The people in the house were busy, making flower garlands and gossiping as they did so. Some of the women were with the tailor, who was being shown pictures of lehengas that they wanted and he was showing them fabrics for their outfits. Meanwhile some of the men were busy drinking chai whilst being forced to make laddoos.

Everything went on a pause when the doorbell was heard. The young woman Anika, who had a red veil kept on her head, took the veil off and stood up from the sofa to open the door.

Anika: look everyone! Miss Australia a.k.a Gauri is back!

The scene saw the young girl holding her purple suitcase and wearing a baby pink t-shirt dress paired with a denim jacket. Gauri. Gauri looked at Anika with her hazel eyes and rolled them at her.

Gauri: you know it would have been nice if someone came to pick me up!

Anika: we were going to but...

Gauri: but...

Anika: the jeweller came, then some aunties, then mithai gifts, then some event planners then Kabir's family came then the tailor came. We were so busy that we forgot all about you.

Gauri: once a kutti, always a kutti.

Anika laughed as she hugged her sister and Gauri went into the house, smiling at everyone.

Chachi: Gauri, what are you wearing? If you are wearing a t-shirt, you should at least wear something underneath!

Gauri: it's a t-shirt dress, Chachi.

Chachi: huh? What's a t-shirt dress?

Gauri laughed as she pulled her Chachi's cheeks, before sitting next to her Nani who gave her granddaughter an adorable smile.

Nani: finally meri Titli is home. Yaar why did you have to choose a boarding school in a faraway place?

Gauri and Anika's dad, Harsh suddenly yelled out: YES SIXER!

Gauri: that's why.

Nani laughed as she showed Gauri an outfit.

Nani: this will look so pretty on you.

Gauri: Nani, I already got a lehenga for Anika didi's wedding.

Anika: oh white-washed desi kutti, we are choosing outfits for the mehndi.

Gauri: mehndi! Yaar didi, do you really want to go through more functions when you can really just have the wedding already?

Anika rolled her eyes and showed one of her aunts a fabric then spoke to the tailor.

Gauri whispering to her Nani: she has been going full on bridezilla mode hasn't she?

Nani whispering back: yes, pretty much.

Gauri and Nani laughed. Nani yawned a little and said: I am going upstairs to have some rest.

Gauri: Accha theek hai Phir. I need to put my suitcase in my room so I'll come with you upstairs Nani.

Anika: just for your kind information, we turned your room into a storeroom.

Gauri looked at her sister with just a frozen look on her face before looking at her Nani with a smile.

Gauri: Nani jaan, meri pyaari Nani, meri yaar, meri Miss Universe, meri sab kuch, I am rooming with you till didi gets married. Theek hai?

Nani: theek hai. I have no problem.

Anika: you sure Nani? I think you will regret it.

Nani: you just focus on your wedding. Chalo Gauri, you take your suitcase upstairs and help me with folding the clothes on my bed

Gauri gave a forced smile this time as she got up with her Nani. She hated folding clothes but the moment she came upstairs to her Nani's room, she saw that there were no clothes to fold.

Nani: needed to give an excuse for you staying upstairs for a long time.

Gauri: thank you for saving me from this wedding talks. I did not want to hear 'Gauri when are you getting married'. I hear it enough on video call. I am only 18 Nani. Too young to marry. I have so many things to do before I marry like....travel the world, go sky diving, take a road trip, go to a music festival and maybe find motivation to actually exercise.

Nani laughed as she sat down on the bed and rested her body against the headboard. Gauri kept her suitcase to a side and sat on the bed, opposite her Nani.

Nani: so you never plan to kiss a boy or go on a blind date or at least fall in love?

Gauri: not really no.....

Nani: were there any cute boys in your boarding school?

Gauri: not really. They were all jerks, engaging in toxic masculinity. Besides I was only there for studies and friends and to be 10000000 miles away from my sports-crazy papa and kanjar didi.

Nani laughed again before saying: you know you might meet someone special at your sister's mehndi.

Gauri: what? No chance!

Nani: the most beautiful first meeting is during a shaadi. I met your Nanu that way. It was my best friend's wedding and when I attended, I was like you...in no mood to fall in love. I was so bored at the wedding because my best friend was more focused on her husband than her amazing best friend. I was going to get a cold drink and then the net of my dupatta stuck in a guy's kurta sleeve. Your Nanu's kurta sleeve. Haaye....I still blush thinking about that day.

Gauri only smiled. She pulled her Nani's cheeks lightly before keeping her head on her lap.

Gauri: that was those days, Nani.

Nani: are you trying to say that I'm old?

