Chapter 19
CHAPTER 19
ISHA
I took a great leap of faith and trusted my body to Veer.
It wasn’t just the sex, which was mind-blowing, thank you very much. It was the fact that I wasn’t constantly cowering under the sheets or in a robe, trying to hide my tummy or my bat wings. I let it all hang out, so to speak, and he didn’t let me down.
Not once did I see him look at my curves in disgust. And he looked at me a lot. Like the man couldn’t take his eyes off my body. Which was fair because I couldn’t take mine off his. Slowly, I became comfortable enough to accept that at least the man I now called husband did not think less of me because I was curvy. I didn’t care if his mother thought I was fat or not good enough for her son. Veer wanted me, and that’s all that mattered.
We finally fell asleep in each other’s arms, and only woke up when my mother called to check on us the next morning.
“Are you ready, beta?” she asked.
I stared at the phone groggily.
“What time is it, Ma?” I asked with a huge yawn.
“Are you both still sleeping? Hey Bhagwan! His family is on their way to Gulab Mahal right now. Did you forget about the puja in Jadhwal?”
Fuck! I’d forgotten all about the rituals that awaited me in Veer’s ancestral home.
“I’ll get ready as soon as I can,” I yelped, as I jumped out of bed and raced to the bathroom.
When I came out, I was half-dressed, but my big lump of a husband was still snoring loudly.
“Veer, wake up!” I screeched, as a car pulled up outside the house. “Your mother is here!”
He sat up with a jerk and looked around owlishly.
“Sorry, Ma,” he began and scowled when he saw it was only me.
“That was mean!” he declared grumpily.
“I’m serious. She’s just pulled up outside. She’ll be here in a minute. Please don’t give her another reason to hate me,” I begged, pulling the sheets off him. “And look! The others are driving up as well.”
“Fine! Let’s have a quick shower together,” he said, walking to the bathroom naked, with his erection leading the way. “It’ll save us some time.”
“Nice try, Laajwanti! But I’m almost ready,” I replied, admiring the view until he slammed the bathroom door shut in protest.
“Your mangalsutra is here,” he called out from the bathroom.
“Eep! Give it to me right now,” I ordered.
His mother would be furious if she saw me without it.
“It’ll cost you, princess,” he said, leaning against the doorway with a towel wrapped around his waist.
He dangled my mangalsutra from his fingers and I tried to snatch it from him. The bastard held it out of reach and leaned forward for a kiss.
I melted into his arms and kissed him back passionately. When he stepped away, my mangalsutra was around my neck, right where it belonged. We were both breathing hard and Veer looked like he was about to drag me into the bathroom and make sweet love to me in the shower.
I skipped out of reach just as he lunged and his towel came loose in the tussle. The imperious knock on the door took us by surprise. Veer grabbed the towel and disappeared into the bathroom, while I hastily threw on the long blouse of my poshak. I grabbed the dupatta and draped one end over my head before I opened the door.
Veer’s mother raked me from head to toe with a single disapproving glance.
“Hmph,” she said. “Is Ranveer ready?”
“Not yet, but he’ll be out soon,” I replied, stepping out into the hallway and shutting the door behind me.
I wanted to make it clear to her that she wasn’t allowed in our bedroom room without my permission. Especially when she had no business in there.
She pursed her lips and led me downstairs to where the rest of our families were waiting.
Ma shot me a searching glance and whatever she saw made her smile happily.
“We need to leave soon because there’s a mahurat for the griha-pravesh,” fussed Veer’s mother.
“It’ll take us twenty minutes by air, Ma,” drawled Veer as he ran lightly down the stairs. “Dheer has arranged for his jet to take us there.”
We piled into the cars and drove to the airport, and forty minutes later, we were pulling up outside Jadhwal Palace. It looked as if the whole village was there to welcome us. People were lined up from the main gates all the way to the front door, and they rained flowers on our car as we passed them.
Veer and I waved and smiled at them, and I realised that his people were now my people. At least, for the next year. I felt a pang at the thought of dissolving the marriage after a year, but I couldn’t assume that he’d want to stay married to me just because the sex was wonderful.
As for me, I had loved him since I learned what it was to love. I had loved him even when I had hated him, and I had a feeling I would love him till my last breath. And I would learn to live without him, I swore. After all, I had done it for so long. I would do it again.
