Chapter 7

                                         
          'Cardinal Controversy'

        Arnav growled over the pathetic fact that deprived him from seeing Khushi, being in the same house ,behind few walls  'What the..!' 

          

       He had attempted to sneak into guest room to get another glance of her, but her petite frame seemed to be lost among all overweighed  relatives of her. He had to return to his room , when her over caring, over protective  (and over-sized too) buaji had politely swore by the name of her beloved God resembling to irritating NK and answered his unvoiced self assumed question saying  she would bring Payal on time to mandap without making Akash wait for long and had shut the door on his face.

'Damn it! To hell with Akash's wait..what about I having no choice other than waiting till the wedding itself'

****************

  He was pacing the pool length when Shyam entered the pool area.

Catching the culprit off guard was the trick Shyam was good at. Without even giving a moment for  Arnav to greet him, he said 

  " You really don't need to think so much about security issue ,Saale sahab! I have checked & made sure everything is in place."

  Arnav had one of his genuinely-trying-to-smile-look on his face. 

"The moment you agreed to look after it ,it was out of my mind, jijaji. I know , I need not to worry about it anymore ."

  

 "That thing is out of your mind and all the preparations are done already. So is there anything else where I can help you?" He knew that would work.

       Arnav spared a minute or two over thinking about whether he should discuss the matter with him or not. But after all Shyam jijaji was a lawyer and a successful one to be specific. And who could be better than a lawyer to advice over a deal?

  

 "Ahh..Not really ..umm..actually... I was just curious about something."

 " I shall try my best to kill your curiosity cat, Saale sahab! Yeah, tell me" He smirked proudly grabbing his golden chance at having an upper hand over Anjali.

  

  "It is nothing PERSONAL jijaji, but I was wondering  what probable clauses you might have put forth before Di when you told her to marry you. umm'.you may have put it well as you are a lawyer..!"

  

    At that moment Shyam  understood why Anjali never heeds any attention to his constant advice to leave the matter of Chote's marriage on Chote himself and not to intervene into his personal space for that. Because If she leaves the matter over Chote, he can never make up to an alter. It's pretty  confirmed  now. Arnav's question has made him take the vow that he would never advice the same to Anjali again.

  

 "Saale sahab, before providing you the details you asked, let me correct some words here. Firstly I didn't tell Anjali to marry me'"

  

  "Ohh, then she told you to marry her?" Arnav guessed the scene, before Shyam could complete his sentence.

  "Nope, even that didn't happen. Neither one of us TOLD the other to marry. I asked her if she would like to marry me?"

   "That is one and all the same , jijaji!" Arnav drawled lazily.

    And that was the face-palm moment for Shyam. First ever face-palm moment with his saale sahab as he noted. With the Harvard brain like Arnav Singh Riazada ,it was a rare occasion to have face-palm moment for anyone. So Shyam didn't miss the chance of counting it. God only knows  how many more would be coming.

   

  "That is not the same, Saale sahab. I just couldn't go and tell her to marry me without giving a single chance to her to have her say  over the most crucial decision of her life, you know. It matters a lot for any girl."

  

  "Okay , but what would you have done if she hadn't accepted  your proposal?"

  

 "Then I would have tried hard in every possible way to change her mind and request her to give another thought over her decision."

 And there appears the famous signature smirk of ASR.

 "You may name it whatever you want. But basically you would have made sure that she would not deny the proposal in any situation, wouldn't you jijaji?"

 Shyam was clueless now on how to make him realize that ordering any girl to marry and wooing her for the same are entirely two different things.

  "Anyways, what were your clauses then?" Arnav continued cutting the previous discussion.

  

 "Why would I put any clause to marry her, Saale sahab?" Shyam was more than confused.

  

  "Because, simply  you both were thinking of getting married! When two persons come together for some mutual venture then there must be some clauses from both the parties to which both are agreed, that's why?"

  

                     It was second face-palm moment of course.

  

 "Saale sahab, you are taking it all wrong. Marriage is not any venture. It's pure union of two different persons who come together despite their different natures and habits to start a new life with each other."

  "Exactly, jijaji!  There you are. When two different individuals live together, do different adjustments and sacrifices for each other then there should be at least some chances of getting any profit too and not only possibilities of losses .So there have to be some clauses to be sure of your profit."

     Shyam was literally pitying the clients and people who work with ASR.

  

  "It's not business to quote  profit and loss here. Try to understand. It's matter of Love. And where love enters , there is only one gain and one loss. You lose your heart to her and in return gain hers."

  

 "But what is use of this all getting and losing heart business, jijaji? You can't stack it and weigh in percentile numbers of growth, can you?"

  "Arnav...??"  Shyam was not sure if he said it out of frustration,irritation or disappointment but he was almost convinced that it's not an easy job to make Mr. Arnav Singh Riazada understand all Cardinal business.

  

        

         Arnav was alarmed. Here it comes. He had noted long ago that his jijaji had picked his di's habit fortunately or unfortunately. Whenever his Di gets angry or irritated she always calls him by name and not as 'Chote'. Shyam too had followed her suit.This is another effect of being married.You follow your partner's habits, either knowingly or unknowingly.

     

      Arnav was yet to quote this as an advantage or disadvantage of marriage, when suddenly his highly efficient brain portrayed a picture of him frying jalebis in his kitchen bathed in sticky yellow batter like his Khushi and with same spontaneity 'disadvantage' gained a point and advantage went down the drain.

  

  

  Shrugging the horrifying image, he decided not to proceed the discussion now. So wrapping it up he said,

  "Jijaji, it's getting late. You should go and get ready now. Or I have to take all the blame from Di for your late arrival downstairs."

       Shyam nodded giving a truly heartfelt warm smile and contemplating over the misfortune of the girl whose heart was going to be weighed for calculating possible percentile gain.  He said, " Yeah Saale sahab! You  should get ready too. It seems a long journey for you."

  

 And before Arnav could ask him what exactly he meant by a long journey, his Jijaji was gone with a lightning speed.