Gauri: of course not my Miss Universe. I am just saying that, back when you were my age, everything felt like a Bollywood movie. Everything was just slow motion and magical and romantic. Today, nothing feels romantic. Nothing had a romantic vibe to it anymore.

Nani: you will one day think that there is a romantic vibe in life. You just haven't met the person yet. Once you meet the person, then you'll know love.

Gauri: the person I want to meet is someone who doesn't do reels on the road because they are jobless. Someone who is humble and kind. Someone who can at least say some shayari or a romantic 90s movie dialogue. Someone who doesn't play with a girl's heart and is a Salman Khan fan.

Nani: not everyone can be a Salman Khan fan!

Gauri: you're only saying that because you love Shahrukh Khan.

Nani: if I never met your Nanu and SRK was single, then I would happily marry SRK.

Gauri: he is like 10 years younger than you.

Nani: as if your Salman Khan is near your age.

She said lightly slapping her granddaughter's cheek. Gauri laughed. She missed her Nani so much when she was completing her early and high school studies in Australia.

Nani: if you don't meet your soulmate in one of Anika's wedding functions in a romantic way, my name won't be Gauhar Tridevi anymore.

Gauri sighed. Her Nani was a hopeless romance. She constantly kept telling Gauri that she would meet her love one day in a 90s Bollywood style. But....those types of first meetings only existed in a Bollywood movie.

Sometimes she wondered if her Nani knew the difference between reality and make-believe.

...

Anika: aaye haaye....mera dayaan behen looks so pretty in the outfit picked out for her.

She said as Gauri entered the mehndi venue, dressed in a lime green anarkali with all over floral printed motifs paired with dupatta.

Gauri: aaye haaye, mera chudail didi is looking like a chudail as usual.

Anika: kya yaar? I compliment you and you insult me? Australia has made you meaner.

Gauri rolled her eyes as she side-hugged her sister before Anika was made to sit down on the velvet seat. She got surrounded by mehndi artists and was being shown mehndi designs. As Anika was getting her mehndi down, the other ladies also started to get theirs then.

Gauri just looked around the venue, trying to come up with an escape plan since she was getting bored with the mehndi ceremony already. Everyone was so busy getting their mehndi done, and her Nani was also getting her mehndi done. So she had no one to chit chat with.

Richa: oh Gauri, sit down here!

Gauri nodded as she sat next to Richa.

Richa: let me do your mehndi.

Gauri: no!

Richa: kyu?

Gauri: I only had mehndi done once when I was little.

Richa: twice before you and your brain decided to go live with your Mami in Australia. Now hand out, let's see how much your future soulmate loves you.

Gauri: wait what?

Richa: the darker the mehndi, the deeper your soulmate's love is for you.

Gauri: you sound like my Nani.

Richa: shut up and keep your hand out. I know you just came back from the land with kangaroos and koala bears, but get into the wedding spirit.

Gauri: I can't wait to sleep tonight. Also I highly doubt my soulmate loves me. The times I had mehndi on, it was very light.

She kept her hand out as Richa shook her head, laughing and started to draw a design on her hand.

The two girls were talking as Richa finished off decorating both of Gauri's hands.

Richa: there! I am so proud of myself.

Gauri: so full of yourself aren't you?

Richa: you know me so well.

Gauri: I will admit just this once....you did a good job.

Richa: I know.

She said flicking her hair. Gauri smiled and then Anika came to sat next to her little sister.

Gauri: hey chudail.

Anika: hi dayaan.

Gauri: let's see where Jiju's name is.

Anika: where the least detailed flower is...see the 's'?

Gauri nodded and said with a cheeky smile: I'm gonna tell jiju.

Anika: tell him and I will kill you.

Gauri: why are you going to make him suffer to find his name?

Anika: because it's fun seeing your hone wala pati trying to find his name in your mehndi.

Gauri: bechara jiju.

Gauri and Anika laughed at each other. Since Gauri only asked for a small design on her hands and a little on her wrist, her mehndi was starting to dry a bit....however some of the mehndi was wet. One of her and Anika's cousins, Sahil, came up to his cousin sisters and pulled Gauri's hair lightly.

Gauri: Sahil!

Sahil: welcome back to India Gauri didi.

Gauri: Accha? That's your way of welcoming me back? Sahil ki bacchi, I will....

Anika: Gauri, don't kill our only brother.

Gauri didn't listen as she got up and chased her younger brother around. Sahil was laughing as he ran, knowing his sister would be out of breath in seconds.

Gauri was feeling a little bit breathless, chasing her brother around but she wasn't going to be at rest till she taught Sahil a lesson for pulling her hair.

As she tried to find her brother, who suddenly disappeared, she suddenly slipped. She tightly shut her eyes as she fell, but she didn't feel the ground underneath her. She felt her hands tightly clutching someone else's hands.

