Part 3
Blissfully unaware of the palpable tension between the two young people sitting across him at the dining table, Mr.Khurana was his chatty self.
"So,Geet beta, did you meet my sister, Pratibha in Virar? What did she say?"
Geet turned to look at Maan wondering what to say.
"No Baba. Geet wanted to meet her school friend who also lives in Mumbai. In fact her friend was getting married, the reason Geet was clad in that grand ..." Searching for the right word to use for her outfit he finally settled for, "...costume."
He then continued, "After we landed in Mumbai, she directly went to her friend's house while I visited Bua. Moreover, I wanted to introduce her first to you, Baba."
Baba looked pleased to hear this.
"You know Geet, this rascal did not tell me that he was bringing you home. I had resigned myself to seeing you only after two years."
"I wanted to surprise you Baba. That's why I did not mention that I was bringing her along."
Suddenly struck by a thought Mr.Khurana asked her, "I hope that you are here for good and not on some holiday, are you? Even otherwise, I don't think you can get back to your studies any time soon, now that the baby is on the way."
Before she could answer, Maan hastened to respond. "No, Baba. She is here for good. She could not bear to stay away from me for so long and she insisted in joining me."
"Maan, stop intervening and let my bahu speak for herself. I am yet to hear her voice," he gently chided his son.
Maan and Geet exchanged uncomfortable glances.
"Maan is right Baba. I couldn't bear to be apart from him for two long years," she said and as an afterthought she added in a low tone,"I love him very much."
Hearing this, Maan jerked his head in her direction and looked at her bowed head in surprise, but she fixed her gaze on the food on her plate.
Baba chuckled happily, "So you love my son very much, do you? I am sure he loves you too. After all you two got married in tearing hurry without bothering to invite me and are now getting ready to welcome a new life to celebrate that love, aren't you?"
Baba noticed that both Maan and Geet turned red hearing him but thought that they were blushing in happiness.
"By the way, for someone who is a British citizen, you do not have even a trace of British accent," Baba wondered.
Geet looked pleadingly at Maan to rescue her.
"Well, Baba. Not everyone develops an accent. Geet had done most of her schooling in New Delhi. She went to the U.K. only when she was about fourteen years old. I guess her Indian accent was pretty much established by then." Maan wondered how much more yarn he will have to spin, but thankfully Baba seemed satisfied with that answer.
"Well, Maan although I am unhappy with you for secretly getting married in London without inviting me, seeing my beautiful and demure bahu, I can understand your haste. Now that the two of you are here, I want to celebrate your wedding in the Indian style."
Hearing this, Maan literally choked on his food and Geet looked at him in alarm. Neither of them expected this. Maan felt like kicking himself. He should have anticipated this. His father is not going to be satisfied till he himself witnesses his son's wedding. What was he going to do? He had to think fast.
"Baba, what is the need for another wedding? After all we are already married."
"Yes, you are, but what about your old man? Does he not have the right to solemnise the wedding of his only son?"
Maan's brain was paralysed, unable to think of a good enough excuse for escaping from the marriage trap his father was unknowingly laying for them. He did not say anything more, although he tried desperately to think of some way out. Geet found it difficult to have her food and excused herself mid-way. She rushed back into Maan's room and threw herself on the bed face down, weeping bitterly into the pillow. Baba, who thought that his bahu was feeling queasy because of the pregnancy, did not suspect anything. He asked Maan to take care of his wife. Maan nodded his head and followed Geet to his room.
Seeing Geet's face buried in the pillow and hearing her violent sobs, Maan felt guilty.
"Geet, I am sorry. I did not expect that my father will come up with this wedding plan. If you want, I'll go down and admit the truth to him and stop all this but it is not going to solve your problem. I can only think of one way which will be beneficial to both of us; we'll go through with this wedding."
Geet lifted her face up and looked at him in shock.
"Hear me out first. This need not change anything between us. Granted things have become a little more complicated but as long as you and I know that this entire marriage is a farce, we don't need to feel compelled to honour it. Neither of us need to fulfil the duties of a husband or a wife. After the wedding we will register it immediately so that we can file for divorce by mutual consent after a year. You may leave whenever you want to after the birth of your child, without waiting for the divorce to be final. In any case you need not return to this house after you leave, irrespective of the legal status of our marriage at the time."
Although much of what he said did not make sense even to him, he spoke with great conviction that Geet merely gave a dazed assent to a decision which was going to turn their lives topsy turvy.
That night after dinner, Maan marked his territory on the bed by lining up a string of pillows on the centre of the bed. He took the right side of the bed, indicating silently that Geet was free to occupy the left side. She meekly lay on the edge of her side of the bed, trying to make her presence as unobtrusive as possible. As she was exhausted by the events of the last two days, she soon fell asleep. On the other side of the bed though, Maan tried hard to sleep but he was both physically and mentally uncomfortable to sleep peacefully. While the impending wedding was plaguing his mind, the inability to sprawl himself fully on the bed as he normally does, cramped his body. After lying awake for a long time he finally slipped into a disturbed and restless sleep.
Parts 4 & 5 =>Here
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