He parked his car across the street at his usual spot and looked out towards the Mandir. The she was, just like he had been seeing her here for the past two months every day. She would come every day around this time, with a small girl, and sometimes another one who was her age, and after visiting the mandir, they would leave.
*flashback*
Arnav was reading some paperwork when he received a call on his phone, seeing that it was from Di, he picked it up.
“Chotte?” Anjali asked.
“Yeah Di?” Arnav replied.
“Can you pick me up and drop me home because the other driver has taken a leave?” she said and Arnav agreed to it.
She told him that she would wait at the nearby Mandir because she had been visiting the shops that were around there. Arnav left office to reach the Mandir, and she had insisted that she would quickly visit the Mandir. His Di rarely visited the Mandir before, but now had started doing so because her in-laws were Hindus and she wanted to follow the same customs as them so they would get along better. He had been waiting outside of the mandir for about ten minutes, but she was taking too long, and he also had an important meeting to attend. So he got out of the car and was making his way up the stairs. Just then his phone rang and picked it up.
Not paying attention to where he was going, he felt a smaller body bump into him and a small “Uff,” escaped her mouth. Using his instincts, he caught hold of her wrist to prevent her from falling but that thaal she was carrying made a loud bang on the cement floor. She was wearing a yellow faraak suit and her hair was let down. She looked up and his eyes made contact with the most beautiful pair of brown eyes he had seen. She had a natural glow on her face, some strands of her hair curving he cheeks.
“Mujhe maaf kar dijiye,” she quickly said. (Please forgive me.) And then she bent down to grab the thaal, but for some reason was having difficulty and another figure approached her.
“Di let me help you, you have to be careful and watch where you’re going,” the smaller girl said and picked up the thaal then handed it to the one he had bumped into.
“Thank you bhaiyya that you prevented my Di from falling,” the little girl said to him.
“No problem,” he said looking between the two.
“Shukriya,” the elder one said to him and before he could respond, he heard his name being called from the other direction. (Thank you.)
“Chotte!” Anjali said coming down the stairs and seeing someone else behind him. Arnav turned around to see her coming, “Di let’s go, I have to get to a meeting quickly.”
“Yeah I’m done let’s go, but who were you talking to?” Anjali said as she came right in front of him.
“Who Di I was…,” he said and turned around to show her who it was but no one was their anymore. Maybe they had left, he thought, “I accidently bumped into a girl and made her thaal fall.”
*flashback ends*
The next day, he came to the Mandir and parked his car across the street from the Mandir. The girl would come at the same time every day, sometimes in a faraak suit, sometimes in jeans or sometimes in a long skirt; and the smaller girl always came along. At first he began to wonder if that was her daughter, but then remembered when the little girl had addressed the elder one as her sister. The would come in a rickshaw, and leave in a rickshaw; the same pattern every day, be it sunny or raining. Over the course of the few weeks, he didn’t realize when, but he had started to fall for her. Maybe it was the way she have out sweets to the little kids who live on the side of the roads, or the way she threw channe to the pigeons on the street, or the way she smiled when someone spoke to her, or the way her eyes sparkled without a reason.
He never made the attempt to come in sight of her, nor had he talked to her. He didn’t even know her freaking name yet.
Arnav was lost in deep thought when he heard a knock on his window and looked up. He lowered down the window and came face to face with a familiar figure.
"Chotte what are you doing here?" a confused Anjali asked.
"You were what Chotte?" she asked again and looked up to where he had been staring earlier.
""Di you tell me what are you doing here?" Arnav asked.
"Chotte it's a Mandir, I came here to pray," Anjali said, "I asked you the question first, so you tell me what you are doing here?" But no response came out of him.
“Hmm let me guess….,” Anjali said.
“Di what are you going to guess?” Arnav asked in an irritated noise.
“That my Chotte has been leaving the house early every morning saying that he has important work and today isn’t the only day I’ve found him outside the Mandir,” Anjali said. She had seen his car a few weeks back and had brushed it off thinking that it was just a mistake. Then again she had seen it and by looking at the license plates her doubts had been confirmed that it was her brother, yet she didn’t want to approach him just yet. She would see him intently watch the same thing, more like the same person she had concluded after watching his gaze after a few times. And this is why she had approached Nani that they use his excuse of going to New York in order to get him married. Because her brother had pretty much vowed that he wouldn’t tie the bond, ever.
“Di it’s not every day, only been two months,” he said clarifying her.
“Oh so you’re confirming that you have been coming here for the past two months then?” Anjali asked with smile at her brother’s acceptance to it.
Damn, Arnav thought to himself at the slip of his tongue.
“So you’ve been coming here to watch pigeons?” she asked.
“No,” he said looking at her confused.
“Oh, so it’s probably the shopkeepers then,” she replied back.
“No,” he said again getting annoyed.
“The priest?” she asked.
“NO!”A somewhat annoyed Arnav replied back.
“Then I’m sure it’s probably all the kids,” Anjali said trying to hide her grin.
“No Di, it’s not the pigeons, or shopkeeper, or the priest, or kids, I’ve been watching that damn girl,” an irritated Arnav replied back raising his voice a little more than usual.
“I know,” was the only response that he got from his sister.
“If you knew then why the heck were you asking me?” he said looking up at her.
“Because I wanted to hear it from you,” she said only to earn a glare from her brother.
“So I’ll try to get in talk with her family and maybe we can go over tomorrow to talk about the rishta,” Anjali said and Arnav looked at her surprised wondering how she knew.
“Oh come on Chotte, I’m your sister,” Anjali said.
“Thanks Di. But I hope you did see that she…,” Arnav started off but was cut off by her.
“Chotte I did see what you are trying to get at,” Anjali told him, “As long as you are willing to accept her like that, no one else in the family will have a problem.”
“I know that no one else will but you know how judgmental society gets though,” Arnav said.
“They can think whatever they want, and I think she’s probably learned to overcome that throughout her entire life,” Anjali said and he agreed. She then told him to wait there while to went across the street to the other side. Anjali had questioned a few of the people about her and some of them had told he that she was a regular visitor, but not many knew a lot about her. She then met a woman and asked her who she was, motioning to the girl. Mrs. Sharma, the lady, looked towards that direction.
“Oh they are the Gupta sisters, and the youngest on with them is a girl that they babysit,” Mrs. Sharma said, “Why do you need to know about them?”
Then Anjali explained to her how they wanted to fix a rishta with them for her brother and needed to contact them. Mrs. Sharma gave Anjali her phone number and said that she would talk to them about it and call her in the evening.
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