Their life
In one of the posh Delhi Residential areas, stood the majestic mansion of the RAIZADAS, Shantivan. The mansion literally screamed about the wealth and status, the Residents of the house possessed. Raizadas, the Fashion Moguls ruling over Asia and Europe. One of the top ten business tycoons in Asia.
Though the name of the house represents Peace. Inside the house, there was everything but peace. The whole house is in chaos and the reason. Well today is a very important day as the head of the Raizada family, the Patriarch, Nani, Devyani Raizada is celebrating her 100th birthday.
Well it's nothing less than a miracle. The woman had seen so many hardships in her life. Endured so much pain. Even went to death bed for three times but still survived. She had seen four generations of her family. And if god permits will soon see fifth generation as well, as all her great grandchildren were either married or of marriagable age.
Devyani Raizada sat in the living room looking at old albums. All her family members were running around, making arrangements for evening party. She had no interest in the party. All she wished for was one thing. A family photograph with her entire family in it. And today, it's going to be fulfilled.
Her entire family had come down to celebrate the day. Even her ever missing great grandchild, Aditya. The youngest son of her beloved Arnav Bitwa and Khushi Bitiya. Her oldest great grandchild, Arav, eldest son of Arnav and Khushi, was another centre of attraction of the party.
The boy had gone completely on his father. Has achieved so much in his life in such a young age. A well mannered boy with good looks and intelligence. Has followed his father's path. After completing his higher studies in Harvard just like his father, had joined his father's business and had made a name for himself.
And Now after many struggles, he is going to get married to the girl he loves. It is really a miracle that the boy agreed to get married after what happened during his previous wedding. Everyone was happy with the proposal. Arav liked the girl, no, he was in love with her. Though the boy never confessed, all of them knew he loved her. The girl also agreed.
But then didn't know what happened, a catastrophe hit them on the day of marriage. The bride came to the mandap, the marriage rituals started, and before they stood up for phere, the girl vomited blood and fell down unconscious. Apparently she had drank poison. The incident not only shocked Arav but the entire family. It took months to overcome that.
Finally after months, Khushi again started hunting bride for her son. And after lot of rejecting and persuading, Arav finally agreed for marriage.
Devyani looked up and slightly giggled seeing Arav romancing with his fiance, Natasha behind a pillar. She was happy for him. The girl is sweet, calm and well cultured girl. Though modern in clothing and style but still close to the roots. She loved the pair.
She then looked sideways and saw her other two great grandchildren, Akshaya and Athmeya. Twin daughters of Akash and Payal. Both recently married to twins just like them, Viren and Vikas. She smiled seeing them in similar dresses. The girls are same and always did everything similar.
Whether it's clothes, jewellery, career, like, dislikes, everything. Even after marriage, they have followed their trend of doing everything together and same. Good that they are non identical, otherwise it would have been difficult to distinguish them.
She then turned to her granddaughter, Anjali, who had just entered the house after going to her NGO. She looked at her fondly. She is still amazed by the transformation Anjali had. From a naive, innocent, emotionally weak woman to a strong, independent, no nonsense woman who took everything thrown at her head strong and gave it back with equal passion and vigor.
She loved the change in Anjali. She is a woman rights activist alongwith running an NGO. She has surely emerged as a pheonix from the tragedies that hit her life. Though she refused to remarry, she made the best of her life. She worked, she earned, she travelled, she lived her life in her own terms and conditions. Everyone who always taunted her, were in awe of her and wanted to have the life she lived.
It is still indigestible that she is the same girl who used to cry at the drop of a hat. Now a day she literally made men cry who dared to mess any girl she came across. Sometimes she looked even more scarier than her grandson Arnav. It was those times, she truly realized that those two were siblings in real.
Anjali came and greeted her and went to freshen up in her room. Nani was about to continue her work of going through albums when two youngsters came and plopped themselves down beside her on the couch. She shook her head seeing the siblings fighting.
Well apparently the siblings are the youngest ones in her family. The children of her beloved NK Bitwa. Nihal and Laya. 25 and 23 years old. Though both are in early twenties, they fight like 5 year old kids.
Well it's not new. They were always at each others throat. Well can't blame them entirely as the people who raised them were also at each others throat always. NK had found his love and life partner in Arnav's ex-girlfriend, Lavanya when the girl had come to visit Arnav and Khushi on the occasion of Aditya's birth.
After the initial starting trouble, which was eased of by Khushi and Arnav's intervention, both of them had hit it off well. After 6 months of courtship, they got married and settled in Sydney. But being close to the family, they visited Delhi often.
After the birth of kids, Delhi became the place of their vacation. Nihal has completely gone on NK but Laya, to everyone's surprise, didn't showed any traits of her both parents. Instead was a mini girl version of Arnav, much to NK and Nihal's displeasure.
During her early teenage, Laya grew so fond of everyone here in Delhi especially Arnav that she demanded to let her stay in Delhi. After so much discussions, emotional blackmailing, countering, everything, finally all had to bow down and Laya stayed back in India.
From then, she is here. Apart from a small one year period, when she went to Sydney for a course in cinematography, she had spend almost her entire life here in Delhi from her early teenage. And she was raised by Arnav and Khushi who didn't had any girl child and brought up Laya as their own.
So you can anyways imagine why Nihal and Laya are always bickering. The traits of NK and Arnav.
Nani sighed and concentrated on the album. Few minutes later, Nihal and Laya became quiet after giving each other warning gazes. They both started doing their work. Nihal started watching TV munching his chips and Laya started reading news on her phone.
Nani looked up hearing footsteps. She smiled seeing Aditya coming downstairs. He came down and sat on the single sofa. He looked around for a moment and then taking his phone, started doing some work.
