SAAR JHUKHI THI USKI
AUR HOUTH THE SILLE
KYUKI UNKE AANKHO MEI HUM     KAAFIRO KO BHI KHUDHA MILLE       

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She knew this feeling.

She knew this feeling very, very well.

It was like an itchy sensation in her ears. 

Before you ask, no, she didn't have an untreated ear infection. 

It was a feeling!

It was the same feeling of foreboding she had when her grandfather bought her the lime crystal Barbie shoes instead of the pink crystal Barbie shoes she had originally wanted.

It was the same ominous feeling she had, just before her grandfather had gotten her admitted to Economics when all she wanted was to study literature.

And it was most definitely the same feeling of menacing anxiety she had felt the day before her grandfather had announced that it was about time she stopped freeloading off of him, instead latched herself to a man like some sort of parasite.

A beautiful parasite, but a parasite nonetheless.

Well, it probably will be more like a symbiotic relationship where he - whoever he was- will always have his face covered by a newspaper and will answer every question in monosyllables, and she, being little old her- will just have to pop out one child per year and make sure none of them die of some sort of water-born disease like the olden days.

Marriage wasn't anything like those romance books and movies portrayed it to be, no sir!

The pulsing sexual attraction, the sappy dialogues, the tearful confessions, the hidden blushes, and shy flirting- all of them were a product of the imagination of some poor single soul who had never witnessed an actual marriage, well- at least marriages in her family.

Naaz, as a child had admired all things romance and love. She, as a teenager, was in love with all the Mr. Darcys and Mr. Knightleys in her fantasy, unaware of the fact that the real world only had Mr. Collins and Mr. Wickhams to offer.

After her careful observation of live subjects, mainly consisting of her uncles and aunts, she concluded that she was perhaps hoping for too much.

In their family, marriage was something one just did. Most of the time, it was just a business deal disguised as an arranged marriage. It was not really necessary for one to love their partner.

Heck, it's not even necessary to like them, they just have to be tolerable enough to make physical relations with so that they can produce another generation of heirs to inherit the wealth, then they will grow up and have arranged marriages too and slowly their spawns would take over the world.

The whole thing was a complicated layered conspiracy.

Naaz looked around the large marvel dining table again to analyze the subjects of her hypothesis- the married couples. The only common factor among them was all of them were stuffing their mouths with hot parathas.

Subject one- Her eldest uncle, Malik Sahzaad, was as usual absorbing every word in the newspaper through osmosis .

His wife, Aunt Zainab, was busy making sure all the children were eating enough by giving them five extra parathas just in case the previous three weren't enough. Her smile was almost as sweet as the suspicious red juice she kept filling everyone's glasses with.

Was it red wine? Was it cranberry juice? Or was it the blood of her enemies at the weekly ladies' gossip session?

Now that's a mystery only Mr. Holmes can solve.

Subject two- Her second uncle, Malik Sarfaraz, was eyeing some official documents as if they had personally offended him and Aunt Maryam glared at him as if by looking at the papers instead of her, he had, in turn, greatly offended her.

Naaz can almost hear Elton John sing "The Circle Of Life" in the background.

Subject three- Her aunt Sehmaat whose only concern seemed to be making a good impression on her mother-in-law even after twenty-nine years of marriage as she was busy praising the same parathas they had every day as if somehow Gordon Ramsey was in their kitchen today.

Uncle Kaif, on his part, was marvelously maintaining his infamous poker face amidst the chaos.

Naaz had nothing short of respect for the man whose facial muscles seem to have been frozen due to lack of use.

Partially because he truly was a miracle of science and partially because she was cursed by the God of second-hand-embarrassment to laugh in inappropriate situations.

She had the unbeaten record of laughing at every local funeral ever.

She sighed as she saw the chances of her embarrassing herself skyrocket with the growing grin on her stupid cousin, Zunair's face.

Naaz cannot wait for the day this idiot gets married off as someone's Ghar-jamai which was highly likely given his utter incompetency in the family business.

By the pointed looks shared between Zunair and Adaab, Naaz could deduce who their target was. It was Aunt Sehmaat's mother-in-law and Zaki, Zunair and Adaab's paternal grandmother, the infamous Maleekah Begum.

Her father had named her Maleekah meaning Queen and she takes it very seriously.

If you do not know how rich Maleekah Begum was, don't worry, just wait and she will tell you.

Over her dead body would someone snatch away her chances of mentioning the number of gold sets she had in her safe!

