don't worry, it's U/A. almost. 🤣
i'm so sorry..i'm depressed nowadays, so i need to cheer myself up. 🤣
note: this is inspired by a book i read called 'Stories of love and beauty' by Datla Chiranjeevi Raju.😳
The Honeymoon
'Maanvi beta, what are you doing?' asked a concerned Vanshika.
Maanvi almost jumped out of her wedding lehenga as she looked away from the garden outside the Vadhera house and into the kind eyes of he-gulp-mother-in-law.
At first, it had just been a game, the kind any 21 year old girl would play at the peak of her naivety. The situation read out of a fairly respectable Bollywood romance film-girl's sister is getting married, and girl falls in love with the future-devar of her di. It was a genre that had been perfected by the Barjatyas, and which Maanvi was hoping would appeal to the prissy Vadheras too.
But it ran much deeper than that. Maanvi had been unable to bear the thought of separating from her Jeevika di. Most people took their siblings for granted, but not she. When their parents had died, and when Maanvi had been thrust into a hostile, alien environment, Jeevika had been the only familiar face. It was a prospect she would face again once her Beeji got her married, but this time, Jeevika would be busy cooking up a storm in her in-laws place instead of being by her sister's side.
Maanvi had always fancied herself as a very strong and independent person, but secretly she was aware that her life was hanging on by a fragile thread, and that thread was Jeevika. So she had decided to do the unthinkable. Since breaking her sister's romance with Lawyer Charming was impossible, Maanvi had decided to seduce the Chep-her Viren jiju's younger brother-Virat.
It hadn't been easy. Apart from an attitude the size of Empire State Building, Virat also carried certain burdens from his past-namely, a former girlfriend who refused to leave him, not in reality, but in memory. Erasing the girl from his mind was the equivalent of twenty-four hours of continuously scrubbing at the dirty linen of all the members of the Choudhary family.
Not to mention, that Maanvi was neither an excessively shy small-town girl like her Jeevika di, nor was she street-smart and modern, like the girls in big cities. She was just, well, Maanvi. She didn't believe in love, attraction, romance or even a combination of the three. For her, such things were meant to exist in fairy tales only, and not to invade her otherwise boy-free life.
She sighed as Vanshika concluded her lecture on being a Vadhera bahu. She had heard it almost ten times, from Swamini Bua, Dadaji, Kadambari Chachi, and worst of all, her own sister. It pained her to see it, but gradually Jeevika's soft exterior was fading, and she was on the way to becoming another stuck-up Vadhera. Maanvi thanked her stars that the marriage had taken place in time. Even if she had scandalized half of Chandigarh with her affair with Virat, she could at least save her sister from her impending destruction.
There was nothing left to do now, but hope. Or as Vanshika told her, before exiting the room, wait for her pati parmeshwar to come so that she could tell him the truth.
---
'Virat...tum yeh kya bol rahe ho?' asked Viren, shocked. Virat cringed. So he hadn't really been expecting his brother to break into a happy dance on hearing the news...but he hadn't expected him to be that shocked also.
'C'mon bhaiyya, I can forgive the rest of our family for being so oblivious, but at least you and bhabhi should have known something was wrong,' he said lamely, staring at the ground.
'So...you are trying to say that all this...it's just a ploy so that Maanvi can be close to Jeevika?' he said, still in a state of disbelief.
'Well..' Virat trailed off. The truth was, he was still lying. He had told his brother that this was a mutual plan on his and Maanvi's part, and not that this was entirely the Bandariya's ridiculous imagination, which strangely enough, seemed to have actually convinced his otherwise skeptical relatives.
Virat had known something was wrong the moment the Bandariya dropped her attitude and started behaving sweetly with him. Gone was the rude Choudhrain. Instead she was replaced by a fully wild and naughty Maanvi, who for some odd reason, began hugging and kissing him on the cheek, even though the situation didn't exactly require it.
It was another thing that Virat had gone wayyy beyond that with some of his exes, but it was a big step for the Chepni, he figured.
And when Swamini Bua had come and politely asked him whether he and Maanvi were painting the town red and the Vadhera family's reputation black, and that whatever it was, it was better they got married, Virat had known that the Sherni's plan had worked. She had now effectively glued herself to her Jeevika di for life.
He didn't understand why he had to be the Fevicol though.
'Virat..this is not a joke,' Viren said, shaking his head. 'She's your wife now. It was very nice of you to do all this for her and Jeevika, but if you don't love her, how will you be happy?'
'Wait a minute,' Virat abruptly cut in. He took a deep breath. Now this was the difficult part. 'I didn't say that I don't love her.'
Viren stared at his brother, wondering whether he'd misheard it. Though Virat's face was a portrait of hesitation and nervousness, his eyes were firm and determined, and Viren instantly knew what had possessed his brother to undertake such a crazy venture.
'Look,' exhaled Virat, 'I don't know whether she loves me. That's entirely her choice. But it's not like I'm not happy with her. I am. And she's not that bad really.'
'So you're innit?' asked Viren, hardly believing his luck. Finally! He'd thought that after She-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, it would be difficult for his younger brother to find love again, but he couldn't be happier, especially if the girl was none other than his wife's sister. Now both his wife and his brother would be on cloud nine! He almost felt giddy, thanking his stars that Virat and Maanvi had pulled off such a feat.
'Virat bhaiyya, aapki suhaag raat ka time ho gaya hai. Go or else bhabhi will get the wrong impression,' Shlok called out from outside.
