For those of you who have missed the 8th chapter, here is the link :
In the Name of Love (Ishq Mein Marjawan) – Chapter 8
“D’souza, did you clean up the guest room? I need everything to be prim and proper there,” said Gayatri.
“Yes Madam, I’ve got it done,” replied Mrs. D’souza.
“Also I want a grand meal to be dished out for Riddhima and Ishaan. Why don’t you ask the cook to prepare some tomato soup, chicken steak, pasta and apple pies? Don’t forget the coleslaw too,” said Gayatri.
“As you say Madam,” said Mrs. D’souza taking a leave.
“Maa, just relax. Remember what the doctor said….”
“Anupriya, I am completely fine now,” said Gayatri beaming. “As soon as I heard that Riddhima and Ishaan have agreed to stay with us, trust me when I say that all my sickness magically disappeared.”
“Well, actually there was something I wanted to talk to you about,” said Anupriya slowly.
“And what is that?”
“What is your standing on Riddhima and Vansh’s supposed marriage alliance now? Do you still intend to go ahead with it?” asked Anupriya. “Vansh still has no idea about it. And I’m presuming so must be the case with that girl as well. So how do you plan to go about it?”
Gayatri sighed. “You know what, we as humans plan so much in our lives, but we tend to forget that the greatest planner is God himself. The kind of pain that Riddhima has been inflicted upon, we cannot even imagine the intensity of that. Therefore I don’t feel its wise enough to bring up a serious matter like marriage in front of her right now. It would be better if we gave her some time to recover, atleast a few months. Also, I want Sushant to be present personally whenever we discuss about this proposal with her, so we can wait till he is finally found. Until then, I don’t want even you Anupriya to ever bring up this topic of their marriage in front of anyone in this house, okay?”
“Okay Maa,” said Anupriya trying to suppress a smile. She was elated at the prospect of Gayatri deferring the talks of their alliance until further. She had ample of time until then to do something really big that would come in the way of this marriage alliance.
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A huge truck arrived at Riddhima’s house that was soon loaded with all their luggage and other personal stuff, while she and Ishaan sat in the car that was sent for them from the VR mansion.
While in the car, Riddhima glanced over her shoulder at Ishaan who looked too excited for words. She smiled because looking at him being happy, made her happy instead. But deep inside, she felt an uneasy feeling gripping her. For some unknown reason, the idea of living at VR mansion had started to appear a little scary to her. She felt as if she was on the verge of commiting a huge mistake by going over to that place. She also felt nostlagic reminiscing the happy moments she spent with her family in this house for the past eight years.
Soon their car arrived into a posh locality where nothing but only luxurious buildings stood. After a few more turns, they entered into a large gate with a signboard ‘VR Properties’ written on it. The driver told them that to reach VR mansion, they had to drive for another 1km inwards.
VR Properties ran over acres of land. On either side of the road, there were large shady trees that were forming a kind of canopy. Distantly, they could see a huge mansion, as white as snow, that stood behind an even bigger garden. But before they could reach there, they had to enter another gate, which this time clearly stated ‘VR Mansion’. Apparently, this double gated system was to ensure a much better security.
As soon as they entered the garden, they were left awestruck. It would be an understatement to even call it beautiful. It was actually heavenly. Bushes and shrubs were cut into ornamental designs, and all kinds and all colours of flowers stood proudly in the garden. Riddhima craned her neck to try to spot some of her all time favourites – red roses, but she was very disappointed when she couldn’t.
“Such a breathtakingly beautiful garden with all types of lovely flowers, but no red roses? Thats weird,” said Riddhima to herself. She saw a sparkling fountain with crystal clear water and two dolphin shaped sculptures surrounding it.
Once out of the car, they noticed the high arched windows and a door so large that it could fit atleast twenty more people at the same time. The mansion, actually the correct word for it would be a palace, was ten times more magnificent from inside than it appeared on the outside. Lavish interiors, royal carpets, exotic paintings, luminous chandeliers hanging down from the ceiling, this house was everything they had never seen before.
“I guess this Vansh is really fond of statues. His house and his garden, both are abundantly decorated with them,” said Riddhima as she spotted two more sculptures right in the living room.
“It is so damn gorgeous!” exclaimed Ishaan. “These people are filthy rich!”
