Chapter 17: Chapter 17

Sandhya POV

"Akka, wear alternate green and yellow bangles. That style would look good." Saying so Sindhu starts arranging the bangles in that manner. She is wearing a pink-blue half saree and is looking as beautiful as possible. She quite has a taste and is good at presenting herself according to the occasion. Every accessory she wore matches perfectly. A pink color neckless with blue beads hanging out pairs with their jhumkas (earrings which hang in beautiful patterns). She too wears bangles arranged in alternate blue and pink colors. She is no less than a professional fashion designer, except for the fact that she doesn't own a degree. I will be missing this person soon. She is an addiction to me.

By the way, today is my engagement with Sanjay and Sindhu is all excited about it. Don't ask me how I feel about this. I don't know! I actually think I am the one over expecting. Am I? I am blaming myself that I am overreacting over simple issues and not being considerate towards him! Am I? I wish, I so wish I didn't see him take my picture. Things would have been better if it was a normal arranged marriage. I am going crazy to understand if it's a love marriage or if it's an arranged marriage! God! This is so confusing. At least settle my ego. I will stop being mad at him.

The engagement going to be a very simple one and is arranged at my home itself. Our garden is already beautiful, and today it's much more beautiful. I am sitting in the open space and am staring at the shining night stars through the open sky. Sindhu is done arranging the bangles and hands them over to me "Hello sister, bangles, wear them!" I am not in the mood of listening to anyone's instructions. I give her a harsh look, destroy the beautiful arrangements made out of the bangles, and stubbornly wear only yellow bangles. That's how I express my disappointment. I disobey all necessary and unnecessary suggestions when I'm upset. That's me! With a blank expression, she leaves. She goes back to mom to help her more because she doesn't intend to pick up a fight with me today.

Nothing has changed. Neither did Mani stop torturing me, nor have I fallen for Sanjay. I mean, all the drama I created at the park, did he start hating me? No, he shouldn't. Does he think, I am going to be an unnecessary pain in his life? Possible! I was unrealistically sensitive and dramatic. I should probably try being a better person and keep us happy. But, do I love him so much? Does he deserve my care? I too liked him, hoped he did be my love. Along with my whole family, I too have a good opinion of him. So, should I sacrifice my ego and just feel happy for us? Or, should I just question and shout out all my anger? How should I do that? How will I get rid of this confusion? Today I'm getting engaged to him with so many insecurities. How will our married life be successful? Am I doing the right thing? Am I going to be fine?

"I get that you are mad at something or someone. Don't worry about Mani, it's not a great deal to get rid of him. This chocolate ice cream helps me release my tension. Have one along with me!" says Sindhu. In silence, peacefully and slowly, we sisters are eating the chocolate ice cream. Even though I'm completely messed up right now, this moment, with Sindhu, it's nice! Because I know the value of this moment because Sindhu and I will be separated soon!

Again, my eyes are covered with some hands. I know it is Sanjay. He probably has this habit. This time I don't create any drama. Rather, I softly say "Sorry!" I want him to feel my apologies. And again, I am getting dramatic. Unnecessarily! Tears have started to fill my eyes and are all set to overflow.

Sanjay pulls off his hands from my eyes and says, "Hey, my hands are wet." I don't turn back to look at him. Instead, he kneels in front of me. Right now, I feel low and weak, pathetic and underconfident, ashamed and alone. I don't want to be this way. Not in front of him at least! I want to escape, from this moment, somehow fast forward off this situation. I want to fit myself as Hydrogen into the balloon over there, become the hydrogen balloon and fly away from him. I allow myself to be myself only with Sindhu. Why am I being like this with Sanjay? Am I in love with him? Really? Is this my love for him? Oh, God! Why is this so complicated?

And the very next moment, I feel happy for being myself. The look in his eyes. Oh mine, they feel so warm! God, did you make Mani torture me so that I feel low, and so that Sanjay gets a perfect chance to show his love and care for me?

"Hey Sandhya, don't worry. Mani is a very small problem. I said I will take care of it right!" I just make a 'Hmmm' sound and he continues. "I will be there, right by your side with any problem that comes through our life. Today is our engagement, the day our love life officially starts. Come on, cheer up!"

I am impressed! Completely impressed! Not just impressed, but completely fallen in love with him. My ego is no more hurt, and I am no more interested in knowing if this is a love marriage or arranged marriage. God gifted me the perfect life partner I wished for. That's enough! I know he loves me. This is the proposal. This is the proposal I was waiting for! Even though it didn't have the three magical words "I love you" coming out in his voice, it was conveyed to me. 'I will be there, right by your side with any problem that comes through our life.' This was his way of saying "I love you". We Indians have this problem of not being able to express love in words and sentences. It is all in our actions!

I give him back a warm smile. I don't know if he saw my love in there, but this is my way of showing it! Wiping off my tears I say, "It is as simple as sending him our engagement picture and declaring us as a couple. I am quite sure he won't come back to me."

