I am waiting outside the Singhania mansion for my husband to come out.

Karan woke me up by throwing a glass of water at my face.

Rude, I know right.

His reason for waking me up the way he did was that, he called my name several times and when I wouldn't wake up he had to resort to more effective methods.

After that he had disappeared into the washroom for a half hour.

HALF FREAKING HOUR. Even I don't take that long to get ready.

But the half hour he wasted was not so futile because when he came out he looked more gorgeous. He had changed into a dark  suit. With a white shirt and matching tie. His hair were placed to perfection and his shoes were shinier than my teeth, even though they were black.

"Get ready in ten minutes, meet me on the front porch" he had said.

Ten minutes...
He is a man and he took a half hour to get ready and he wants me to  get ready in ten minutes. Has he forgotten I am a girl.

Suffice to say, I still took less time than him. I was ready in fifteen minutes just to rile him up more I had spent another five minutes admiring myself in the bathroom. I wore a red anarkali suit with lace all over it, I left my hair down and tried to avoid applying any makeup but still ended up applying a light pink lipstick, a thin line of eyeliner, lined my eye lids and mascara.

And I still took lesser time than Karan. I was out of the washroom in twenty minutes.

So here I am standing in front of the house, and to be honest I am kind of worried that he left me here.

I met Ishika on my way out. She told me I am going to see their maternal grandmother.

She is in hospital and is maybe on the last stage of her life.

Megha and mom-in-law were not there.

I saw Gautam too but ignored him.
As I am playing with the chain of the charm bracelet I pared with my out fit, a car parks right in front of me and I recognise the car perfectly.

It is the car Karan was driving the day we met.
A driver comes out of the driver's seat and at the same time a hand lands on my shoulder and another takes the keys the driver offers. I turn to see Karan behind me.

He looks at me and to my surprise smiles at me. And let me tell you that smile took my breath right out of my lungs.

It confused me and my thoughts were running as fast as my heart, trying to figure out what I did to get such an amazing response from him.

"Let's go baby"

Let's go BABY!

"Uh....huh...oh.....um..."
Before I can even try to reply him he was guiding me towards the passenger seat.
Then he rounded the car and got in the driver's seat.

Once the car was in drive, I was able to concluded that there was nothing I have done throughout the night to make him like this.

"I know what you are thinking ." Karan breaks the thick block of silence between us.

"Oh yeah? you know what I am thinking too bad, I don't know what YOU are thinking."
But I don't say that to him.

"That in front of the Chaffer was a pretence and I want you to keep in mind that we will keep the facade of a happy couple in front of the staff and relatives." I kinda figured that out, but him putting it in words clears it up for me.

I can't believe how smoothly I am dealing with all this. But that doesn't mean I am going to stay with this man just because I am forced into this. I can protect my sister, if I have to.

" I want you to get the divorce papers." I say when the car stops at a red light "I can't be with a man who blames me for something my father did. I want out." I lift my gaze from the dashboard to the steering wheel, my eyes then move to his grip on it and then I look at him. He is already looking at me and unsurprisingly his jaw is clenched and his eyes don't betray the hatred  he has for me.

I look away and try to persuade him into it more " besides it is not like you want to be with me, it is better if we leave each other and start over."  My voice may be coming out confidently but it contradicts everything I am feeling from inside.

He may have a chance of having a life after the divorce. I on the other hand, will not. In a place like India female divorcee are looked down upon in society. And divorce after the first night of the wedding? Everyone will blame me for that. They'll think it was me who was incompetent.

"You think you can get out of it easily? No way. You ask for anything and I will provide you with the opposite. Divorce is not happening. Why do you think I married you even after knowing.....what you are" him speaking to me like I am a thing instead of person hurts. And I will myself, to not let the tears slip. I don't want to give him the satisfaction.

"You can't keep me here forever with you" I tell him. My voice has become weak and broken.

"I am not going to keep you here forever. I will hurt you from inside, then slowly very slowly break you inside-out. I will make you feel what your bastard of a father made me feel by killing my mother."

My lower lip quivers and this time tears don't listen to me. They fall on their own accord. I turn my head away from him and look at the scene outside. I look at the sprinting tress that seem to be in a hurry to be away from us.

I don't speak to him and he seems content in the silence.

I look at the glass doors of the hospital's main gate as Karan has left me here and gone to park the car.

I look around at the nurses coming out and going in through that gate. Tired people sitting on the sofas, kept in the lobby near the reception desk, is visible from outside.