Even now, she was waiting for the maid to pour her tea instead of just, you know, simply stretching her hand and lifting the teapot because, obviously, only peasants poured their tea.

She let out that annoying obnoxious laughter when she noticed no one was coming to serve her queenly self.

"Oh my! I usually only prefer the organic green tea my daughter sends for me but I guess I will have to make do with milk tea today."

The woman's voice was grating as ever with that overly generous laughter and a smile as fake as most of her stories. But her grandfather still nodded politely in return.

Malik Salauddin may not be in the top physical condition these days but he never failed to maintain his grace and dignity.

"You agree too, right, Malik Sahaab?" Her enthusiasm somehow increased tenfolds at the agreement and so did the volume of her voice. "Milk tea just doesn't suite my taste!"

That's when the dreaded whisper came from the moron called Zunair sitting next to me. "Bullshit! She's just lactose intolerant."

At his words, all the cousins sitting on this side of the table looked at him in amazement which only served as an encouragement for the twenty-five-year-old man-child next to her.

Zunair, please don't, I beg of you!

"You know what they say! Cow potion for loose motion!" His words came out to the tone of the famous washing powder advertisement jingle.

Allah, why was it that all of her cousins were able to stop themselves at a smirk or even just a smile after the joke but She, sweet little Naaz, started to wheeze like a heart patient having an asthma attack?

She tried to stop the laughter by slapping her hands onto her mouth which instead of helping the situation, only succeeded in knocking off the glass of juice in front of her onto the devil sitting next to her.

Today really wasn't my day.

His crisp white suit now had a big red stain right at the center. It looked like a used pad! 

The realization caused her to laugh even harder than before. It probably was not the best idea.

Damn it, I was too young to die!

Mirza Shehryar or Sherry, her grandfather's Chamcha, looked at her with those dark eyes as if she was singlehandedly responsible for the economic downfall of the country and he would very much love to recover the losses by selling her organs off to the black market.

"Sorry, Sherry bhai!" She somehow managed to say in between her bouts of laughter.

Stop laughing, you idiot!

His expression did not get any better at her apology. His face hardened, his jaws tightening, and nose flaring.

He looked ready to cut the organs out himself with the butter knife he was clutching in his hand. The innocent cutlery looked surprisingly threatening in his hands.

She could already see her uncle Shahzaad reading tomorrow's headline in her loving memory because he only ever reads the business section.

It would say "Knife that only cuts butter, now a horrifying people cutter- Mirza heir stabs young and beautiful Malik heiress!"

The newspaper absolutely needed to mention her being young and beautiful, it will guarantee her more sympathy.

Or maybe, he wouldn't need a weapon at all! He looked mad enough to use those evil telekinesis power Zunair was convinced he possessed.

Naaz and Zunair had a whole theory on how he had sold his soul and facial nerves to devil in exchange of them. He uses them on unsuspecting business partners and beautiful, young girls like her.

Just when she was sure no one would come to save her from Shehryar and his quickly formulating murder plans, her grandfather's aged voice reached her ears as a saving grace, cutting through the anticipating silence.

"Meet me in my office, Dilnaaz. I need to have some words with you, my child." Her grandfather stood up and left for his office followed by her uncles while the women went on about their day.

Shehryar, for his part, stood up and tried to clean up in vain with tissues and napkins. His perfect face was still set on an annoyed scowl.

She could hear the sighs from all around her, some in relief while some in disappointment, while she sat there frozen on her spot.

"Oh, someone's in trouble!" Zunair sounded a bit too excited at the prospect of her getting an earful from their grandfather.

So she made sure to put all her might into the smack she graciously delivered onto his welcoming back. "Ow! What was that for?"

For someone who claimed to be a manly man, he sure whined a whole lot!

'Shut up! This is all your fault! Khuda ne bandaaro waale shakal di hein tou kya aap harkaate bhi bandaro waale karenge?"

She made sure to shake him by the back of his collar for good measure.

"Behen, tunei Sherry bhai ke kafaan waale kaproon mei circus waale raang chadai tou isme meri kya ghalti hei?"

He tried to get out of her death grip by pulling her long hair. From her peripheral vision, she could see Rinni getting her phone out to record everything.

"Yeh saabkuch aapke uss waahiyaat joke ke waaje se howa hai, maanhoos insaan!" Her grip on his collar tightened and so did his pull on her hair. Her scalp felt numb. She really wanted to kill this idiot cousin of hers.