Sanjay stands up holding my hand and walks us to the stage. I follow him, blindly! I have never been greedy about living a long life. But I suddenly want to have endless life and every day of this life, I want to live this very moment again and again! He takes out the engagement ring from his pocket and fits it into my ring finger. Just a few minutes back, I was worried about being engaged to him. Right now, I am the happiest person on earth. How did I turn up to be this lucky! "I love you Sanjay!"

Oh my god! I said that off. I really did say that off! I didn't know, I didn't realize these words in my heart had my lips move and speak them out in my voice. I was busy feeling happy and delighted! Oh, this is crazy. Love is crazy.

Sanjay is surprised. But not shocked! He softly replies, "Me too!". And, of course, I too fit the engagement ring onto his ring finger.

Sanjay POV

I feel great! Sandhya said she loves me. Wow! This feels like a dream. Finally, we fell in love with each other.

My start-up had to face serious loss and I am completely jobless now. I don't have a career today. But I am not sad, I am not tensed. Sandhya says she loves me. She trusts me. Her family trusts me. Ganapathi uncle offered me some capital to cope up with the losses and help my career. But I refused to accept them. I have always been an independent person.

Do you know how cool Sandhya's response was! "You just have to replay those struggles! Your success is waiting for you to reach it! And this time, I'm there with you. I have always been a happy-go-lucky person! Don't worry, I will share some of my luck with you!" Saying so, she giggled with a long bright smile! She is a very positive person. She adds saying "God has officially and completely released you from your career. Take a break! In that way, you get to dedicate all your time only to your queen, that's me!" Yup! She is my queen. These days will turn out to be the best days of my life and the best days in our relationship!

"Remember the last week? When you just didn't bother about me, I was so disappointed with you. I complained, and God listened! Neither did I curse you, nor did god ruin you. He just gave you a break and granted me my wish. Now we will get quality time with each other and hence have zero complaints. You know what? I am a good girl, so God listens to my prayers!" She isn't my queen, she's my little princess. That was so cute and cool. Really felt like a little girl when she said 'I am a good girl, so God listens to my prayers.' Now I find why women are emotionally stronger than men. It's because they can see the positive in everything around them! I want to have a daughter and she should turn out to be like Sandhya.

Sandhya is speaking with my parents. I think she needs some time to get herself comfortable with them. Rather than thinking about this and that, I am just staring at her. Just staring at her. She is beautiful on that green saree. Green has always been my favorite color. I wonder if she already knows my taste. It's a pale parrot green color silk saree with yellow triangular borders. Her long shiny black hair is plated perfectly and has a bunch of jasmine flowers beautifying it. There is a headpiece hanging over her forehead which gets all the needed support from the stiffly combed hair. It is quite irritating her! She keeps turnings it, pulling it, pushing it, sliding it, and whatnot. There is a green-gold bindi in between her eyebrows which brings the ultimate shine to the outfit. For us, this is the most important accessory that can complete a girl's look. Two gold neckless hanging down her neck, green bangles bounded between two gold bangles gives her the Indian elegance. My favorite is the anklets. That clinking sound they make as she walks is heard by my heart rather than my ears! She has conquered me, totally!

"Isn't she beautiful?" Not just me, Sindhu who is sitting right next to me also utter the exact same words, together with me. Looking at each other, we giggle. Sindhu continues to speak "I am supposed to be very sad and depressed. My very first crush and relationship and break up, all of them, all of them happened within a month. I won't call it love though. But yeah! It hurts. It hurts because I wasn't careful, I wasn't matured, I wasn't correct. Even though my sister helped a lot to make me feel better, I am still hurt. But I am right now happy because of her happiness. I observed, you didn't exchange rings for formality or to show you guys are engaged. There was some magic in there. So, 'Wow!' My complicated Akka managed to find a perfect husband!

"What, already a relationship?" I shout. Bending down her head out of shame Sindhu softly says "My bad Sanjay! Akka said 'I am sure it is a wrong step you are taking. Looking at your confidence, I am wishing I am wrong. I wish you all the very best. But if at all it turns out to be a pain, I will be there for you. Life is again about mistakes and lessons learned out of them.' She is a person who respects and encourages people no matter what! December 21st, one of the most special days in my life. That was the day, I read 'An Indian Girl Love Story, the story by my sister. And that was the day I went on my first ever date. We just had a coffee together and watched a movie, and he was a nice person. But he started showing his true colors from the very next day. He was dominating. He dated me for materialistic and selfish reasons. I realized my mistake!"

Nothing in her long speech seemed important. All I could hear is "An Indian Girl Love Story." Yeah, the story was written by Sandhya, available on Wattpad. Ok, am I that bad at being her lover? How could I forget reading that?

"What's wrong with your expression Sanjay? You read the story right. It helped you understand her more deeply and better right!" Sindhu asks.

It's a shame! It's a shame to me that I didn't value her hobby of being an author. It's a shame that I even forgot to read her story. It's her very first book. I don't want to prove that I am unfit for Sandhya. I don't want to admit that I didn't yet read her book. I just giggle back to Sindhu and escape.

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