I'm sorry it's so late but life gets in the way sometimes. As usual the purple bits are meant to be Hindi. Enjoy :)
Chapter 19: Aaj
Mosum Hai Suhanna
After Karen arrived at the Gupta
Haveli, he carried Khushi to her room, made sure she was settled in before
going to Amba’s room. Amba opened the door on the first knock.
“Amba-”
“Dad before you say anything, I
just want to clarify that it wasn’t my fault.” Amba said defensively.
“Amba I believe you. All I want
to say is, do you want to get a drink.”
Amba raised an eyebrow. “Do you
mean water or a proper drink?”
“I mean alcohol.”
“God yes!”
“Great, get changed and meet me
downstairs in 15 minutes.”
True to their word, they met
downstairs and grabbed a cab to the nearest bar. Once they had ordered their
drink, beer for Karen and scotch on the rocks for Amba, they sat down to talk.
Karen turned to Amba with a
serious look on his face. “Am, I need to tell you something.”
“What?”
He took a deep breath before he
said, “I need to go back to London
for a week.”
Amba nearly spat out her drink.
“What?!”
“Something came up and I need to
get back immediately.”
Amba crossed her arms and looked
him right in the eyes. “What came up?”
Karan didn’t meet her eyes. “Work.”
Amba looked outraged. “Dad, you
freelance and you quit work a while ago to come here. You don’t have any work.”
“Amba I just need you to trust
me. I need to go back and I need you to keep an eye on your mum for a while.
I’ll be back in 5 days, a week tops.”
“And you won’t tell me why you’re
leaving? Does this have anything to do with the break in?”
Karan’s voice changed pitch. “What
break in?”
“You’re a terrible liar dad, Logan
told me that the police were around our house.”
“It does have something to do
with that but I can’t tell you any more than that.”
“Ok.” Amba was unusually silent
as she continued to sip her drink.
“Am?” Karan asked in concern.
“Look dad, you won’t tell me and
frankly, I don’t care anymore.”
“Amba-”
“Dad just drop it.” The was a
pause before she asked her next question. “When do you leave?”
“Tomorrow morning at 5 am.”
“Great, have a good flight.”
“Oh and one more thing.”
“What?”
“Your mum and Mr Raizada might
start dating again.”
Amba visibly cringed. “I didn’t
want to or need to know that.”
“Don’t stop them, just keep an
eye on them.”
“I’ll hire someone to tail them.”
“Am I wanted you to do this
yourself.”
“The tail will be for when I’m
unable to tail them myself. Happy?”
“Yes. Are you?”
“I’ll let you know later.”
“Am-”
“What? So you can keep secrets
and I can’t?”
“Of course you can. So I’m
guessing you’ll tell me when I’ll tell you.”
“Tit for tat.”
They finished their drinks and
left. Early next morning, Karen left for London
and Amba was left to explain to the family why he had gone.
Heathrow airport, London
When Karen landed at Heathrow airport, Matt was there to
greet him.
“Alright Matt, tell me everything again from the beginning.”
“I can’t tell you anymore than what I’ve already told you.
Nik was doing his daily check up on your house and Khushi’s. He went into
Khushi’s house and noticed that everything thrown around everywhere. He called
me, we investigated and found nothing stolen.” Matt briefed Karan.
“Are you sure nothing was taken?”
“Yes. Do you have any idea who it could possibly be?”
“Yes.”
Lucknow, India
It had been nearly a week since Neha’s outburst on the roof
and the tension between the Verma’s, Raizada’s and the Gupta’s was slowly
evaporating.
During this week Neha hadn’t reconsidered
her decision to marry Raj and Raj Neha. It seemed like Raj was willing to try
to make their relationship work even though he was practically forced into
this. For this, the Raizada had decided to make him feel as comfortable as
possible with this situation. Raj’s parents, however, thought what he was doing
was perfectly normal.
“For God’s sake, grow up.” His mother had said. “Back in our
days, we always had arranged marriages and we only found out that they were
crazy after the wedding. This is a great opportunity for the family to branch
out especially with the Raizada’s backing so suck it up and make it work.”
Arnav and Khushi, however, were having the best week of
their lives. Everyday, they’d “sneak out” and go on a date. I say sneak but
everyone knew what was going on, no one stopped it because Amba had told them
not to but they all knew that all of this was going to end in tears. No one
wanted this to happen but they assumed that Amba and Karan knew what they were
doing.
Arnav had taken Khushi, and vice versa, all around Lucknow.
They shopped from bazaars to expensive malls. They ate at roadside dabba’s to
high class restaurants. Through all this he had been a perfect gentleman, not
over stepping his boundaries or asking for more than friendship. And Khushi had
loved every minute of it. She wanted to go further with this relationship but she
had a feeling she shouldn’t, she just put that down to the fact that her memory
hadn’t full restored yet.
It was the day of the mehendi and as is Raizada tradition,
no men were allowed to visit them whilst they were getting their mehendi done.
Amba and Khushi had been invited, even though Amba didn’t want to go. Luckily,
before Karan left for London, he
had left them a bunch of special occasion wear.
“In case I don’t make it back for the mehendi, haldi or
wedding, it’s all here.” He had said to Amba.
He had left Amba a gold choli and a burgundy lehenga with
gold designs to wear for the mehendi. And for Khushi, he left a gold and
turquoise sleeveless anarkali.
