Dried Lilies, Withered Hearts And A Lonely Path

•Chapter-7• The passerbys

The town will be quite in a stir for the coming few months. The scandalous affair of Raizada's runaway daughter-in-law was already inciting quite a stir in all the circles. It was the main topic of gossip in every big and small event.

The people just couldn't look past this. Never had they heard something as lecherous as the daughter-in-law running away in the shadows of night.
Everyone has their own stories to add, some vivid, some downright ridiculous, some terrifying but none even close to the reality. From illicit affairs to being a con, everything has been said and assumed about one Khushi Raizada.

Everyone had their two cents to give in the whole matter and every single person in the locality was acting like a detective, deducing and gloating everything they found on one, Khushi Raizada. The people acted as if they had done a Ph.D.  on Khushi Raizada as if they knew every single thing about her.

They acted as if they knew how her thoughts might had worked, how they might have swirled in her mind and who she had been. No one tried to look past the dark image the gossips and the scandal painted out of her. The image that followed the Raizada family like their personal scents, haunting their presence wherever they went.

Devyani Raizada alias Bela baby had already imagined the storm that will hit her family when the news spread. She was more than aware of the pitiful glances that will follow them around and their name being dragged through the mud. She had been aware of it all. She had been more then aware of the laughing stock that will be made out of them due to this incidence. 

And still, she went with the plan. She was well aware of the effect of such a scandal yet it didn't stop her from going through the plan. So great was her hatred for one Rajshree Gupta and it didn't spare anyone, not even Rajshree's daughter Khushi whom her grandson apparently loved. Well, that love is the only reason she didn't sell that girl to the highest bidder in the market. The only reason she didn't really do what she planned for the girl since her birth. 

Banishing that girl's thought from her mind well aware that the girl got what she deserved. Devyani knocked on her distraught grandson's room. The poor heartbroken lad didn't leave his room even once in the whole week since Khushi's apparent betrayal. Her poor grandson did really love the girl, Devyani thought not a bit remorseful about her actions just thinking whether knowing she was dead will make her grandson move on faster. Frowning, she got rid of those thoughts immediately.

Sheetal will achieve that with that story of spending 10 years in prison instead of Aryaman has already succeeded in guilt trapping and making Arya do things he generally won't. Sheetal even succeeded in doing the impossible of dragging Aryaman away from Khushi. Arya didn't leave Khushi even when she threw things at him in a mad fit injuring him gravely. Arya stayed with Khushi in her whole mad fit and bear the burnt of the madness. His injuries made her stop giving those madness inducing drugs to Khushi.

Ugh, no matter how hard all of them tried to pressurize Arya to leave Khushi. She was mad but he didn't and so she had to cease giving that girl those pills and make the doctor take back her statement and claim Khushi has recovered and so, Arya finally concentrated back on his business. Leaving that girl alone at home with them and she was helpless to do something to her. Aryaman would have searched both the hell and heaven to find her.

But now, her master plan had worked. Sheetal did the impossible, guilt achieved the unachievable. Feeling giddy with happiness Devyani walked inside the dark room of her grandson. He wasn't spotted by her at first sight. After some search, she found him in the balcony burning away memories looking like a demon. His unkept tangled hairs, long beard, hollow red-rimmed eyes and dark circles changed his look altogether.

"Arya," Devyani mumbled her grandson's name softly almost lovingly as she wrapped her arms around him.

"Dadi," He replied mechanically but dadi assured herself. He'll be fine. He will be, he will get over that girl and accept the darkness. He will be happier with the darkness just like her. It does no one any good running away from the darkness.