Veer’s mother did the aarti and I entered the palace. We were whisked away to the big puja room on the ground floor for the rituals, and it was almost an hour before I was allowed to eat some breakfast.
As I spooned up some poha, Veer’s father beamed at me.
“Beta, Ranvijay’s team has issued a press release about your wedding, along with some lovely pictures. They’ve said that it was a simple, private ceremony due to the death in your family and that there will be a formal reception at a later date. That’s done,” he said, sounding relieved.
The poha turned to ashes in my mouth. This is exactly what I could do without. I knew what was going to happen. It was the same thing that happened after Diya and Bhai Sa’s wedding pics went public. Among all the good wishes for the happy couple lurked a lot of nasty comments about the groom’s fat sister.
I had married one of the country’s most eligible bachelors. Of course, the trolls were going to come for me. I pushed the plate away because the smell of food made my stomach turn.
“What’s wrong?” asked Veer.
In response, I pulled up the announcement on one of the social media channels and scrolled through the captions. When I found what I was looking for, I turned the phone around to face him.
“That’s what’s wrong,” I hissed.
The trolling had already begun. My wedding photos were quite flattering, so some miserable incel had found some of my most unflattering pics from the depths of the internet and made an awful collage to go with the original pic. There followed a long discussion about the possible procedures I might have had to lose the ten or so extra kilos I used to carry.
Veer looked thunderous as he called RV.
“Dude, what the fuck? Did you see the kind of comments that are popping up on social media about Isha? Find a way to shut them down right now. I don’t care if you need to find those little fuckers and break into their houses to threaten them. I will not tolerate anyone bullying my wife,” he growled.
He ended the call and turned to me.
“Don’t you dare believe them, Isha,” he snarled.
“Why shouldn’t I? They aren’t wrong,” I said bitterly.
“Of course, they are wrong, beta,” said Veer’s father kindly. “These are jealous people with no achievements of their own.”
“And what achievements do I have, Uncle? I am a princess through an accident of birth. And I married a prince because we both needed each other.”
“Beta, none of those people have ever fought and turned around their lives like you and Dheer. And you did it with no help from any of us. You could have lived very luxurious lives off the money that your father earned through illegal means. But you and Dheer put a stop to all that activity and brought progress and prosperity to Trikhera. You achieved what even the government couldn’t do in seventy years. Don’t you think that counts?”
“And why does the opinion of strangers matter more to you than ours, Isha?” asked Veer.
I thought about it for a bit and I couldn’t find the answer.
“I don’t know,” I said slowly.
“It’s because you’re looking for a reason to think poorly of yourself,” he replied harshly. “You need to love yourself before you expect anyone to love you.”
“I don’t expect anyone to love me,” I said angrily.
“And yet we do,” replied Veer’s father, gently. “Beta, I have known you since you were a little girl, and I love you like you were my own daughter. Let that weigh against the bad things that strangers say about you. For every nasty comment made by someone who has never met you, someone you know will have a good thing to say about you. By that calculation, I’d say you come up roses.”
Was it really that simple, I wondered wearily. Hating myself had become a habit now. How could I break the habit of a lifetime with a simple calculation?
“For this moron who says you look old and haggard, I say that you’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen,” said Veer softly. “Whom do you believe, Isha? Me or him? Time to choose.”
I burst out crying and Veer held me tightly as I sobbed into his shoulder. His father patted my head lovingly, and I wondered what Gulab Banna would have said to me if he saw me break down like this. He’d weathered a lot more pain than this with a brave smile.
I was not a weakling, I decided, wiping my eyes with the edge of my dupatta. It wasn’t going to be easy to bear the trolling, but I had to try.
“Beta, things are going to get worse when Veer starts campaigning for the elections,” said his father worriedly.
“I’ll be fine, Uncle. I’ll deal with it. The first thing I’m going to do is hand my social media profiles over to Veer’s campaign team. What I don’t read won’t have the power to hurt me,” I said firmly.
“That’s my girl,” said Veer proudly.
We stayed at the palace for the next two days and I was relieved to return to Gulab Mahal after we visited the kuldevta temple.
“We need to plan a honeymoon,” said Veer, as he carried me up the stairs.