Some have their head in their hands, some are crying, some are massaging their foreheads and some are twiddling their thumbs, shaking their knees up and down.

People pray more in hospitals that they do in temples.

"Let's go inside" I turn around to see Karan by my side, he slips a hand around my waist which to my displeasure sends tingles down my spine and I thank the heavens above that my skin tone is brown, so I don't blush easily.

And his damned to hell, smile is in it's rightful place - his lips.

"I am taking you to meet my grandmother and I want you at your best behaviour. So smile and be the dotting wife you are not."

His smile may have made me mushy inside but his bitter and rude tone brings me back to reality and I am reminded once again, how horrible I am at judging people. Men in general.

He pulls me harshly with him. And into the hospital. He didn't even stop at the reception desk but manoeuvres his way into a corridor and then takes turns when needed and brings us in front of a door with 'private' written on the golden plate stuck on it.

His hand leaves my waist and he turns the lock and peeks inside murmuring "Good morning, Nanu"

A weak voice comes from inside "Karan? My son, is that you?"
Karan opens the door and walks into the room and the door shuts on my face.
I don't pay heed to it and turn the lock and enter the room.
My eyes fall on a figure lying on the single bed.
Karan is sitting on one side of the bed.
Karan's grandmother is connected to machines left and right. Her hands have needle going in and drip of glucose is being given to her. A heart monitor beeps at a steady pace near her bed. A pee bag hangs on the side of the bed.

I walk closer and stand. Behind Karan to see her face for the first time. her face is pale and wrinkly , her eyes have lost the shine but surprisingly she is breathing on her own. There is no oxygen mask around her mouth.

" I heard you have gotten married. And it was arranged too."

"Yes. Meet my wife, Ridhima." Karan turns and holds my hand in his and brings me by his side.

To his grandmother the hold may have looked tender but it was anything but tender.

His nails dug deep in my palm giving me pain but not drawing out blood.

Karan's grandmother looks at me for a full minute, not smiling. Her staring made me fidget  in my place.

Even Karan's smile has turned something between a scowl and a hesitant smile. Like he is not sure what he is supposed to do.

"Did Gautam chose her for you?" His grandmother asks, addressing Karan and ignoring me completely.

I have a feeling that she is going to treat me the same way, Karan is treating me.

But the way she  took Gautam's name gave me the idea that she hates him too.

"Yes?" Karan's answer came out as a hesitant question.

She looks at me again, hums at the back of her throat and then her face breaks into a smile and she stretched her hand to me. I take my hand out of Karan's grasp and hesitantly put it in her hand, wondering if she is going to electrocute me.

"That man has done something right in his life. I was expecting some indecent woman who  would be wearing all these western clothes"

I didn't want to break it to her but I think I should.
"Umm.... I wear western clothes too..." I say hesitantly, and I tried to make it extra innocent. My hand was still in hers, after all.

"Oh! I don't mind you wearing that stuff. But don't wear it in front of me. I never liked it all. For me girls wearing salwar-kameez, and sarees are the most beautiful ones."

I really don't like the way she thinks but she is from a different era where all this was not in trend and so I think I can excuse her for having such ideologies.

"Ridhima, tell me more about you and Karan, you go out of this room. I want to talk to my granddaughter-in-law. "

Karan looks at me glaring subtly, of-course, wanting me not to tell her anything which, she is not supposed to know.

When Karan leaves the room, I take the seat,he left vacant.

Karan's grandmother starts coughing.

"Do you want water aunty?" I ask and she nods and I pick up the glass of water kept at her bedside and take out a straw from the packet kept beside it and put it in the glass and bring it to her lips she sips her fill of water and takes the straw out of her mouth.

"First of all young lady.." She says to me sternly "...you call me Nanu"

I nod and give her a smile. She is not bad, I'd say.

"Second, tell me how the vile creature made you agree to marry him?"

I look at her wide eyed.

"Why would you think that Karan's father forced me to marry him?"

"I never said Gautam forced you, you said it yourself. And now that you have mentioned I'd like to know what is he holding against you."

I look down at my intertwined. I am so stupid I gave it away myself.

"Speak up, it is not like I am getting any younger and besides I have very less time to live, if I say so myself."

"He didn't force me ." I say quietly.

"You see these?" Nanu points to her face "these wrinkles have not sprouted yesterday, each one of these lines are witness to my life's experiences, good and bad. So you should know that I am smart enough to know when someone is lying to me."

Her words hold wisdom and a superiority I can never achieve, until I am of her age and have experienced all the trials of life.