"Maanhooss? bade bhai ko maanhoos bolti hei? Bhai bol!" He looked around the table for support but only received continuous eye rolls and middle fingers. "Come on, guys, I am older than her!"

"Sirf umaar mein, warna akaal tou aapki bachpaan mei ghaas chadne gaayi thi abhi taaq nehi louti!" Adaab looked like she was having the time of her life watching her brother and Naaz wrestle to death.

"Bechaare ki akaal bhi itni bewakoof hai ki raaste mei kho gaayi." Zaki bhai, as usual, never missed a chance to make fun of his little brother.

He was helping out Shehryar by handing him tissues to clean off Naaz's crime scene.

Oops, completely forgot about him!

She still had a hard time understanding the friendship between the two.

Why would someone as sweet and gentle as Zaaki bhai be friends with Shehryar, who constantly looked like he was at someone's funeral?

"Ek ke khilaaf daas! Khuda puche ga aap zaalimo kou!" Zunair had somehow managed to free himself from her hold and sulked like the sore loser that he was.

"Aur kamini tou? Ja jaake dekh nanajaan ne tere liye konsa namuna chuna hei!" He pointed an angry finger at her.

"Namune tou aap hei, mere liye tou shehzada ayega!"

She actually wasn't sure but like hell, she was going to admit that in front of that idiot!

"Khud tou aukaat teri Pasha sahab ke bete Chintu taq hi hei aur sapne Shehzaado ki?"

Oh, she was going to commit a crime today!

"Tou apko konsa hoor pari milegi? Apke kismaat mei bhi Shagufta fuppo ki stalker beti hi likhi hei!" At that, Zunair's face paled.

Just when it looked like their altercation would turn physical again, a deep voice interrupted them.

"How old are you two?" Shehryar's voice came out in its usual anger filled tone before Zunair could pull her hair again.

"Would it kill you to behave yourself for once, Zunair?" Zunair stammered out a weak apology under the older man's burning glare.

"And you, Dilnaaz?" He changed the target of his venomous tongue to her next. She hated it when he called her full name like that!

"You are about to be married. Please act like a lady. A lady of the Malik family. At this rate, you will bring nothing but embarrassment to your Grandfather."

How fucking dare he?!

That was low blow. He hit her where it hurts the most.

Naaz fisted her hands to her side as anger pulsed through her veins. This man was extremely gifted at ticking her off with this words!

"He is my grandfather, not yours. Just because he treats you like one doesn't mean anything. So you do not need to worry about his reputation."

Someone needed to pull him down from the high pedestal he put himself on! Today Naaz was going to do just that!

"And I am a lady of the Malik. A Mirza-" She poked his chest harshly with her index finger, his breath hitched in rage at her insolence, "does not need to concern himself with me."

With nothing left to say, Naaz whirled around and stomped out of the dining room now filled with silent onlookers.

She knew she would have to apologize for her audacity as soon as words reached her grandfather. But until then, she could bask in her triumph over that emotionless robot.

Fazool insaan!

Mirza Shehryar was like Gabbar Singh,except instead of cutting off people's arms, he cuts off their business and instead of killing Jaya Bacchan's love interests, he just kills Naaz's joy and happiness.

She was sure that whenever happiness knocks at his door, he just looks at his expensive watch and asks it if it has scheduled an appointment beforehand in an overly formal pretentious voice.

She could vouch for the fact that as a child when he was gifted toys, he most definitely asked for their current resale value.

Ya khudaya, if that man was so eager to order around people, then why can't he do that in his own house?

Just because her grandfather considered him to be a part of their family doesn't mean he could act like her older brother! She wasn't even keen on calling him "Bhai"!

For the record, she had three older male cousins and that was more than enough, thank you very much!

As Naaz tried to calm herself on her way to her grandfather's office, she hoped that the foreboding feeling was simply because of that Soul-sucking demon and not because of her future groom, whoever that was.

And against her better judgement, she found herself holding onto the hope that whomever her grandfather had chosen for her, he would be someone she could fall in love with.
                                                       ♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡

So how was the first chapter? Did you like the chaotic mind of our heroin? 

Laughing at lame jokes is biggest weakness. My mom will send me the most outdated and cringiest Face Book joke and I will be dying of laughter for no reason. I think my sense of humor is broken....

Anyways, Please tell me your thoughts and do remember to vote if you like the chapter.