Riddhima shushed him up as she saw Nani and others waiting for them at the door.
“Welcome home! I’ve been waiting for you all since ages,” said Gayatri pulling both of them into a tight hug.
“Thank you so much Nani,” they both said in unison.
“Let me introduce the rest of the family to you,” said Gayatri.
Riddhima observed everyone keenly. She met Anupriya who even though tried to behave cordially with them, it was very much evident that she wasn’t very happy with their arrival. Rudra remained neutral, while his wife Chanchal tried very hard to put on a facade of innocence, but even then Riddhima could see through it clearly. Their son, Aryan started flirting with her in no time. On the other hand, Ishani was outrightly rude to her and Ishaan even when he tried to make a joke about the similarity in their names.
“No one seems real here. Everyone is hiding behind a mask,” thought Riddhima. But she was proved wrong when she met Sia, a wheelchair bound young girl who was perhaps a year or two older than her. She had the most genuine and beautiful smile she had ever seen, and she greeted them warmly.
“Hello Riddhima and Ishaan! Its so nice to meet you guys finally,” said Sia.
“Nice to meet you too Sia,” said Riddhima. She was really impressed about how inspite of her disability, she still had such a positive aura around her.
“Make yourselves as comfortable as you were back in your home. Do not feel hesitant at all,” said Sia. “And if you need anything, I’m always there around.”
Riddhima smiled. This was the most wholesome and genuine thing she had heard in the past few months. Just then, she heard the voice of a small girl from the side.
“Will no one introduce me?” she asked innocently.
Riddhima knelt before the girl to bring themselves at the same level. “Why don’t you introduce yourself?”
“My name is Nandu.”
“Thats a very weird name for a cute girl like you,” said Riddhima teasingly.
“My name is Nandini. But everyone lovingly calls me Nandu. You are Riddhima Aunty right?”
Riddhima was taken aback on hearing someone address her as ‘aunty’. No one had ever called her that. “Why don’t you call me just Riddhima? There’s no need to call me ‘aunty’, though.”
“But you are Papa’s faaaar off relative, right,” said Nandu matter-of-factly. “So I should be calling you Aunty only.”
Riddhima decided that it was no use arguing with a child over something as small as this. “Who’s your Papa by the way? I haven’t met him.”
“There is my Papa,” said Nandu pointing towards Vansh who was standing on the staircase and speaking on the phone.
Riddhima was surprised to find out that Vansh was a father to a five year old girl. Why, she didn’t even know that he was married already! Not that she was affected by this or something, it was just that this was quite unexpected.
“Where’s your mother?” Riddhima enquired.
Nandu suddenly grew sad. “I don’t know. I never saw her actually. Badi Dadi says that she went to meet God and then never came back.”
“Nandu why don’t you go to your room dear?” said Gayatri. “Your dolls must be feeling very hungry by now. Why don’t you prepare a lavish meal in your dollhouse kitchen for them?”
“Ohh yes, I completely forgot about that,” said Nandu. “My dear dolls, here I come!”
After Nandu had left from there, Gayatri came upto Riddhima and said, “I know what you are thinking. But that is not true. Nandu is not Vansh’s biological daughter.”
“What?” asked Riddhima.
“Yes. Why, my Vansh isn’t even married yet! Five years ago, Vansh had found Nandu as an abandoned baby in a hospital. He brought her home and decided to adopt her legally. From then onwards she has been living with us like a daughter,” said Gayatri. “But please Riddhima, Nandu doesn’t know about this truth, so you better not mention this in front of her.”
Riddhima nodded to show that she could trust her with this secret. She glanced at Vansh who was still busy on the phone. Her heart was filled with a sudden amount of respect for him for giving a new lease of life to an unknown girl. He had also allowed her and Ishaan to stay at his house, and all this showed that he was a good man. But her mind told her otherwise. Inspite of all his good acts, why was her mind still refusing to believe him? Why was she still getting bad vibes from him? Her sixth sense about people was never wrong, but was she now wrong about Vansh?
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“She is hot,” said Aryan while playing a game of table tennis with Ishani.
“Hot my foot! She just looks about okay,” said Ishani.
“Why can’t girls ever accept that there is someone prettier out there?” said Aryan.