I give a small smile and try to make the story as short as possible.

"He has some dirt on my father, which he threatened to reveal, if we refused the proposal" I tried to be brief and not give too much away.

"What kind of dirt? You can tell me, it is not like, I will go around telling it everyone. As you can see, I am a little tied up right now." She smiled and gestures to all the monitors and needles going into her hands.

I hesitate, but then a thought crosses my mind- if Karan is going to do the opposite of what I will ask of him, then why am I abiding to his rules?

So pulling my face up from my hands and fixing my eyes with Karan's grandmother, I tell her everything she wants to know.

"Gautam Singhania knows that my father killed his wife." Karan's grandmother's eyes widen and her hand slips from my hand. For a second her action breaks my heart but when she brings it back to hold my hand after caressing her temple, relief replaces the heart ache.

"Your father....killed....my daughter?" I could hear the unsaid 'why' in her question, her eyes kept roaming my face as if trying to find her answers on my face.

"Yes. I didn't know anything about my father's shady businesses until Gautam Singhania brought this proposal. He also told me how I am a bastard who was conceived by the cruel act of rape, and that my father is involved in trafficking. Also my father killed my biological mother."

I find it hard to meet her eyes.

"Does Karan know all this?"

"Yes, and he is not nice to me. I want divorce. But he refuses to leave me. All this is an act."

I look up at her as she says "you can't leave him. You may not need Karan in future but he needs you. I see the good in you my child. Please don't leave my grandson. Gautam will destroy him, but you know the kind of person he is, make Karan believe you. Make him see the real face of Gautam."

Her words bring nothing but frustration to me. Her request is undeniable. But she is asking me to submit to a life of misery. Holding back a sob, I try very hard not to let the frustration slip in my tone as I speak.

"How am I going to make Karan believe me?!" I run a hand trough my hair to get them off my face "He hates me. He wants revenge. He calls me a murderer for being the daughter of his mother's murderer"

Nanu's eyes well up with tears. Her pity for me is pretty clear.

If I was not so depressed at this moment, I would have laughed at how 'pity' and 'pretty' rhymed.

"I am also mad at him, your father. I am disgusted at him. I realise that you are his daughter and it repulsed me to look at you and think that you are a part of a murderer. But I also realise that you did not kill my daughter. You are not the murderer."

"I wish Karan would think that way too."

"You can't leave him" she says grabbing my hand again.

"But I can't be with him either! You are asking me to live a life of misery with a man who wants nothing but bring me pain."

"You have to make him believe you, he will change then"

"But there is no way he will believe me. He hates me. He is never going to change"

"Love can melt stones, Karan is still human. Did you meet Ishika?" Nanu continues as I nod and frown at her not saying anything.
"She will help you. Talk to her."
I wanted her to elaborate more on the love part so I opened my mouth to ask but Karan enters the room at that time.

........with that God forbidden smile still present on his face.

"Nanu, that is enough talking for today. I will bring her back again. We are in India for a month." Karan says as he walks up to her bed and keeps a hand on my shoulder.

"So wife, shall we go?" He says to me "Actually we have not had Breakfast yet so I was planing we will eat out." He says to Nanu.

Nanu nods and bids us goodbye kissing me and Karan, on our temples and throwing a comment of her wanting to see great-grand children soon.

Which made me blush and Karan scowl.

"Is McDonalds okay for breakfast?" Karan asks as he parks the car in the parking lot of a mall.

"I prefer Burger King" I tell him off-handedly.
"McDonalds, it is." He mutters and I roll my eyes at him. He is not going to drop this do-opposite-of-what-Ridhima-wants act.

Once we enter McDonalds, and we are seated Karan stands up to order for us.

"Do you wants the Chicken Burger or the Veg-one?"
I open my mouth to tell him, to get me the Chicken burger but remember that he won't get it for me if I tell that to him so instead I tell him "anything but Chicken Burger, I don't like it"
Karan nods obediently and leaves to order.

And brings back a chicken burger for me and a chicken burger for himself, with cold drinks in the side.

I smile inwardly and high-five my quick thinking.

Breakfast goes uneventfully and I thank the god above for that.

But I can't get Nanu's words out my mind.

'Love can melt stones, Karan is still human.'

Can it?
Will Karan drop the hatred if he is loved?

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Thank you for reading.
Readers please note that the model shown in the picture for Karan's outfit is not my casting for Karan. Only the outfit should be taken into consideration.

But the model in the picture for Ridhima's outfit is my casting  for Ridhima. 

Mahira Khan as Ridhima.

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