pressuring Dev. She understood how Dev felt at the failure of his marriage. All around them were people whose marriages were successes, so to deal with the failure, felt worse. Interacting with Dev, she found a stark difference between Dev before and after Sonakshi. Before falling in love with Sona, Dev had always struck her as a driven but rational person, pleasant and not very emotionally expressive. But the Dev she found now was far more expressive. He did not hide his emotional reactions and was more honest and in-your-face. He enjoyed his work and was ambitious, and he did not give all his time to his family now. He was moody and had off days and would unapologetically push off for his solitude when he so desired. She found him far more assertive about himself and in touch with his own inner life. But there was one topic which, always, without fail, made him withdraw away, and that was, Sonakshi. It was still not a completely sorted out matter in his head, she understood. And she appreciated that, because even for her own self, she hadn't yet managed to exorcise all her feelings about Parag, and she hadn't even loved Parag as much as Dev had loved Sonakshi.

Natasha wondered how things could have escalated so quickly and so badly between Dev and Sonakshi, because she had always thought of Sonakshi as a reliable and sensible girl. She suspected both sides were to blame. But really, she wasn't so interested in finding out Dev's past. It was enough for her that she was friends with him, enjoyed his business acumen, learnt to rely on him. As always, she was a no-nonsense girl, she would quickly point out when Dev's excessive emotionality over his failed marriage would start affecting his life and business decisions. And little by little Dev learnt to value her bluntness. He was himself a direct kind of person and Natasha's friendship did a lot to restore his faith in human relationships. They worked well together.

Mr Gujral, Natasha's dad and Ishwari, both were initially very surprised at the growing friendship of their children. Mr Gujral had seen Natasha go through a bad marriage and was a much humbled man now. He welcomed the presence of Dev in Natasha's life, in whatever capacity, as he knew Natasha was no longer interested in trying out new friendships. He did harbour thoughts that at some point both Dev and Natasha might want to weld their future together, but for now he was content to just see his daughter happy with her life. His ambitions for her had become really limited.