Fortunately for Amba, she wouldn’t be involved in the
mehendi for more than an hour. According to her schedule, she was due to meet
Mr Raizada to discuss the show stopper. Unfortunately for Amba, she wouldn’t
have any time to change between getting to the mehendi and going to AR, so she
would have to come to AR in her mehendi outfit. If there was one thing Amba
hated it was unprofessionalism and today she became the person she most hated.
Amba and Khushi had arrived to the Sheesh Mahal a little
early to help with the preparations.
“Khushi auntie, I don’t understand why we have to get there
so early. They have servants for God’s sake, we don’t need to help out.”
Complained Amba.
“Amba, it’s nice to help out so stop complaining and look
like you’re enjoying yourself.” Scolded Khushi.
Once everything was ready and the mehendi artists had
settled in, the ladies of the Raizada house had started to come into the grand
hall.
Neha stood in the middle of the hall and addressed everyone.
“Welcome everyone and thank you for coming to my mehendi. Now, I want everyone
to get really extravagant and elaborate designs on their hands.” She paused and
turned to Amba. “Even you.” She said with a sneer.
Amba returned it with a sarcastic smile. She had chosen to
be the bigger woman. Plus it was Neha’s wedding and Amba’s moral was “always do
what the bride wants, no matter what”. After all it was her special day and
these things are meant to be a once in a life experience.
Everyone, except Amba, sat down and allowed one of the many
mehendi artists to start covering their hands with exquisite designs. Tara
had noticed that Amba was standing on her own paying attention to only her
phone and decided to approach her.
“Aren’t you going to get your hands done?” she asked.
Amba smiled. Tara was probably the
only person in the Raizada house who wasn’t treating her differently after what
had happened last week.
“I can’t.” she replied. “I have to go to work in about 40
minutes.”
“That’s a shame. Maybe I’ll come by the Haveli and I’ll do
your hands.”
“That’d be really nice. Thanks Tara.”
“Hey what are cousins for?” she whispered before going to
sit with another artist.
They’d been there for 30 minutes and Amba could see that her
mother had gotten pretty comfortable with everyone. This made Amba feel a lot
better about leaving her here while she went to AR. Suddenly, the door opened
with a bang and in came Priti. She was wearing a royal blue choli with gold
designs and a plain red lehenga with blue and gold borders. She looked like she
had a hangover.
“Priti!” chastised Anjili. “Why are you so late? And where
is your dupatta?”
“I woke up late and the dupatta barely covered anything so I
chose not to wear it.” She pointed at one of the mehendi artists, “Hey lady, do
my back and my belly.”
Anjili looked scandalised and Neha looked outraged. Everyone
else was just shifting around uncomfortably not knowing what to do.
“Priti why do you always have to ruin everything?!”
reproached Neha.
“Because that’s my MO. Oh mum stop looking so shocked, you
know I’ve done worse things. If you want me to stop ‘embarrassing’ you just take
the ladies to the living room or to the garden.”
By this point, Neha was fuming.
Luckily, Tara was trying to calm her down while Anjili
orchestrated everyone towards the garden.
Amba looked at her watch and approached Khushi.
“I have to leave for work now. Are you going to be ok?” she
asked.
“Yes I’ll be fine.”
“If you’re not, just call me and I’ll come and pick you up.”
“Ok now go, I don’t want you to be late.”
A while after Amba had gone, Karan had phone Khushi.
“Karan!” shouted Khushi.
“Khushi I know you love me but there’s no reason to shout it
to the world.” Teased Karan.
“Yeah yeah. So have you taken care of everything?”
“Nearly, I’m still working out some stuff with Matt.”
“Tell Matt I say hi.”
“Will do. Oh hold on Khushi, Matt needs some papers. Khushi
says hi Matt. Matt says hi back Khushi.” Karan put the phone down and started
humming Aaj Mosum Hai Suhana while looking for the papers.
Khushi frowned, she knew that tune from somewhere. “Karan?”
“Hold on Khushi.”
“No Karan this is important.”
Karan stopped his search and picked up the phone. “Yes
Khushi.”
“That tune you were humming, what’s it called?”
“Why?”
“Just answer the question!” she said desperately.
“It’s called Aaj Mosum Hai Suhana.”
“Hai Devi Maya, I remember.”
“Khushi, Khushi! What do you remember?” But Khushi had
already cut off on him. “Damn it! Matt I need to go.”
“That’s cool man, we’ll continue tomorrow.”
“No I need to go back to India
today. Apparently, Khushi remembers.”
AR, Lucknow
Khushi had managed to convince Payal to give her one of the
Raizada cars by saying it was an emergency. Payal hadn’t asked any questions
and had told the driver to take Khushi straight to AR. Once inside, she had
demanded to know where Arnav Singh Raizada was. For fear of her life, the
receptionist had led her to the room where Amba and Arnav were discussing the
show stopper. Both of them seemed surprised to see her.
“Khushi?”
“Khushi auntie?”
But all Khushi did was stand there in silence and seethe.
Arnav and Amba exchanged a glance of worry.
“Khushi are you ok?”
“Khushi auntie, is everything alright?”
Khushi walked towards them and a slap echoed though the
room.
“Don’t you dare!” she spat out.
Visuals:
