Chapter 45: Chapter 45

Shit! I crashed someone's wedding. This was the first thought that bloomed in Anahita's head as she saw the decorated church. The path leading down to aisle was avenue-d with candles, decorated in decanters and the vault was covered with same flowers she had clutched in her bouquet. The banister that separated the congregation was laced with flower gild and clusters of white orchids and lilac were bunched up at the intervals. There was definitely a ceremony going on because she saw the wedding mass being performed and all this while the hymns and prayers were actively oscillating within the walls of pious synagogue.

Candles and balloons were hanging through a thread over the roof and it resembled the twinkling stars in the dark sky though the reference was completely non contextual, Anahita couldn't help but recall the day she had laid on the wooden porch in Yuvraaj's arm.

Yuvraaj! Shit! She rebuffed herself mentally as she recalled, perhaps Yuvraaj wasn't there and she, like almost incredibly, transported to some other place instead of the told one but she was sure that neither the lights bolted nor the heavy wind blew against her and she was completely fine with the other people who entered the church, then how come she was the one who lost her way. She screwed up her face when she couldn't see much due to the veil falling over her face. She didn't mind clapping for the bride and groom but right then, her groom was most important and with a thin material covering her face making her vision hazy almost cringed her.

Absently, she propped the bouquet in her hands tapping together and breathed a sigh. Let's skip out of here before mortification finds me and bring me in attention.

She turned but halted in her steps as surprise or rather shock stretched across her face. With a swing, she craned her neck and saw the blurry vision of Yuvraaj standing near the dias. She jerked off the veil over her face and spotted him there.

"Yuvraaj!" Her whisper was loud enough to penetrate through the thick mass and reach his earshot and he graced her with his vision. Anahita instantly fell in love with him all over again when she saw that majestic smile filling his face and his twinkling eyes beckoning her to advance towards him.

Sudden spotlight attention what she got by the forlorn figures present over there seemed nothing in front of the man who gently held out his hand for her and flicked his fingers to summon her close to him. Everyone gathered to their toes and the rows of head snapped to her direction like a wind. Anahita was still standing rooted. Her legs refused to move. She couldn't even believe that Yuvraaj planned all this and tricked her to bring there.

Since when the arrogant Prakash turned so romantic?

Since when he started reading her mind like an open book?

And since when he started to churn her insides up with his simple crooked smile?

Tears pooled in her eyes but the glow of her face never subsided. Her lips stretched to the hollow of her cheeks, making her thirty two pearls visible and her eyes which were swimming with tears, spilled a dew on to her cheeks. The congregation clapped to welcome her and Anahita blushed, looking down.

The prayer started and she bit her lower lip, fiddling with the hem of her saree. First time in her life, Anahita had managed to blush so much. All the blood had gathered to her cheeks and the heat was indescribable on her face. People clicking her pictures as if she was an antique specimen also didn't help. She embraced Yuvraaj's vision and beseeched through her eyes. Yuvraaj just blinked thrice and nodded his chin at her.

That was it.

She skipped a beat. She had become entranced. The man was intoxicating and she willed to never sober up. He was the typhoon who could ruin her existence and she knew that he wouldn't have to work much because she had already kneeled down. He was the drug she needed. He was the air she breathed. He was the faith she believed. He was the path she would ever walk on.

Amidst howls and whistles that had turned into distant voices and surroundings which metamorphosed into blur for her, Anahita walked confidently towards her destiny. Her fate. Her destination. Her home.

With each preceding step, the blush deepened. Hearts thudded rapidly. Eyes locked together. Air condensed around them and when she finally reached before him and put her hand on the stretched one of Yuvraaj, he forgot that they were middle of fifty people at estimate and he pulled her in him, barring his arms around her waist. Anahita looped her hands around his neck and clutched the bouquet tightly, rubbing her nose with his.

"You ran that day but see I won you. So, are you ready to be mine again?" Yuvraaj's eyes searched her face and Anahita smiled gleefully, biting her lip and nodded.

"That's not even a question. I'll be yours again and again. As many times as you want and as many times as it makes me believe that....that you're not my love Yuvraaj, you have become my life."

Smirking, Yuvraaj rested his head against hers and breathed, "I wished to do it days back but...circumstances never let me. Now when you're here, I don't want to do anything but to stare at you."

Anahita giggled, "That was a nice move and I'll be the first bride in history who've walked down the aisle in Saree."

"You really are dense. I mean you made it easy for me when you bought what I sold. Bouquets and veil? Seriously? What does church has to do with the pious bonding of man and wife." Yuvraaj teased her.

Anahita showcased a contented smile and put her head on his shoulder. "I trust you so much, Yuvraaj. I love you so much that I can blindly accept every word you say. I'm that hopeless. I love you so much Yuvraaj."

Father cleared his throat and Yuvraaj kissed the side of her face, looking apologetically at the pastor. "Mou. We need to proceed with the wedding."

"Ow. But..." Anahita pouted. "I don't know my vows and anything else."

"Just repeat after me."

"Okay!" Anahita created distance between them and excitedly covered her face with the veil. She clutched the bouquet in her hands and the happiness which sparkled through her never let her torn the eye contact with Yuvraaj through shimmery wall. She chewed the insides of her face to stop herself grinning like a Buffon but that never helped.

Yuvraaj transformed to his serious incarnate as the pastor started the prayers. Then he recited some verses from old as well as new testaments. He rendered the sermons and started the actual wedding ritual with opening remarks. No matter how were they getting married and under what rituals, the thing that mattered that their souls had already interlocked themselves together and the ecstatic feeling of getting blessing from the God in the infancy of life made them follow everything whatever it needed.

It was then a slide of past revolved around Anahita's eyes. Marriage and bonding mattered so much to Yuvraaj and she made fun of his emotions by gifting him a finicky wife, a baseless relationship and tons of hassles. The shine in her eyes dropped. The grin shortened into a lip tight smile and the intense eye lock broke as she looked down to her feet. Guilt filled her in. Yuvraaj noticed the change silently and he also understood the mooted root of it but he decided not to say anything to comfort her. By the end of the this wedding, she would come to know what matters most for him.

It was, is and always will be Anahita and her happiness. Their unison mattered for him. Their love mattered for him and their intimacy mattered for him.

"As God demonstrated His love in Jesus, our Lord, Mr. Yuvraaj and Ms. Anahita..." Anahita didn't miss the scowl on Yuvraaj's face when pastor called her miss and she pressed her lips in thin line. With that, the pastor continued, "..will demonstrate this God given love by giving themselves to one another and one for the other."

"No other human ties are more tender, no other vows are more sacred than these you are about to assume. You are entering into that holy estate which is the deepest mystery of experience, and which is the very sacrament of divine love."

"Do you, Yuvraaj Prakash, take Anahita Prakash to be your wedded wife, to live together after God's ordinance in the holy estate of matrimony?" As the question rolled down from pastor's tongue, merciless silence seeped in. Anahita dragged her eyes to Yuvraaj's awaiting one who was gazing at her love struck.

Her one smile and teary smile created havoc in his senses and the words slipped past his lips on their own accord.

"I do."

"Will you love her, comfort her, honor and keep her, in sickness and in health, and forsaking all others, keep yourself only for her so long as you both shall live?"

"I will."

Claps hurled up in the synagogue and tears spilled from Anahita's eyes. She was being way too emotional. Perhaps, some chemical changes happened last night in her. She snickered at the thought.

"Do you, Anahita Prakash take Yuvraaj Prakash to be your wedded husband, to live together after God's ordinance in the holy estate of matrimony; do you pledge to love him, comfort him, honor and keep him, in sickness and in health, and forsaking all others, keep yourself only for him so long as you both shall live?"

"I do."

"Repeat your vows." The pastor solicited.

Yuvraaj had enough of her distance. His hand raised effortlessly and wiped her tears under her veil. "I, Yuvraaj Prakash, take you, Anahita Prakash, to be my wife, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better and for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish; from this day forward to till death do us apart."

"I promise to give the best of myself to you. I promise to fiercely love you in all your forms,now and forever. I will never forget that this is once in a lifetime love. No matter what challenges carry us apart, I promise that I'll find a way back to you and give you my deepest love and devotion."

"I promise that I'll always be there with you when our love is simple or when it is an effort. I'll cherish our union and moreover, I promise to love you more than I did a day before." His eyes twinkled with unknown pathos and blush crept up in Anahita's face.

"I promise to remember that neither one of us is perfect. But strive to remind myself the ways we're perfect together. I promise to be true to you. To uplift and support you, to frustrate and challenge you and to share the beautiful moments of life. And someday, if stars align, I might let you win an argument too." Corners of his lips ticked as he teased her, "I'll make sure that I'm not yelling at you for being hungry to say the least."

Anahita giggled at this.

"I haven't prepared much but I'll wrap my vows by saying that I vow that you'll never have to walk alone, you'll never have to face challenges, I'll do it for us. My heart will be your shelter and my arms will be your home till the day I breath my last."

His thumb was wiping her tears that had no retrain but by the time he finished, Anahita just had a lovestruck expression on and she clutched his palm and kissed his fingers. It was her time to recite her vows. She had made mind to repeat whatever Yuvraaj had said but with her overflowing emotions, words weaved themselves in bunches and smoothly began to crawl out of her tongue.

"I promise to love you, respect you and above all, I'll support you. I promise to bear together whatever trouble and sorrow life may lay upon us, and we shall share together whatever joyful and good things life brings us. I promise to laugh with you, cry with you, grow with you and create with you." Her words sounded melody to Yuvraaj's ear and he fortified the lock of their fingers.

"I can't promise you an easy life because that will be boring. I can't promise to be perfect wife because imperfection runs in my blood but I promise to choose you to love forever and ever till my heart stops racing."

"I feel like everything in my life has led me to you. My choices. My heartbreaks. My regrets. Everything. And now when we're together here, I feel my past seems worth it. Because if I had done one thing differently, I might have never get you. Hence, I promise that no matter how many trials comes in our way, my faith will be intact in you and my heart will be chained to you."

"You know that I'm unsure about most things in my life, but I'm certain that it is you, it will always be you who will rule my heart and soul and I pronounce you master of my universe Yuvraaj." She breathed out, glancing back and forth in his eyes, "Because I promise to follow you wherever you go and to fight for our love if its takes everything I own. I promise to accompany you in every step of your life, providing all of me."

They were witnessing the moment of weakness. The moment of overflowing emotions. Yuvraaj loosened his grip from Anahita's hand and took out a oblong box. He made her wear the same Mangalsutra he'd tied on their real wedding but in anger, Anahita had stuffed it somewhere she didn't even remember and she was shocked to find it with him.

"I had kept it safe." Yuvraaj made her known, smiling.

The pastor insinuated, "By all the power vested upon me, I now pronounce you man and wife. You may now.."

He couldn't even complete his words when Yuvraaj pulled Anahita grabbing her by her waist and brushed off her veil, revealing her flawless beautiful face to him. Anahita grinned her best looking deep in his eyes and the bouquet slipped from her hands to their foot. The world vacated for them. They both lost in each other's world and Yuvraaj dived down to slam his lips hardly against her.

Smiling amidst the kiss, Anahita brought her hands cupped his face and she deepened the kiss with every ounce of fervour in her. Congregation which was probably gawking at their hungry passion for each other could go to have a walk.