ArShi FF : Pawn [Bonded for the Womb II]

Nostalgia

Nani ji was arranging her almirah when suddenly her eyes fell on a particular box. A single tear rolled down her cheeks as she caught hold of the box. She brushed the sticky dirt with her pallu and traced her finger over the gold plated embossed name. "Aarti Raizada". She felt a tug remembering her daughter. Her death was a pathetic incident which each and every member in their family suffered. Aarti was traveling to delhi to meet her. That time Raizadas used to live in Mumbai. It was the first time her daughter Aarti was traveling alone leaving behind her 3 year old boy.

Aarti has a big problem in conceiving Aranv and she suffered a lot during her pregnancy. And to top it all there was a lot of complications during arnav's birth. The cord coiled around his neck three times making it so complicated that the entire doctors team raised their hand and said the child is never going to make it, but Arnav was a miracle baby. He survived after such a complicated normal delivery. And that was the reason Aarti never left Aranv away from her sight.

(this is a true incident. My dad was born like this. My grandmother had to go though a terrible labour pain and during her time the delivery used to happen at home when the help of mif-wife).

From that day onwards Arnav was always held very close under her mother's care until his mother's death.

The aircraft on which she was traveling had gone missing from the raider as soon as it took off. After further investigation the craft was retrieved from a jungle. The accident killed each and every passenger including crew members. Arnav was too small to remember anything. But as a child he missed his mother. His father was a one woman man, so he never married any other woman. He did his best raising up Arnav and never let him away from his sight. But the death of his mother left a big impact on him and he started become obstinate and unruly. Anjali was always on her so, and she never really took care of him. His father asked Nani to come and stay with them so that Arnav atleast have a mother figure in his life. Though no one could take his mother's place, but a grand mother was better than a step mother for sire. Since childhood Anjali had a compition with her little brother in every single thing. But Arnav was an intelligent child, which made him excel in whatever he decided to do leaving behind Anjali in all respect. Nani tired to provide him motherly care, but as it is said no one can ever take a mother's place in a child's life, Arnav became extremely quiet and slowly he went inside a shell. A shell that was unbreakable. A shell inside which, he slowly created his own, dark world. Lack of communication made him tough against all woman he was associated with.

After his high school, he dedicated his entire life with his dad learning business. But the time he got with his dad was also short. He again got a big blow during his dad's dismissal. He was hust learning business and his dad died when he was in his first year of collage. He was loosing all hopes and business when Khushi's dad, Arnav's father's business partner became his mentor and filled up that hollow.

***

Naniji unlocked the box and viewed her daughter's precious jewelleries. It wasnot precious because those were worth few millions, it was precious because all the jewelleries were giving by her beloved husband, arnav's dad. He loved his wife very much and used to treat her like a princess. Her death had been one of the worst phase in his life. But only seeing his children he made himself strong.

Now it was time to give away those precious jewelleries to whom it belonged, Arnav's wife Khushi. She was the true inheritor of those jewelleries. Naniji did not want to give them to Khushi on her wedding day because she hated gazal gupta and anybody related to her. She knew each and everything about that monster GG and Arnav. But after seeing Khushi and her innocence, Naniji's was more than sure about her grand-daughter-in-law. She has seen love in those doe eyes and an unknown strength of detemination in her body language. She knew it very well, if someone can truly change the senario it will be Khushi. No one else. Seeing Arnav changed so much after his marriage was a proof. Poor Kid, she thought. Nani unconsciously picked up the mangalsutra in her hand and brushed through the intricate work.