understanding khushi (chapter 5)

Chapter 5

When Arnav woke up next morning he found himself tangled with khushi. She was sleeping in confines of his embrace, he felt like stopping the time at this moment. This moment was so serene and peaceful . The kidnapping track had made him accept things that he never found courage to express. He had said I love you to her, he had confessed he had given her complete right to her over him. But still so much was left which he wanted to tell her , confess to her. And he will do so, but in appropriate time so that it reaches her heart and most importantly he wanted to tell her the answer to “ why does it always matter”(kyun pharak padta tha hamesha). This time he knew the answer would leave her completely overwelmed. She will get what she always deserved , his love, his passion, his poccessiveness, his confession .

He was not in the mood to get up but he had to go for his daily jog. He slowly got up and saw that khushi had frowned at loss of his touch. He was so happy that she also wanted him as much as he wanted her. These feelings were so mutual. He smiled and left for jog.

When he returned back he found her to be busy in the kitchen with payal.she looked ethereal in her simple yellow salwar suit sans any makeup. Her long slender neck was adorned with his mangalsutra and small studs in her eyes.Her delicate wrists were adorned with simple yellow and orange glass bangles. He had always admired her style of dressing up so simply and yet look so beautiful and this natural beauty of her had captured his heart. She looked better than any of his makeup made million dollar model, she could give any of them run for money. He decided at that instance that he shall launch an indian range of attires on her name.

He went upstairs to get ready, little did he know that wooing her is not going to be that easy. Just as he entered  his room HP came asking him about a diary which he found on the terrace. Arnav  immediately recognised it to be Khushi’s. He took it from him and locked the door. He decided he was khushi’s husband so he could read her diary too. He opened it and was shocked to find it seemed to be some kind of account book. The first half of it was full of some expenditure details. He looked at the other half. The first page of it dated some 2 years  back , it was a diary entry were khushi wrote about her wish to persue MBA from IIM lucknow was fulfilled. Though she had cleared the exam easily but fees was a problem for her, but soon she thanked her devi maiya  for getting her the tata student of the year scholarship which would fund for her higher education. Aranv was shocked . for the first time he found that there are people who are still so grounded. Reading through several pages he found that khushi was a  double graduate in economics and mathematics and was a university topper that’s why she was awarded with the scholarship. No wonder why she was so sharp with mathematics and business strategies. At that moment another thing strikes his mind that he was such a fool, he always thought that khushi was little uncomfortable with English but he realised that she was not uncomfortable but infact she was well versed with both the languages, she never found it difficult to understand or interpret English because she never required any help in his all English office. Actually she translated all his heavy English so easily in hindi so easily because she understood all of it so easily. He found his Harvard brain almost useless , this should have clicked him back then, that she understood it all too well that is why she could answer back or how could she translate his Harvard English so effortlessly if she did not understand it.  Many instances pointed to it first she answered that pam model of his who was accusing her in English only, then those fools who came to cheat in his company too only spoke in English only. Lavanya too was weak at hindi and often communicated in English and khushi always understood her. He laughed at his foolishness and then wondered to ask khushi if she was graduate in hindi too because he found her hindi too diificult.

Flicking through several more pages he was shocked to discover that Khushi had two siblings, twins, poorvi and poorav  , 4 years younger to her , who she had always kept away from home due to some threat, first at Banglore for schooling and then sent them to London for higher education. She was their sole guardian. He was confused that why would khushi keep them away but his understanding told him, it must have been something really big that she had to take such a step. But he wondered why he had not seen them ever and even khushi and payal never mentioned them. His query was answered in later pages of the diary where she mentioned some threat to lives of twins at lucknow during there visit to payal’s previous broken marriage. He realised there was more to the story  and he knew that khushi would confide in him when he will woo her back. Going through pages after revealed lot about how she alone used to manage the finances of their education and living along with her and payal’s education too. She mentioned about missing them and waited eagerly for both of them to turn over 21, so that the danger to their lives was no more. He explored further to find her to be very talented and her diary gave him an insight of her pain and burdens she carried behind her smile. The smile which used  to hide her pain , the act of jalabi making was just a mask to deviate people from seeing through her pain. Today his respect for her sored higher. Now he realised that how and why both of them understood each other so well because they made same kind of efforts for their di and twins respectively. Both of them feared for them, cared for them so  much.The diary revealed so much . He decided to explore some more from payal later on.

The later pages of diary were recent , when they met at sheesh mahal and payal’s  marriage broke and khushi held herself responsible. Then what he read further increased his guilt further. He was the sole reason that even after completing her MBA khushi could not go and receive her degree because the tapes that he had released had tarnished her image so much that she had to leave for delhi without attending her award ceremony . He made a note of going and personally collecting her degree with all dew respect.

He was about to close the diary when he thought of gong through the first half too. Now he understood that those were here expenses and financial details. Those were the details of her siblings fees etc how and when and what amounts were to be paid. All there expenses and requirements were listed out with budget. The later pages were filled with the details of loans she had borrowed and returned after payal’s marriage broke and her father had become ill and she was the sole bread earner in the house. She used to manage all the expenses.

It had all the details of expenses she had managed and arranged for payals marriage with akash. It mentioned she had single handedly managed the entire wedding from a fixed deposit of her, which her parents had kept aside for her.

What followed next was her list of her father’s treatment expenses which she met from her KKGSR dabba service which seemed to have earned handsomely but still could not meet the treatment expenses  so Khushi had sold her jewellery which her real parents had kept aside for her wedding( her adopted parents were unaware of it).She had mentioned it in the diary just to keep a record.

     The page second last and last written page shocked him. It stated “LOAN FROM MR. RAIZADA”  Its had five columns i.e date, amount,reason, interest and payable amount. And the table held several records. The 1 lakh she had to pay for leaving the job, the 30,000 thousand for damage to his car, the hospital bill of 2 lakh he paid for her father , the 20,000 thousand lehanga he gave her as a tip, the 300 rupees she borrowed during holi and lastly her daily expenses for six months of contract marriage. She had even calculated interest on each of them and the whole grand total of some  rupees 5 lakh 70 thousand was already calculated. Arnav closed the diary and held it close to himself.

His heart was in pain as he remembered how he called her to be opportunist when she never kept a penny of anyone else’s. He cried, he had to rectify this too. His wife was independent women with self-respect and he loved  that about her. He fell in more love with himself.

After a few minutes he composed himself and said “I will make sure you always remain independent like this, but I will love that you will be dependent on me, not because of my ego but because I will provide me with the satisfaction that you willingly depend on me and you need me.

He gave the diary back to HP and asked him to ask  khushi about it, without telling her that you gave it to me first. He showered at got ready for breakfast.