Yougal Lucas Sinha's grandparents and Nia's grandparents were close friends. The two grandfathers' friendship dated back to their school days in the army school.They both served in the army. Nia's grandfather was only for a few years in the service and soon left the army due to an injury in one of his leg. He enrolled himself in the law school and soon started practicing in the high court. Later on he joined the judicial service and retired as a high court judge.
Yougal's grandfather, on the other hand joined the business world after he retired as an army Major, after completing the compulsory service of twenty years. He opened one of the most successful restaurant in the city. Later on he expanded his restaurant business and opened one more in the city and one in each of Shillong, Calcutta, Delhi and Mumbai. They were all under the name, 'Parampara', which was Tradition in Hindi.
Though the two families were very close, Yougal Lucas and Nia never had a chance to meet each other as he studied school in England, civil engineering and management in Harvard. Nia heard a lot about him during the gatherings of the two families and also her own family was quite the fan of that golden boy. But never did she nourish any thoughts about the Glowing Star, as the two grandfathers nick named him. She was not the fangirl type. Drawing colourful imaginary painting about a certain stranger was not her idea of passing time.
His father who already owned a construction company, expanded their restaurant business to hotels. Their hotels were all in the Metros and in popular tourist destinations like Goa, Ladakh, Manali, Kaza, Rhishikesh, Gangtok. The hotels in the north Indian Himalayan towns organized treks for the interested parties and organizing those activities had made the hotels more popular.
Those adventurous attractions like trekking in the mountains, camping in all the best sites of Leh Ladakh, Manali and Rishikesh, boating in Rishikesh were later addition by Yougal Lucas after he took over the hotel and restaurant business after his parents and grandfather's death.
When Yougal Lucas took over the business after the tragedy that befell the family, he had to face lots of oppositions from the shareholders, as he was young, and had yet to complete his MBA, though he already was an engineering graduate. But Nia's grandpa was the one who stood by him and showed great faith in the young man. Yougal's family owned forty percent of the total shares. That and the nine percent shares Nia's mom and grandma had, helped him in the hour of his darkness.
Nia was not interested in any of the achievement of a stranger. Those were the anecdotes filled her with by her own grandfather. He was all praise for the young man who took over a vast hotel empire and a construction company. But as the budding star student of management, Nia too admired the hard work and perseverance of that stranger, but she was more interested in pursuing her own career.
When she had just completed her masters in marketing and finance and applied for PhD, the man's grandmother brought the proposal for marriage and insisted that they should continue the friendship through the union of their grandchildren. She was only twenty one at the time. They wanted her to work at his company instead of doing PhD, so the two could get to know each other. Nia remembered the angry words she threw at her grandparents.
"Look grandpa, you and my father carried your part of that friendship. My dad lost his life trying to save that man's parents. Now he need not embark on a mission to save me from my unmarried status. Furthermore, I dn't intend to be a decorative wife at his home while my hard earned certificates moulder."
"You don't talk sense. How will it moulder when you'll work for him." Grandpa was irritated.
"Work for him? I'll decide who I work for? I won't be taking orders from him like a minion."
Nia had to bear with all the lectures that grandparents usually subject their grandchild to for their supposed good but she listened to all that with one ear which went out through the other. Nia asked her grandpa if the man was ready to marry her, a total stranger. According to her grandfather Yougal Lucas Sinha, that was the man's name, was a filial grandchild.
"Ohh...a Harvard Business school graduate, still filial and ready to marry even a hippo to please a grandma. How filial of him!"
"Yes, so unlike my dearest granddaughter. She thinks I'm selling her to the pirates." Grandpa faked being hurt, clutching at his chest.
"Oh shit..." Only then Nia realized that she had thought out loud.
"And young lady, dn't you dare to use that kind of words." Grandpa admonished.
"Come on, Dadu (grandpa), your Glowing Star Yougal must have come back from the States loaded with a bagful of cussing words." She laughed sticking out her tongue at grandpa and winking at grandma.
Those happy days, all gone now thanks to a man who her grandfather stood by, fighting with the other shareholders, winning over them by pursuation or whatever it took to achieve that. He did not have to marry her, only she wished he did not act like a pathetic loser. If he rejected her when his grandma had asked him, Nia would not have been sad. On the contrary she would have blessed him.
Like those young heroines in Hindi movies, she did not start weaving romantic illusion about a certain Harvard returned handsome stranger, already at the pinnacle of success in the business world. No, Nia did not fall for the man. How could she, when she had exchanged neither a syllable nor a glance with that glowing star of her grandpa? She was no starry eyed creative young woman, writing a fairy tale in her head with a happy ending, about a Prince Charming and her.
She was no damsel in distress waiting to be rescued, though the society she lived in thought of unmarried women as damsel in distress. She was not the one to weave sweet romantic love scenes when her engagement was finalized with a stranger. Nia wanted the freedom to do what her heart desired; do the PhD, teach, consult business, travel, manage the cafe, spend the weekends at the firm with her mom and grandparents. Maybe later on open a few more art cafes. But one person's single insouciant act made a change and that brought irrevocable changes in her life.
'Yes,' Nia reminisced with a bitterness that had refused to go away in those more than five years. It had been buried under the silence she embraced about the past. A fury rose up in her like a powerful tornado.
'I didn't exactly lie to Rhianna. We were to meet on a blind date set up by his grandma. But I was with my cousin Manikornika and his cousin Shakti.' She remembered how the other two girls were teasing her much to her discomfort. Nia wanted to finish this meeting and be done with it
Then Shakti nudged her with her elbow and pointed with her eyes to someone coming their way. Nia looked questioningly at her. "Bhaiya (brother)" Shakti had a wide smile on her face. Nia observed the man as she was at an advantageous position. He would not notice her because of a flowering shrub. He was very handsome, she had to admit that, and tall. Monikarnika whined that she could not see him because of some stupid big shrub. Shakti and Nia smiled at her for calling the shrub stupid.
The girls' teasing escalated at that point. The man stopped in his track, took out the phone from his pocket and talked with someone. Then before the three pairs of astonished eyes he turned and left in his car. So that was how Nia had met her fiance. There was no introduction, no exchange of a single syllable, because he had to rush back suddenly. He did not bother to inform them or offer an apology.
'Why have I been experiencing a maelstrom of emotions ever since I met the devil at Rhianna's party? His arrival has only helped the bitterness to resurface. I want to block the chance of his second coming into my life.' Looking at the night sky from the balcony, Nia ruminated.