Sadkey Tumhare. (For Your Sake)

seven

Aaina.

"Arey waah, ye to koi baat na hui. Itni kanjoosi? I'm your only devar!"

(Wow, you're so miser, sister in law. Come on, I'm your only brother in law.)

If it wasn't for my brother in law, who was sitting right near my lap, I would probably be barfing with nerves right now.

I was surrounded by Zaydaan's close family and friends as they continued with their norms.

After signing the marriage papers and getting done with the wedding ceremony, the bride goes back home with her husband's family, bidding goodbye to her own.

The same had happened with me, now, I was in the middle of laughter and banter with Zaydaan's family as they argued about how much money I had to give my brother in law.

My sister had demanded money from my husband too, as she herself obliged and did all the wedding rasams herself, one of them included her demanding money from Zaydaan, so he could sit by my side for the wedding.

These wedding traditions were always fun to see but experiencing them on my own self, they seemed nothing but unnecessary.

If the mehndi event had been hectic, Baraat was even more tiring. Atleast I hadn't cried on my mehndi night, but tonight? I had bawled my eyes out.

Leaving your own home, you'd own family, leaving behind everything for the sake of one man, it seemed to be too overwhelming.

Anyway, back to the godh bithai.

||Godh bithayi is a traditional wedding norm when the youngest dewar (brother in law) is asked to sit in the bride's lap or hold his bhabhi (sister in law) 's knee and asks for some cash.||

"How much would you like?" I questioned my brother in law, who was smiling up at me.

He pretended to ponder for a few moments before he laughed.

"As much as you have."

As much as I have? I had my credit card and some amount of cash.

"Okay,"

I opened up my purse to give the cash that I had when my mother in law called me out.

"She's too innocent." She commented, making everyone laugh. "Aaina, give whatever you think is normal, love. These are just rasams."

I nodded.

"Here," I handed some money over to him and everyone started to cheer.

It wasn't until Zaydaan spoke from beside me that the cheers died down.

"Can we leave now?"

He didn't really seem tired to me but  clearly he wanted to go to the bedroom.

I was too nervous to stay alone with him. But I had no escape anymore. I was under his nikah. We were married now. I was his, and he was mine.

"Bauhat jaldi nai ho rahi ap ko aj?" 

(Aren't you in too much of a hurry tonight?)

Ahad joked, my husband stood up anyway, looking at his father.

"I'm sure baba wants to sleep too." He remarked and Ahad groaned.

He didn't seem like a playboy to me. His media image and the image that I had seen so far were totally different. He was playful. But he didn't seem like a playboy.

"I do, actually. Come on kids, back to your rooms. Fun is over."

The Prime minister announced, clapping his hands. All of my husband's cousins stood up immediately, I could hear them murmur about how they were going to watch a movie in the main hall later on, slowly and gradually..they cleared out the living room.

My mother in law stood in front of me, ready to leave as I planned to stand up as well.

"Take your heels off before you go to your room, Aaina. The floor is slippery on that wing of the house."

She told me. I was thankful that she had.

I didn't want to fall right on my ass in front of my husband.

"Okay, aunty."

"Good night, sleep well."

She left, Zaydaan towered over me as I bent down to take off my heel.

As my husband stared at me, I realised that as much as I wanted to take it off, I couldn't do so without any help.

How do I tell an egoistic man to bend down and help me with my shoe?

"Do you want help?" He enquired, I nodded.

"Uh sure,"

Zaydaan didn't bend down to untie my heel, instead, he picked up my leg and put it up on the couch.

I sighed in relief at the sudden pressure on my leg.

"You and your sister seemed pretty close." He remarked as he untied the first one.

He was referring to my sister crying at the Rukhsati (A ceremony where the bride bids her family off at the end of the wedding day)

"We are, I didn't expect her to cry so much though." I replied, remembering the bitter sweet moment.

"It's definitely hard to leave your home." Zaydaan commented next.

"It is." I mumbled as he took both my heels off.

I stood up, holding his hand.

"But this is your new home now, you have to adjust here."

I had been told that by every single person. How could I adjust easily among people who were so different? How could I adjust from living a normal life to living a life among the family of a Prime Minister?

"I know." I whispered anyway.

We walked from one side of the mansion to another.

