Aditya's doubt

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It was early morning, one day away from the wedding. The wedding reception was to be a garden party held upon a day of blue skies and sweetly rising heat. Aditya believed that Love was in the air as if it were a new kind of electricity, so palpable and real. He arranged for Imlie's favorite flowers, amid the petals in romantic hue, he wanted to renew the love he once shared with Imlie on this day.

Shalini joined Aditya for breakfast after he had returned from the final day of the puja. She observed the preparations and thought to herself, "Those who abuse love may appear to occupy the same emotional space as the one they pretend to love, yet they are in truth sitting in a viewing room with a one way mirror, watching with emotional distance, always able to leave, always able to manipulate and that was all Aditya was interested in, his love for Imlie was about winning and control and nothing else".

Ad-imlie ye lo , mein tumhare liye Ek khas Prasad laya Hoon, Meri puja finish ho gayi toh panditji me diya hai

Sh- thank you babu Saheb, I'll have it later

Ad- imlie Tumhe yeh abhi khana Hoga , panditjne kaha hai , you need to eat it right away.

Shalini did not trust Aditya's intentions one bit, he had tried to poison Imlie so she would have a miscarriage and lose her babies in the past and didn't know what he would be upto now. She looked at Sundar who seemed clueless about the Prasad and grew Even more suspicious.

Ad- imlie Tum soch Kya Rahi ho? Khalo!

Sh-Hanh babu Saheb, abhi khate hain

Earlier that morning-

Aditya was performing the parikrama for the puja and was behind the temple structure away from Sundars watchful eye and suddenly someone stuffed a small envelope on his puja Thali and ran away . Aditya opened it to find a few photos of Imlie with two babies and Aryan sitting besides her. Behind the photo it was written " not all is as it seems"

Aditya wondered what that meant and who was this person who had given him this clue, he was intrigued by something in the photo, it was the twins. He was not sure if that was an older photo from Naina and siah's birth but he was aware that Imlie was carrying twins for the second time too. His mind pondered over something Narmada had said back when Aryan was around, about twins running in the family. He was trying to decipher the meaning of the short sentence and finally decided to test Imlie. Since a past few days imlie had been overly courteous and responsive to his advances and even asked him for tea, he had even woken up in his room the next morning, even though imlie denied anything happening that night and claimed to have slept in Chini's room but the fact that she had not fetched Sundar and had him sent to his own room felt uncharacteristic for the Imlie he knew, the imlie he knew would never let anyone in her bed.

Present time:

Ad-imlie come on, finish the Prasad quick, I have some wedding stuff I need to show you after this

I- Hanh woh him khate hai

Right at that moment Chini yelled out to Shalini and demanded her immediate presence in her room.

Ch-Amma ! Amma come here right now!

I- Chini hum dui minit mein aate hain

Ch-nahi abhi aoooo! Issi vakt

I- Babu Saheb humaar Chini ko humaar zaroorat hai hum.abhi Aaye

Ad- Hanh imlie Chalo mein bhi aata hun

They both headed to Chini's room and saw a messy deshelved room, it wAs as if the room was a reflection of Chini's anxiety . Aditya also noticed that the mess had grown in the last few days and so did Chini's ability to focus. She seemed so scattered that it was a challenge to get her to calm  down and have a meaningful conversation with her lately.

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