AHEA Chapter 9: Acceptance

Chapter 9: Acceptance

Arnav lightly knocked on Nani’s door.

“Come in.” she said.

Arnav opened the door and peered in. Nani was sitting on the rocking chair, petting Lakshmi and looking at a photo album.

“What are you doing Nani?” he asked.

“Looking back on simpler times.” She said showing him the pictures she was looking at. “I’ve always hated the concept of growing old but I despised it when I had children.”

“Why?”

“Because you constantly worry about them. You can take care of your kids until they become an adult, then they take care of themselves. But they never really grow up in your eyes. Even when they get married and have kids of their own you still see them as that baby that needed your constant attention. You don’t trust them to make the right decisions because you think they’re not old enough. You want to supervise everything they do but you can’t.”

Nani turned the page and it was full of pictures of her daughter with baby Anjili smiling at the camera.

“I always thought your mother was too young to marry.” Said Nani. “She was only 23 when the proposal came. I tried to talk your Nanaji out of it but he said it didn’t look good to have an unmarried woman in the house. She was happy enough to get married and soon, loved your father very much.”

Arnav fisted his hands and clenched his jaws. He hated speaking about his father.

“I don’t want to talk about him-”

“I know you don’t.” interrupted Nani. “But there was a time when she was his whole world and he hers. And they both loved you very much. You and Anjili. I don’t know who cast an evil eye on our family because this thing just keeps happening.”

“What thing?”

“A married man in our family will seduce an innocent girl and everything will be ruined. First it was your father and now Shyam. Of course Anjili is taking this better than your mother did in some ways.”

“She didn’t try and kill herself.” Arnav reminded her.

“She killed her child.” She snapped.

“Would you have preferred it if both of them were gone?” he retorted.

“I would prefer things to go back the way they were.”

“Everyone would prefer that Nani.”

“I worry about her Chote.”

“So do we but we need to support her in this.”

“What if it’s not the right thing to do?”

“We need to take a leap of faith. We need to let her know that we are there for her if she needs us.”

“Do you really think this is wise?”

“Di is a Raizada which means she’s strong willed and stubborn and I can see it in her eyes that she really wants to do this. She will do this whether we support her or not. So isn’t it best to just support her?”

Nani thought for a while before she spoke again. “If anything goes wrong, I blame you.”

Arnav shrugged. “That’s ok. Now let’s go and tell Di before she cries another river.”