The Prime Minister House seemed less like a house and more like a hotel. 

There were two separate wings of the House, Zaydaan had told me. One wing was for the family and the other wing was for official meetings and foreign delegations.

Zaydaan, however liked to live in the non family wing of the house.

He had personalised it after the wedding date had been announced.

As he guided me, I realised that he hadn't gotten the whole wing personalised, just the bedroom and the lounge outside of it.

He told me that Ahad had also shifted in the same wing of the house, which meant that my brother in law wasn't going to live very far from our bedroom.

"Come on," He gestured me to enter the room, opening the brown door for me. As I almost entered the bedroom, he still remained outside.

"Why don't you go inside and change, I have to meet with a few cousins. I'll be back in a while."

I frowned, confused.

Even though it felt quite awkward to me, leaving your new bride to meet up with a few cousins, I didn't say anything and nodded in understanding.

"Okay."

I finally entered the room I would be calling mine after tonight.

And just like the whole house, the room also gave an outlook of a hotel bedroom, like a big hotel room.

There were no personal items, no photographs, no books, nothing.

Maybe, it was because this was not their real house.

I realised that I had expected way more, I had expected flowers and petals around the room, I had expected him to stay with me and I had also expected the room to look more comfortable.

My mother had told me not to expect a lot in a relationship.

She said that if you expect a lot, you always tend to get hurt but if you don't expect anything, whatever your partner does for you is a surprise. No matter how little the gesture, it will end up making you feel good and happy.

Maybe she was right. Or maybe she wasn't.

I slowly took off my dupatta, taking off each and every pin, after that I took off my jewellery and then my dress.

I knew that combing my hair and taking off the heavy make up were going to be the actual tiring tasks so I decided to take a shower. A shower would make it all much easier.

The bathroom was no different. It was luxurious but not comfy.

As I finally got out of the shower and changed into a kurta pajama instead of the nightie that my mother had told me to wear on the first night, the door opened and my husband entered the room.

"You're back." I said, looking at him.

"You're changed." He mentioned.

"I am." I affirmed as he stared at me, then looked away

"I'm going to go take a shower too." He announced, I nodded.

He didn't say anything after that, he just entered the shower.

I sat on the couch, pulling my feet up and unlocking my phone. I could see several text messages from my sister.

Maybe I should text her, ask her about things back home.

I was in the middle of an intense conversation with her, instead of asking me about my wedding night, she kept bugging me about a cute boy at the wedding.

How the hell would I even know? I was on the stage, remember?

I had responded.

It hadn't even been ten minutes that I heard a sigh, I looked up, spotting Zaydaan in a white t-shirt.

How awkward was it? Knowing that you were going to sleep beside a man you barely knew?

"Why are you still sitting there?" He questioned, laying his eyes on me.

"I was just checking out the room." I lied.

He shrugged as if he didn't care.

"We are going to have to move out of the Prime Minister house next month. This isn't officially our room." He informed me.

I couldn't wait.

I didn't want to live in a house that felt like a hotel.

"Right. But who knows? Maybe you will win the elections again." I replied.

He chuckled.

"There is no maybe. We know we will win."

The sheer confidence that oozed from him, it was something extra ordinary. I smiled.

"And I will be the Prime Minister." He said next.

My smile faded.

So it was true, then.

"I had heard rumours about your father passing on the party's chairmanship onto you."

Rumours? No. I had overheard my father talk about it over the phone.

Zaydaan frowned.

"It is still a well kept secret." He told me, eyes slightly unrelaxed.

"I will guard it with my life."

Who was I going to tell anyway?

Zaydaan walked in front of me, as he sat on the bed, leaning against the headboard.

I looked down. Somehow, I couldn't bring myself to look at him, sitting so casually in front of me, almost laying down on the bed.

It felt intimate.

"Good. I don't care much about marriage. Relationships, love. They are all meaning less to me."

My ears felt like they had heard something wrong.

Love was meaningless. To him.

What was a relationship without love? Nothing. It was unstable and unhealthy, it was toxic. How could I love a man who didn't believe in love?

Did that mean I wouldn't be able to love him too?

Zaydaan continued talking.

"What is not meaningless, it is loyalty.

I am part of a world where there is no place for mistakes."

