PHIR SE

The game of fate

4: The game of fate

"So Mr. ASR, for how many days are you here?" Khushi asked as she led him through the busy streets of Allahabad.

"As long as you are here." He replied.

"Huh?" She turned towards him.

"I mean till the trip goes on. You can take your time to guide me through the city. I would like to see every single thing here." He smiled.

"I must say I have never met anyone as interested as you in roaming around here. Any special interest here, sir?" Khushi said, impressed with his will towards the tour.

" Yes, this place is intricately entwined with my past. My parents are from here. In fact, this is my birthplace."Arnav spoke staring towards nowhere, tears glittering in his eyes.

"Oh, wow! Then you too are an Allahabadi like me!

Sir, are you crying?" Khushi stopped, noticing the tears in his eyes.

"Huh? No! Something went into my eyes." Arnav wiped the tears off his eyes.

"Oh! Umm...should I help you with that?" Khushi forwarded her floral napkin.

"Thanks for offering but I am fine, miss Upadhyay. You were saying?"

"Oh, yes. I wanted to suggest that if you have so much of time then, meet me here at 4:30, tomorrow morning."

"What? 4:30 am!" Arnav said with a shocked expression.

"Yes! Subah subah sangam ghat par suryoday ke darshan se zyada accha kuch nahi! (There is nothing better than a view of sunrise at the sangam ghat, early in the morning) Moreover there is a special puja tomorrow."

"A Special puja? For what?"

"Oh, actually this is  kind of a festival we celebrate in Allahabad, a temple Mahotsav, once every 10 years. You are lucky to get an opportunity to witness it." Khushi smiled towards him.

"All right then tomorrow, 4:30 am here it is!"

"Bye, good day." Khushi waved as she caught an autorickshaw to leave.

"See the game of fate. 10 years ago it was me and you who used to roam around these streets in the excitement of the Mahotsav. Well well, Khushi, there shall be double the excitement this time."
he smirked.

Mahant haveli, Allahabad:

There was a lot of excitement in the house. After all there were two festivals round the corner. One was the temple Mahotsav which the Mahant would organise for reinauguration of the Mahadev temple, once every ten years. Khushi's father, Shashi was the Mahant since the past 10 years. So, the whole city was in a festive mood.

The second festivity was that  Khushi's younger step sister, Esha was getting married to Rahul, an engineer from Delhi.

Indrani, Khushi's step mother was extremely happy. She had two daughters Ira and Esha, of which Ira was already married to Rohan.

"Everybody make sure the preparations are up to the mark. Oh, I am so tired! Wedding preparations are damn tiring! Khushi! Khushi!" Indrani screamed around the house for Khushi.

Shashi had married Indrani so that Khushi won't remain deprived of mother's love after her birth mother's unfortunate death. Unfortunately, that never happened. Indrani only wanted power and nothing else, which she got by getting married to Shashi. She had reduced Khushi to nothing but a puppet who would do anything for her affection.

"Haan, Ma, I am here I was seeing the lighting arrangement. Don't worry, Ma! Esha's wedding shall be the most beautiful one in Allahabad."

Now, as the reader, you might be wondering why have Esha and Ira got married before Khushi, even though they are younger than her? Well, the fact is that Indrani wanted her daughters to be well settled as soon as possible but wanted to keep Khushi and make her do all her work.

All the pujas and temples written in this update are fictional. Please do not mistake them to be real or take them seriously.