How come she was clutching someone's hands and how was she not on the ground? Who decided to save her from getting back pain?

She fluttered her eyes open and saw a well-built man dressed in a white kurta with a gold chain around his neck. His hair was black. Black like the starless midnight sky. And his hair reached up to his shoulders. His eyes were also black and they had her weak for a moment.

Man: are you okay?

He asked, helping her up and she was back on her own two feet once again. Her eyes left his black orbs for a minute as they trailed to the sleeve of his snow white kurta.

Gauri: oh my god your kurta!

Man: a thank you or an answer to my question would have been nice but...

Gauri interrupting: your kurta sleeve has a stain on it. Oh god, it's my mehndi stain...I am so sorry. Just stay here for a minute.

The man was about to speak but Gauri went to the room where all the refreshments were. She picked up a glass of water and a napkin. She went back to the man and went with him to the venue hallway. She pulled him to the corner at the far end of the hallway so no one would see them.

Gauri: sit down.

Man: you don't have to clean the stain.

Gauri: you're wearing an Anita Dongre kurta. They are expensive! Now sit down.

The man chuckled, sitting down and he said to her: how did you know that it's an Anita Dongre kurta?

Gauri: I'm a shopaholic and a window shopper.

She said, sitting down herself and dipped the tip of the napkin into the glass of water before applying it onto the kurta stain. The man only smiled as he watched Gauri attempting to wipe the stain off his kurta. Since he was bored sitting down, for entertainment, he watched her make different facial expressions during the stain-wiping process.

Gauri sighed as she kept the napkin off the kurta. The stain, now light-coloured, was still on the kurta, refusing to disappear. She sighed again and her foot accidently kicked the glass of water she kept down. She sighed one more time.

Man: sigh 3.

Gauri rolled her eyes at him as she fake cried.

Gauri: today is not my day. I come home from boarding school, I get dragged into this mehndi ceremony, I stained your kurta and I spilled water.

Man: relax yaar. Bade bade deshon mein aaisi choti choti baatein hoti rehti hai.

He said, perfectly imitating Shahrukh Khan in an attempt to cheer Gauri up and put a smile on her face. Gauri sighed once again.

Man: sigh 4.

Gauri: you're a SRK fan?

Man: been one since I was born.

Gauri: droolworthy looks, gorgeous eyes, nice...I thought you were a great guy until you said you were a SRK fan.

Man: let me guess, you are a Salman Khan fan?

Gauri: since I was in the womb.

Man: and here I was thinking that you were a great girl till now.

Gauri: how rude!

Man: you were rude first.

Gauri laughed as she looked down with a slight blush. He smiled back at her. When she looked a little bit up, she noticed his beautiful black eyes looking at her.

Gauri: Gauri.

Man: Om.

They smiled at each other as they both got up.

Gauri: the water...

Om: don't worry about it. Here, give me this napkin. I'll wipe it. You go back to the mehndi venue.

Gauri nodded as he took the napkin from her and she was hesitant to leave at first but then she got a phone call from her Nani.

Gauri: we're in the same venue.

Nani: and yet you disappeared! Come back from wherever you are hiding at!

Gauri: okay Nani.

She sighed, cutting the call and started walking.

Om: sigh 5.

Gauri: shut up!

Om laughed as she went to where everyone else was at and sat next to her Nani.

Nani: how did this flower get smudged?

She asked, looking at her granddaughter's mehndi.

Gauri: I'll tell you later on.

Nani: waise where were you?

Gauri: washroom.

She said that as it was the first thing that came up in her mind.

Nani: could have washed your mehndi there.

Gauri: it didn't occur to me at the time because I was too busy....being antisocial.

Nani: I'll remove it.

Gauri nodded. Nani got a bowl of water and began to remove the dried mehndi. As she removed the mehndi from Gauri's hands, her hazel eyes wandered off to the mehndi venue entrance where she saw Om enter.

Those gorgeous black eyes of his found her in a room filled with people and he smiled at her. She smiled back at him before looking down at her mehndi.

Nani: wow the colour!

Gauri had mehndi done once or twice growing up and the colour was often light because she didn't have the patience to wait for the mehndi to dry. But the colour of her mehndi today was the reddest it has ever been.

Nani: you found your soulmate!

Gauri: yeah right!

Maybe she did.

After sleeping and being heartbroken and confused for the last couple of days, Lavanya's mood swings and hurt self is finally sorted out and she will be releasing results soon and more updates. This OS is based on a writing prompt I saw on TikTok and I know it isn't that interesting or great but I was bored.

Also rest is up to imagination.

Also....anyone else wants rikara heartbreak OSes or no?