I knew that much. He was constantly in the media eye. And not the entertainment media, it was the media that the whole country watched every single minute of the day.

Media was a free zone. They couldn't control the media, only their own actions.

I was a human being though. I had my flaws, I would make mistakes. But I just hoped that he would be able to overlook them.

"I expect you to respect the ones that I respect, cherish the ones that I cherish and be loyal to the ones that I am loyal to."

I bit my lip.

Was this another lesson? I thought we were done with those.

"Can I expect the same from you?"

He looked at me like he couldn't believe I had asked him that. Maybe, he wasn't used to people asking him questions.

"If you do your duty well, I will do mine even better than you."

Marriage wasn't a duty. It wasn't a job. It was a responsibility and a commitment.

Our marriage was built on money and power. What other words could I expect anyway?

I sat there, my feet pulled up, my eyes staring at him and then looking away every minute or so as he talked.

"I have personally talked to the dean of your University. You will get all your notes and everything course related at home. You can complete your degree."

This time, my eyes widened.

"But I want to go to the university." I insisted.

"You can't. It is too much security risk." He explained.

"Zaydaan, we talked about this. I want to go." It took alot of guts for me to even protest, but this was my degree. I wanted to complete it the proper way.

Besides, university was a way of getting out of this life and entering a normal life. No matter how annoying that normal university life might be.

"You can't." He dismissed, as if he was done with this topic.

I wasn't.

"Why can't I?"

My voice pitched higher than I had wanted it. Infact, it almost sounded like I was yelling.

That didn't sit well with my husband, who stood up from his well rested position.

"Lower your voice when you are talking to me." He hissed.

I shakily stood up from my seat, ignoring the harsh and crude tone.

"Okay. I can take security guards with me and I have no problem with any security measures that you people want to take but I need to go and study there."

I said, my demeanour calm and quiet, just like my personality. Zaydaan properly scowled at me, as if he was shocked that I hadn't accepted his statement.

Was he really not used to people protesting against his decisions?

"And I need you to drop this topic." He shrugged.

"Please." I tried, one last time.

He walked towards me.

"I already have done enough, Aaina."

I sighed.

"It's our wedding night. I didn't want to ruin it by telling you all these things but I wanted to be honest with you."

Maybe I could convince him later on, maybe I could be a good wife for a few days and make him happy so he would just accept it.

"You said that you don't care about love and relationships. Does that mean I should not expect love from this relationship?"

I questioned out loud. If he wanted to be honest from the start, maybe I could follow the same theory.

He put a hand on my shoulder.

"I think that there is a lot more to life than these things."

It felt bad.

It felt really bad.

But my father had traded me for power, they had traded their son for money, this whole relationship was screwed up.

I had to accept whatever he was giving to me, regardless of how I felt, of what I had dreamed of.

"Okay. I understand." I murmured.

"Good."

"I thi-" I was about to say something else when his hands reached my neck, he pulled me close to him.

The utter anxiety was enough for me to feel like I was sitting in a cold, cold place.

"I would much rather do this than talk." He whispered.

My body shook with anxiety.

I was scared that it was going to hurt and I was scared that he wouldn't deem me good enough. And I was scared that it was going to be really uncomfortable.

Zaydaan felt me shaking.

"You're shaking." He said, his voice rigid.

"I'm scared that it's going to hurt."

I wasn't sure what I had even said, the nerves bottling up inside of me.

"I am your husband. This is my right, it won't hurt at all."

I gulped at his choice of words. Was he really going to do it even at my discomfort?

His hands reached near my waist as he pulled me towards him.

He felt my cold skin, he felt my shake and he even felt my fear. I knew he did.

"You're still shaking, say no. We can just sleep."

The utter displeasure in his tone was enough for me to remember my mother's advise.

Let it happen. It will hurt but it will join your souls.

So I put away my fear, I boxed it up in a tiny part of my heart and took a deep breath.

"No. It's okay, I'm fine."

I whispered.

"Are you sure? Don't do it out of duty. This is something that is important to alot of women and I understand."

He explained. I knew he wanted to do it but he also wanted my complete consent, he wanted me to accept it from my heart and not just through my mere words.

"I'm sure."

I confirmed.

So that night, I gave my body to him. And I would give him my heart and soul too.

I was a fool to even expect that he would do the same. 

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