Well Aditya is her mysterious great grandchild. Nobody actually know who he went on and how he actually is. He is very silent, calm, composed and detached. A total opposite of both his parents. He neither has Arnav's world famous anger nor Khushi's funny bone in him. Over all nobody knows what he actually does and where he always disappears onto.
She herself was seeing him after 6 years. He had gone to London to complete his higher studies. Then settled there itself. Earlier he used to come for vacations but now doesn't even turn up for any big occasions. He didn't even came for his cousin sister's marriage. He was always away from home. First to boarding school in Bangalore, then to London.
But she's glad, he is here now. For the first time after many years, all are under one roof. During Akshaya and Athmeya's marriage, she thought she would see her whole family but then Aditya was missing, so her wish remained unfulfilled. So this time she personally requested Khushi to ask Aditya to come without fail. And she's glad, he turned up.
***************
Same day, evening, Party
The Party was happening in full swing. Almost half of the city was invited. Business tycoons, Actors, Celebrities, everyone was there. The whole Raizada family was in the big hall of Shantivan where the party was arranged, entertaining the guests.
Nani was beaming with happiness. Her family had arranged for a few old friends of hers to come over for the party. Not much. Just two friends. Actually in her age, it's only a miracle that they could dig out these old school friends of hers. Both the ladies were as old as her but worn out and tired. They were happy about the reunion.
Exchanging pleasantries, reminiscing memories, sharing experiences, they were having a gala time while the rest of the family moved around in the party hall talking to rest of the guests.
Soon cake was cut, Nani was given gifts, the youngsters occupied the dance floor, dancing romantically for the slow music. Arav danced with Natasha in the middle of the dance floor, around him were Akshaya- Viren, Athmeya-Vikas and Nihal with an unknown girl. Is Nihal dating someone. All wondered. But then it was no news. The boy always has a girl hanging in his arms during such parties but as soon as party gets over, the girl also mysteriously disappears. As if she never knew him. It always amused his family how he escaped everytime from getting into a scandal by the way he flirts with girls.
Then there was Laya with her longtime boyfriend, Freddy. OK. So long story short, Freddy is a Christian Indian American who has a keen interest in Indian Culture. Though born and brought up in America, he loved his father's homeland India. He had come to india to do a documentary on Indian dressing and culture.
He worked in AR for a while to learn more about it. It was there, he met Laya. Just like her Badepapa and Badimaa, Laya also had a love-hate relationship with Freddy initially. After which they fell in love. Slowly all approved for their relationship. It was difficult, considering Freddy's religion and nationality.
Nani wasn't pleased with Freddy being Christian but agreed for Laya's happiness. But the biggest problem was Laya's Badepapa who was not ready to send Laya to a foreign country away from all of them. But then slowly seeing Laya and Freddy's love, he also agreed. Now they are engaged. But has no plans of getting married in any near future. So maybe after two to three years, they might consider marriage.
After dancing for a while, Arav went to meet his few business colleagues. All were either talking or having food, when startling everyone, all heard a scream. All looked on with confusion, as Aditya ran towards Arav screaming "Bhai". But the confusion turned to horror, when they saw the chandelier falling and breaking into million pieces which was hanging on the place where Arav was standing.
As the moment of shock and horror passed, all ran towards Arav and Aditya who had fallen down on the opposite side due to Aditya's push. Arnav and Khushi immediately reached near Arav and started checking him.
"Arav, Beta, you are alright, no?"
"You didn't get hurt, no?"
"Is it paining somewhere?"
"Did you get hurt?"
Both asked frantically checking him. All others also surrounded him scared.
"No Mom. I am fine. I didn't get hurt. Adi pushed me on the correct time." Arav replied with a soft smile.
Khushi and Arnav nodded and hugged him. Khushi thanked her Devi Mayya for saving their child. They turned to Aditya and Arnav asked, "Adi, are you alright?"
"Yeah, Dad. I am fine." Aditya said with a small smile.
"Adi Bhai, your hand is hurt. It's bleeding." Laya exclaimed pointing to his bleeding elbow.
All looked at the elbow. Aditya held his hand and saw the elbow. "Oh. I didn't noticed it. It's OK. It's a small wound. Bhai, are you alright?" Aditya asked softly.
"Yeah, I am absolutely fine. But you should get your wound treated. Someone please bring the first aid." Arav said taking Aditya to the couch.
Laya went to get the first aid box. Soon she came and started cleaning and bandaging the wound. Other family members stood there worried.
"Done." Laya said tying the bandage.
"Thank you, Chutki." Aditya said smiling at Laya.
"It's OK, Bhai. Please take care of yourself." Laya said softly.
"I will be fine. Don't worry." Aditya said closing his eyes reassuringly.
Soon all the guests went away. After that, all sat on the living room thinking about the accident. They were still horrified by that. Khushi sat beside Arav holding his hand.
"But I don't understand how did the chandelier fell down. Today morning only we double checked all the arrangements. Then how." Arnav asked confused.
"Maybe it's rope was worn out. It was old and had been there for a long time. Maybe the rope just worn out and fell down. We might haven't noticed while doing preparations. " NK suggested.
"May be." Arnav shrugged. That was the only possibility.
"OK. It's late. I think we should all go sleep. Natasha Beta, you stay here for the night. Tomorrow, Arav will drop you home. I will call your Mom and inform her." Khushi said.
Natasha nodded holding Arav's other hand. She stayed back with Arav after the incident while her parents went back home. Soon all bid good night and went to their room.
This is my first story on Inkitt. I have written few stories in wattpad. This is going to be a short story. I don't know how it had come out. Hope all will like and enjoy it.