“I want to stay here,” I whined, winding my arms around his neck. “Can we just ban visitors and have a small staycation in our own home?”
I didn’t want to travel anywhere because all eyes would be on us and I didn’t want any random photograph to destroy the fragile peace I had won after a hard fight with my insecurities.
“Anything my princess desires,” he promised, setting me on our bed gently.
He was true to his word. The next ten days were better than any honeymoon we could have planned. The days and nights melded into one another as Veer and I spent every minute getting to know one another. He played join the dots with every mole on my body using his tongue. Meanwhile, I got to know his dreams for his people in great detail. And every day, I prayed to Goddess Bhawani to make his dreams come true.
We explored every corner of Gulab Banna’s house, including the attic. I found a trunk full of old papers and sat down to sort through them one lazy afternoon. Veer lay on the swing on the porch, while I sat on the floor, working my way through the boxful of papers.
“Look at this! This is a document tracing the history of the people of this region. Gulab Banna hired a historian working at the local university to trace the histories of all the big families going backwards to their places of origin,” I exclaimed.
“Anything interesting?” he asked sleepily.
“This document says that the Goels are descendants of one of the most feared bandits of this region - Jagga Gujjar. He terrorised all the villages in this area during the early 1800s, and the Maharajas of Trikhera, Jadhwal and Mirpur joined forces to catch him.”
Veer almost fell off the swing in surprise.
“What?”
“It gets even more interesting,” I said, with a laugh. “He infiltrated the task force they had created for the job, and one evening, when the Maharajas returned from shikaar, he broke into the tent where they had gathered for dinner and attacked them. All three of them fired at him and he died on the spot.”
“Moron,” said Veer, shaking his head. “Imagine doing something so stupid.”
“But that explains the animosity his descendants have for all of us,” I said, with a sigh.
I had been waiting uneasily for Sapna Goel to act on her promise. Diya was still on bed rest and I was worried the Goels would find some way to hurt her, but they had been suspiciously quiet. Maybe it was all hot air, I thought hopefully.
Our staycation got over far too soon, and it was time to start working on Veer’s campaign. RV’s team had worked wonders with his PR, highlighting the work he had been doing for years. Chandel Sahab had already announced his candidature, and the team had lined up meetings with all the prominent royal families over the next couple of weeks to secure their support.
Meanwhile, we needed to get out and about together because the people needed to see us as a couple. I was scheduled to sponsor and inaugurate a creche in the village so that women were empowered to go out and earn a living without worrying about their babies. I had already signed the cheque, which was all that was expected from me, but I wanted to be involved in the project.
I was emailing an agency asking them to send us some trained nurses for the medical room in the creche when Ranvijay barged into my office.
“Isha, we have a problem,” he announced.
I shut the laptop and turned to him anxiously.
“What’s wrong?”
“Ask Veer to join us. Things are about to go ape-shit,” he said grimly.
I called Veer on the intercom, and he was with us in less than a minute.
“Someone’s been playing dirty,” said RV. “Chandel Sahab just called me to say he couldn’t endorse you for the CM’s post after all. He’s even talking about kicking you out of the party.”
“But why?” I demanded. “Veer is his best hope for a majority win this year.”
Ranvijay shook his head regretfully.
“Someone sent him pictures of your father partying with Maqsood Ali, the Pakistani terrorist, Isha. The anonymous letter alleges that he was selling arms to Pakistan. And it brought into question Veer’s eligibility to be elected to power if he was married to the daughter of a traitor. And they said they’d leak the pictures to the media if Pragati Party continued to field you as their candidate.”
His words hit me like a blow to the solar plexus. Veer had gone pale at the news.
This was a huge blow. And this wasn’t something our PR team could finesse away. No political party could survive the taint of treason. We could claim those pictures were doctored, but chances are they weren’t, and that could be proven in court. All they had to do was question the locals, and they’d get the whole truth about Baba’s operations. It wasn’t something we could hide from the world.
“Veer has nothing to do with my family’s past,” I argued.
“How are we going to prove that?” demanded RV.
He was right. But this only meant one thing.
If Chandel Sahab’s party dropped him over this issue, Veer’s fledgling political career would be over even before it began. His dreams for his people would never come true.
All because of me.