Virat rolled his eyes. 'Shlok's girlfriend will be both lucky and unlucky,' he informed Viren hastily, in a bid to avoid any jokes about what was coming next.
'Why?' Viren asked, though he knew the answer very well.
'Lucky because he'll never be late for a date. Unlucky because he won't spare her if she is.'
----
Maanvi wondered what to do as she sat on the bed, her hands on her knees. For five minutes she had admired her mehendi. Once she had realised that this was the same design Virat would be going over a few minutes later, she had balked. After that she had tried messaging people on her phone, before realizing that in the wedding melee, she had forgotten the all-important task of recharging her phone. Finally she had tried looking at the stars, but the night was unusually cloudy, so she'd given up.
You can always curl up and go to sleep. That's what they always do in the TV shows, she thought to herself. But the trouble was, Maanvi seemed to be suffering from a temporary bout of insomnia. The butterflies in her stomach seemed to be interfering with her dream cycle too. She wondered whether she should pretend, but then, the Bandar was too smart for that.
The door opened slowly, and Maanvi felt shivers rise up on her arm as she heard Virat's footsteps. He closed it, and she could almost visualize him smirking and removing his turban, before taking confident strides towards the bed. 'Bandariya..oh meri bandariya...' he sang, as he came closer and closer. Maanvi could feel her teeth chattering. She suddenly felt like she was the lead heroine of a badly scripted horror movie.
C'mon Maanvi, she thought to herself. Just tell him. Tell him that you don't really love him and all this was nautanki...oh god, no I can't. It would be just too evil. I can't have him heartbroken again...
She closed her eyes shut as he placed a hand on her arm. 'Hey,' he whispered into her ear, 'turn around.' She obeyed him. His hands gently cupped her cheeks and she hesitantly opened her eyes.
'It's okay Bandariya,' he said nonchalantly. 'We don't have to do this. Don't be so scared...Actually,' he continued, rubbing the cloth of her lehenga between his fingers, 'I have to tell you something.'
'Shoot,' she said, though she had an awful mental premonition of what was coming next.
'Maanvi..,' he sighed, 'I don't love you. And no, I'm not joking.' She looked at his face in surprise, and it was calm. There was not a hint of his old humor on it.
Maanvi suddenly felt fury pounding in her blood. What? He didn't love her? How was that possible?He couldn't cheat her like this...if he had...and then suddenly, guilt sprouted up in her heart. Why was she being so angry? Wasn't that what she wanted to tell him? Maanvi realized that now that Virat was telling the dialogues she had been rehearsing, she didn't feel relieved. She just felt...well she just felt rejected.
'That's okay...' she said shiftily, 'actually that's what even I wanted to tell you too...all this was just a naatak to get close to my Jeevika di,' she said, looking away.
He smiled and placed his palm on his heart, looking upwards. 'Phew. You know, even I did this only so that my family would shut up and accept the fact that I could move on..well from You-Know-Who.'
'Of course,' she said, a sudden snarkiness creeping into her voice. 'She-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named.' And I am what, Avada Kedavra?
'Well good then,' he said lazily. 'We prevented things from ermm..getting uncomfortable. Of course, it's taken for granted this is a secret between us too.' She nodded her head, keeping literally tight-lipped so that he wouldn't notice that she was gritting her teeth. He turned around so that his back was facing her, and she did the same for him.
Virat waited. It was a long wait, but an amusing one, as the sounds of her tossing back and forth clearly indicated that this was not what she had expected. When you were Maanvi Choudhary, you played a nice game with me. But now that you are Maanvi Vadhera, it's my turn to throw the dice.
Finally, after a gap of five-ten minutes, she was unable to control herself. He's joking, she thought, he has to be. And if you have any sense, you're going to tell him that what you said was a joke too.
She snaked her arms around his waist, expecting him to ignore her. But Virat seemed to have had enough too. He instantly twisted around and slammed her roughly into the bed, so that she sank down into the soft mattress. Before she had time to say 'Huh?', he'd completely pinned her, his legs interlocked with hers. His arms, however, were having a tough time, as Maanvi had caught on soon enough. As Virat bent forward to take a kiss, she moved her head away.
'Don't forget,' she gasped, valiantly struggling as he ripped off her lehenga and tossed it off the bed, without any consideration for the seventy thousand rupees Swamini had spent on it. 'I am the one who won the anghooti rasam..so I get to keep the control everywhere...including the bed.'
'I don't believe in rasams,' he snapped, 'they are for old people who've forgotten how to have fun,' as he finally crushed his lips into hers. For a few moments, Maanvi surrendered, quite thrilled by the way he was kissing her. At the same time, she couldn't resist pushing him away. 'You're a brute!' she exclaimed, as his hands raked down her waist. 'No wonder Miss Voldy left you, you don't know how to treat a girl properly!'
She felt a chill run down her spine as the fierce urgency on his face was replaced by tender longing. Somehow, the loving avatar of her husband scared her more than his mischievousness, bad boy avatar did. She felt herself grow numb as his he drank her in, right from her girlish face to her caramel-colored hour-glass figure. As he pressed himself onto her, she wondered what had ever possessed her to think the childish game she had played with him was seduction. Seduction, was something else altogether.
Maanvi instantly decided, that no matter how terrible her days would go as the daughter-in-law of this snobbish family, every night would be a honeymoon.
----
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