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CHAPTER 1

Jhanvi

One week more and I’ll marry my childhood friend. Can you believe it? All these years Mohit Raichand was right before my eyes, studying, flirting and irritating me with his silly pranks, and now he’s going to be my husband.Jhanvi Sikand’s husband!!There’s this unusual feeling bubbling inside me, imagining how things would turn up from here. It’s been more than a decade since I have visited India and now, I am going to settle down here permanently. I’ll finally have a family, something I missed having all these years.

I never saw Mom as she died after giving birth to me, but Dad’s love and pampering didn’t let me miss her much. I had broken down when Dad met with an accident too when I was eight and God snatched my last piece of happiness and hope to live. All my relatives had shrugged off my responsibility and a few who wanted to accept, was only for my money and the luxury which Dad had left behind. My life could have taken a bitter turn hadn’t Durga Raichand, one of my father’s close family friends hadn’t taken up my responsibility instead and promised to keep me safe. I own that woman everything.

She too had lost her son and daughter-in-law in that same car accident that killed my father, and she was survived by her only support, her grandson, Mohit Raichand, who was around nine years old then. Mohit and I instantly clicked together. It didn’t take us long to become best buddies, staying under the same roof with Durga Raichand. The two are my only family now. She sent Mohit and me to London for our secondary school and we had one hell of a time there making common friends. We graduated from London University. I have seen Mohit dating girls. In fact, I was the one who approved his dates. Funny!! Who knew then that I would be his future wife? After three awkward breakups, Mohit lost the hope that he would ever find his Miss Perfect and that’s exactly when Durga Raichand, his Daadi, proposed to us I be his life partner. That was around three months ago. Both Mohit and I had straightaway denied as we never saw each other in that angle, but then a week later, Mohit flew to London to declare his approval for the same.

I still can’t believe I had said yes, but somehow if Dad was alive, he too would have wanted the same.

“Ma’am,” the flight attendant breaks my trance. “Please fasten your seatbelt. We are about to land in a few minutes.”

I give her my best smile and fasten my seatbelt. Mumbai, one of the busiest cities in the country, will be the place where I’ll spend the rest of my life with the Raichands.

I wanted to get engaged to Mohit first, spend some time with him and then think of marriage, but Daadi rejected that idea and coaxed us to tie a knot and then take as much time as we needed to know each other. To be honest, I don’t need to think twice if Mohit can be my life partner, but I always preferred to get to know him more than a friend first before becoming his legally wedded wife.

I sense there’s a reason behind Daadi’s persistence on getting us married soon and that has something to do with the other son of the Raichand family, the one she considers as the illegitimate heir, though, he is the firstborn to her son, Mahendra Raichand and his secret wife, Geeta.

He’s Aarav Raichand.

I know little about their history except that Daadi didn’t approve of Mahendra Uncle’s first marriage, which was against her wishes and without her knowledge. So, she never let Geeta Aunty and her son Aarav ever be in their family. In fact, she got Uncle married to Aarti Singh, a woman of their class and status, one year after his first marriage and tagged their son Mohit, who was born three years after their marriage, as the only heir of the Raichand family. I have never met Aarav Raichand, but it seems he’s creating a lot of troubles in Daadi and Mohit’s lives and that's happening from a year or two. I wonder how the situation is now, but I hope in the coming years they make peace with each other.

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The flight lands in Mumbai International Airport. Completing the immigration formalities, I head to the exit. I expect Mohit to pick me up from the airport, but when I come out, I see a driver standing with a board that has ‘Raichand’ written on it. That’s for me. I reach him and pass my luggage.

“Sir didn’t come to pick me?” I ask, following him to the parking lot.

“He’s waiting for you home.”

Home? Seriously? Mohit couldn’t show this courtesy to pick his would-be wife from the airport? How unromantic. I really expected more from him. Looks like he has a lot to learn in the coming days. I am insanely romantic and every time I have seen or heard my friend’s love stories, I craved having one of my own. Not that I didn’t date a few handsome men before in London. I have. But I couldn’t settle with any man who doesn’t want to commit. So those dinner dates ended up with them dropping me back home and me going to bed dreaming if there really was a prince charming, who would lay the entire world at my feet? After today’s no-show from Mohit at the airport, I doubt if this man is ever going to fit into that category.

The drive is smooth but the jet lag kills my enthusiasm to enjoy the Mumbai City view and I don’t recall when I doze off.

I wake up suddenly when the car stops before a huge mansion which doesn’t look like the Raichand Mansion where I stayed a few years ago with Daadi and Mohit before flying to London. Where am I?

“Whose house is this?” I ask the driver, a bit worried.

“Sir shifted here a few months ago.”

The Driver’s response puts me into a series of doubts. Daadi and Mohit shifted to another house? Why didn’t they tell me? The driver opens the car door and I get down to take a view of this splendid mansion. It is a massive, elegant and stylish manor, but what attracted me the most is the beautiful garden at the front with all kinds of rose plants. I had never seen so many colors of roses all together in one place. Looks like Daadi has made some tasteful changes in the décor of this palace.

“Ma’am, this way,” the driver mumbles, gesturing me to follow him.

Yeah. I can’t wait to meet Mohit and Daadi. At the door, two women dressed in traditional attires, stop me. One of them is holding a Puja Thali with vermillion, rice, flowers, and a small lit diya (oil lamp). I believe that’s how they planned to welcome me into the family, which I really don’t mind. Such an authentic and luxurious welcome is not something I had expected, but I love it. One of the women applies a small dot of Vermillion on my forehead and then, showering some rice, she circles the Puja thali before me. Wish I had worn a better outfit than this Black denim and pink tank top. It was cold in London when I departed, forcing me to even wear a long coat which is now hanging on my left arm.

As we enter, the lavish interiors of the mansion steal my breath. The famous monuments and wall hangings complement the trending décor styles and the vast expanse of the living room makes me wonder where it actually ended? This mansion is a perfect setup for royal life. What I don’t understand is why Mohit spent on this mansion when they already had their ancestral one where they lived before?

Suddenly, the silence around startles me. I am here after so many years and yet there are no signs of Daadi and Mohit? How’s that possible?

“Where is everyone?” I turn back to the driver who is still around me.

He shows me the way to the couch.

“I will go call Sir.”

And with that, he’s gone. As far as I heard from Mohit, their driver was a young guy around my age. But this man looked older, almost 50 years plus. Did they appoint him newly? If this is some kind of joke where Daadi and Mohit are purposely hiding from me, to annoy me, I will not spare them. It must be Mohit’s idea. He loves annoying me all the time.

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