A woman in her mid twenties was seen lying on the bed as she stared at the white ceiling, blankly, completely lost in the pool of thoughts. Thoughts about how her life was going to take a whole 360-degree turn.

She rubbed her thumb against the cold gold band in her ring finger as she sighed softly as a wave of relief filled her veins through the new found anxiety reliefer.

A year back she was completely firm with her words of not wanting to get married and staying single forever but now here she was, next day being the D-day.

From day one she was never a stubborn child to her parents. She would analyse, overthink, hesitate, see the before and after consequences of the situation and then act accordingly. She had given it all to be the best daughter her parents had always wanted. She moulded herself to be the one they would be proud showing off.

As you know this damn society always prefer a son over the daughters; people had always mocked her parents for having two daughters. She so wanted to go on killing spree to clear that trash out but she was too good to be doing it. So, she promised herself that she would never do anything that would make her parents ashamed off.

After all these she had asked for only one thing from them; she wants to stay single forever but like any other parents they just ignored it and brought tons of marriage alliances. And to top it all they said ‘We did a lot for you. Can’t you even marry for our sake. We are doing this for your well-being.’

The after war that took place was really disturbing to their nuclear family. That was the very first time she spoke her side of story but at the end she was turned to be a villain. After all the chaos her mother’s blood pressure went higher and father’s sugar dropped and her sister didn’t have anything to say because she had shut her sister’s raging self, knowing her words wouldn’t help but only heighten the already messed up situation.

So here it is. I, Anya Deshmukh, is bracing myself to push my grave in the way of destruction. She sighed thinking about it.

Even though the arranged family was nice to her, she could feel there was something indifferent with the behaviour of the said groom, Gaurav.

They had only two meetings before their engagement that was the three days before their wedding. First meet was when they had visited them to confirm about the alliance. And weird thing that happened was groom’s family didn’t let the couple talk in privately and her parents didn’t object either.

Second meet was when the families went for selecting fits for engagement and wedding but he was dipped in his phone every time his mother asked for his opinion for the outfits she chose.

She was curious about his behaviour and wanted to know why he was acting all glory when he had nothing unique to flaunt off. She rolled her eyes, displeased, as the thought cross her mind.

Because of all this, a weird feeling kept creeping inside her that something really big is definitely going to happen that might be good or bad. And knowing her history of this gut feeling she’ll say it would be worse.

"Tai!" She heard her sister’s cheerful voice as she rushed through the door making her sit up on her place and put a halt on her overthinking.

"Good morning." She said as she jumped on Anya for a bear hug. She hugged her back and cradled her making her sigh softly. Since Anya’s marriage was fixed, her sister had made her daily routine to hug her first every morning.

"Morning, yami." Anya said as she passed her fingers through the lush of her sister’s wavy open locks that freely spread over her back until her mid back.

"I’ll miss this."Her sister mumbled as she tightened her hold around her while Anya kissed the back of her head not knowing how to comfort her. But that only made situation worse as she felt a small drop of water on her neck.

Anya tried to pull out of the hug but she just clutched her hands tighter onto her as she mumbled something and rubbed her nose on her shoulder hiding her face into it.

"Balla, kai jhal?" [What happened?] Anya asked after they break the hug as she pushed the hair locks away from her face and tug them behind her ears as she sat down next to her.

"I am exhausted." She huffed as she pinched the bridge of her nose trying to keep her emotions at bay and later proceeded to adjust her delicate silver nose ring.

"Sure." Anya said narrowing her eyes on her face to see if there was any hint of her crying but there was none making her sigh defeatedly.

She has learnt to mask her emotions now.

The kid who would whine for every minor inconvenience and cried till I make it right for her is now masking even the slightest twitch in her muscles. My yami. Sayami is a big girl now. Anya smiled softly looking at her mischievous sister.

"Why aren’t you ready till now?" Sayami asked glancing between the clock and her sister.

"I was going to." Anya sighed as she walked towards the packed bags to remove her outfit for the Haldi ceremony while her green glass bangles and some gold bangles clashed with each other making the jingling sound in the silent room.

"If Aai looks at your under-dressed self, she’ll surely kick your as--" Anya threw a sharp glare on her way and could see her gulping down her words as she clears her throat. “I mean. Twist your ear today.”

“I am used to it now.” Anya mumbled thinking how much she was going to miss that as she fished out the necessities and made her way towards the bathroom.

“I’ll check on the guests.” Sayami said as she closed the room door behind her.

After having a shower, Anya stood in front of the mirror as she pushed the floral earing into her ear hole while looking for the exact location of the hole in the mirror. She was dressed into a short sleeve, yellow colour blouse and a yellow colour saree. She huffed after wearing both of her earrings.

She then wore floral waist band, neck piece and tugs the mangtika above her hair parting as her wavy locks flew with the breeze, freely. She did a light make-up all by herself because she felt it was a waste of money to apply expensive make-up for haldi as at the end it would get washed off with some amount of haldi and water later.

Her friend Anushree entered inside the room as she smiled at her reflection through the mirror. She smiled back as she walked towards her and stood at her side still looking into the mirror.

“You are happy?” Anushree asked making her raise her eyebrows to explain further.

“Doubting, looking at the sudden drastic change from forever single to almost committed.” Anushree said as she turned towards her making her pause her movements for a second before she continued to pat her face with compact pad.

“Trust me. I am.” Anya gave a smile to her and later held a lipstick in front of her as she turned towards her.

“Trusting you.” Anushree sighed and takes the hold of lipstick as she proceeded to uncap it.

“But still if you plan to run away. I am here.” Anushree gestured her to open her mouth but hearing her words Anya giggles.

“I am serious.” Anushree frowned looking at her giggling.

“And I am flippant.” Anya said making her glare at her best friend.

“Accha baba! On serious note. If last minute I feel like this decision isn’t right I’ll reach out to you.” Anya assured her.

“You better.” Anushree said sternly as she proceeded to apply lipstick on Anya's lips.

“Anya --” They both turned towards the voice which was of Anya’s mother who walked towards them, smiling.

“Kithi god diste gh tu balla.” [My child is looking so pretty.] Kaveri said while letting her fingers rest below Anya’s chin making her give a small smile at her mother.

“Tai kunachi?” [After all, whose sister is she?] A chirpy voice of Sayami came from the threshold of the door leaving them chuckle.

“Let’s go?” She added further as they nodded positively.

They all walked towards the main hall from the hotel room where the ritual was about to take place. The room was decorated beautifully and the guests were already waiting for the bride. Anushree and Sayami made Anya sit on the couch making her the centre of attention which made her give an awkward smile to the people with whom her eyes met.

As an older lady instructed, Kaveri took the mango leaves in each hands and dipped it into the bowl full of turmeric paste. After the specific amount of turmeric paste was on leaves, she proceeded to apply it to Anya’s head to cheeks to shoulders to hands to knees to feet. Kaveri proceeded to repeat her action twice. And the ceremony proceeded on with the teasing, laughter and healthy chaos.

A/N

So here is a small glimpses of our main female lead; Anya Deshmukh.

Schedule for the upcoming chapters will be updated on Instagram so make sure you are connected with me there as well.

Ig ID: @coloursofishq

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