“Prettier than me? Like seriously Aryan! I am atleast a hundred times prettier and hotter than her, but unfortunately you never seem to notice me,” said Ishani smashing the ball right onto Aryan’s face.
Aryan growled in pain. “Whoa! Calm down Ishani. Why would I notice you? You are my cousin. I would only take notice of other girls. And not just any random girls, only drop dead gorgeous ones. And Riddhima is drop dead gorgeous.”
“Whatever bro, but you’ve a weird taste,” frowned Ishani. “Anyways I don’t seem to like that Riddhima at all. After Dadi’s non stop appreciation for her, I had expected her to be a typical, soft spoken, traditional damsel in distress. But she is not at all like that. She looks like someone who knows exactly what she is doing.”
“To each own his own. From quite sometime, this house was turning a complete bore to me. But now since Riddhima has arrived here, I’m sure things will turn more exciting and interesting,” said Aryan winking. “We’ll definitely have lots of fun together dear Riddhima.”
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It was sharp eight o’ clock in the evening. Everyone was seated at the dining table ready to be served dinner, except two persons : Riddhima and Ishaan.
Vansh was beginning to get irritated with each ticking second. He waited till the clock showed five minutes past eight, when he said, “I’m not going to wait any longer for these two. Lets begin to eat.”
“Vansh wait, let me handle this,” said Anupriya. She asked D’souza to call Riddhima and Ishaan for dinner. After five minutes or so when both of them arrived at the table, they had to face the glares of the entire family, especially Vansh himself.
“Have you seen the time? Its ten minutes past eight! You people are late for dinner by a whole ten minutes,” scolded Anupriya.
Riddhima tried to explain herself but she was in no mood to listen to her.
“What do you mean by you had no idea? Didn’t D’souza hand over the ‘rule book’ to you?” said Anupriya.
“Yes Aunty, we did recieve the rule book, but we were so busy in unpacking our luggage that we didn’t have any time to read the rule book,” said Riddhima. She couldn’t believe her eyes when she saw something as eccentruc as a rule book in this house. Initially she had thought of that as some kind of joke, but hell no, these people were damn serious!
“The first thing you do after having dinner is to go through the entire rule book. I don’t know how it was in your house, but here we are very particular about rules, discipline and punctuality,” said Anupriya mockingly. “And those who don’t follow it, will recieve severe punishment. This time I’m letting this slide, but next time I won’t.”
Gayatri tried to intervene. “It’s okay, Anupriya. It’s their first time, don’t be too harsh on them. Now, come on both of you, sit down for dinner.”
When Riddhima sat down, for a split second, she shared a gaze with Vansh and saw anger in his dark eyes.
“Is he angry with us?” she thought.
Looking at the lavish dinner, Ishaan couldn’t contain his excitement and started hoarding his plate with food. Gayatri smiled at him kindly while Ishani turned her nose in disgust. Riddhima felt really embarassed by all this.
Just then, Gayatri led out a loud groan. “My knees, they have started hurting again!” she said.
“Nani aren’t you undertaking physiotherapy sessions?” questioned Riddhima.
“Actually beta, my physiotherapist is supposed to come daily but right now he’s on leave. He had asked another one to come in his place for these few days, but he didn’t turn up as well,” said Gayatri.
“No problem Nani. I’ll teach you some excercises right after dinner. I’m sure they’ll provide enough relief to you,” assured Riddhima.
“Dadi, it is very essential that you follow a trained, well experienced and qualified doctor. Not any layman,” said Vansh. “And far as your physiotherapist is concerned, I’m firing both of them and will appoint a new one. I can’t tolerate this kind of indiscipline at all.”
Riddhima was fuming with rage. Did he just call her a layman, like for real? It was true that she wasn’t experienced and well trained, but she was no layman for crying out loud! She was a medical student.
Gayatri tried to lighten the atmosphere, but the damage was already done. Riddhima had decided that decoding Vansh Raisinghania was just way too out of her league.
Precap : Vansh tells Riddhima that she needn’t work anymore and rather focus on her studies, while he entire takes care of their finances.
That is it for today guys. Tell me how you like it and don’t forget to comment below because as I said before, I absolutely enjoy reading them. Peace out!