"I know, Sir, I'm not the man who your daughter is in love with. But I assure you that after my marriage to her, I'll take care of her in the same manner her fiancé would've had he been alive. I'll keep her happy. I know you and Mrs. Kapoor, both love your daughter a lot and I promise I'll never let you both regret your decision of marrying her to me."

These were the words her husband had spoken to her parents, the day she had relented for the marriage. She couldn't understand what, but there was something in his voice that had made her feel her decision of marrying him was right. Though, in this moment, she wished she hadn't because-

"-Sidharth, this is the last time I'm telling you to get away from the mirror. I need to get ready, otherwise I'll be late, again!" she flared her nostrils, her hands on her hips. It was already half past seven in morning and she had to reach her college before nine. Having earned her Doctorate in English Literature few months back, she was now an Associate Professor in one of the elitist colleges of the nation, St. Mary's College.

But it didn't have any effect on her self-obsessed husband, who continued fixing his cufflinks, all the while standing infront of the mirror. It annoyed her. For the past fifteen minutes she had been telling him to give her some space to stand in front of the mirror, she had to make her hair. But it fell on deaf years, and her patience reached its limit.

"Chillax, wifey, I can hear you," responded her husband, at last, "but I think you're blind because can't you see I'm try to fix my cufflinks?"

"Sidharth-"

"Oh, yes, you are. I forgot that your glasses are yet to come. Sorry, Ms. Antique," he smirked, turning to the mirror again.

Khushali grimaced. In last two months of marriage, one of the things that her husband had learnt about her (and found peculiar too), was her infamous habit of losing her glasses quite often. And this certainly-when she lost her two pair of glasses within the first month of marriage-amused her husband, to such extent that he reminded her of her carelessness every time she called him lazy.

But it didn't mean she'd always let him get away without listening to her on point comeback.

"For your kind information, Mr. Mehra, I'm not longer a Miss, I'm a Missus, Missus Mehra, though I prefer Dr. Khushali Kapoor Mehra. So this means, if you imply me to be antique, then you're antique too. Oh, poor you!" she slyly grinned, before turning toward the mirror to smoothen her peach coloured cotton shirt, which she had paired with faded blue denim jeans. Though, her red and white chooda and her mangalsutra, along with the vermilion that she had applied on her hair partition, gave her the newly bride look, and complemented her too.

"Huh!" he gasped, "that's mean." He moved toward her, but she didn't pay attention to him and simply walked toward the mirror. She tied her hair quickly into a messy braid, while Sidharth continued to huff, much to her amusement.

"Hubby, are you gonna spend your entire day standing here? I won't mind, though just do the laundry as well. Our maid hasn't turned up today, once again," said Khushali, picking up her handbag and her notebook which had the notes she had prepared the previous night for her lectures.

Moving out of their bedroom, in a very nonchalant manner, she spared one look at her husband and giggled seeing his frowning at her with a grumpy look. Not that only he had the right to tease her and get away with it as well.

"Aww, hubby, you look so cute with that frown. Do try this expression very often, I'm sure your clients would love to meet Mister Sidharth 'Grumpy' Mehra," she smiled at him, which only made him scowl at her. But she shrugged her shoulders and added, "Anyway, you continue your frown game, I'm off for breakfast. See you in the evening, and please do the laundry if you're intending to really stay home today. Bye, hubby."

With this, she waved him bye and turned on her heels to walk to the dining area where the rest of their family members had already must gathered.

She smiled, as the rest of their family members had already taken their seats and were waiting for her and her husband to join them for the breakfast.

"Good morning," wished Khushali, settling on the empty chair beside her elder sister and the eldest daughter-in-law of Mehra's, Meher.

"Good morning, Maasi," chirped Meher's six-year-old daughter, Amaira, who was sitting beside her father and grandmother, just opposite to Khushali.

"Good morning, Baby Amy," cooed Khushali, wishing her back. Her niece passed her a gleeful smile and resumed eating her cheese sandwich. Khushali, too, served breakfast for her and poured herself a cup of tea. Just when she put the kettle back, her husband came and sat on the chair next to her.

"You came, finally. I thought you seriously you were planning to begin a hunge-strike in protest of doing laundry," Khushali whispered to him, only to get a sarcastic smile in return from Sidharth.

"Now, I understand why there are several 'patni pidit pati' groups existent in our society. Earlier I used to think it was stupid, but only after marriage you come to realise how angelic these groups are who protests against the tortures wives mercilessly inflict on their poor husbands," replied Sidharth, his voice only audible to Khushali and himself.

"Planning to join one, then?" quizzed Khushali, though her tone was of sheer mock. Probably, today was one of those days when she had an upperhand in teasing her darling husband Sidharth. Otherwise, it was usually him who would pull her leg until she was completely miffed.

"Certainly, if you continue to be this inhumanly barbaric to this poor soul known as your legally wedded husband," Sidharth muttered, taking a bite of the toast he had just spread butter on.

"Aww, really?" she raised her eyebrows, adding, "Then, I think you should embark on searching some really good tormented husband organisations, it'll save your time later."

"Yea-"

"What are you two lovebirds discussing, or should say romancing about?" chortled Sidharth's elder brother and Meher's husband, Aditya, with his poor humour skills on show. Though, he never accepted this fact.

"Haha, very funny, Bhai," grimaced Sidharth, though Khushali tried to hide her smile. It was true, her brother-in-law really lacked on sense of humour, but she always found his jokes funny. Probably, that's why they used to always gang up against her sister, before Khushali's marriage to Sidharth. Now, Sidharth and Meher gang up against these two, not that Khushali and Aditya ever allowed them to overtake their game.

"Adi, you still gotta work hard on your sense of humour. It doesn't make anyone laugh except Khush, obviously," prompted Meher, keeping her reading glasses down. A businesswomen by profession-who had been handling her father's textile business singlehandedly for years-she was just an exact opposite of Khushali. Although, at times, she seemed more of a kid than Khushali and her own daughter Amaira.

"I agree with her, your sense of humour is just as stale as your father's. Sometimes, I do wonder whether you have even got a single gene of mine or rather all of your father's genes has have taken the dominance," said Khushali's mother-in-law Aarti, in a very sassy manner.
Though, patriarchy has always been common in India, in the Mehra household, Aarti was the matriarch with absolute control over everything related to the family and home. But her love for literature and her true feminist instints, made her and her daughters-in-law get along like a house on fire.

"Well, I do have a sense of humour, only you never appreciate it, my dear wife. And your sons' are dumb, not that it's my fault because they literally missed out on all the lessons I have imparted to my daughter dearest, who's not only smart but is an intellect too, unlike your sons'," said Khushali's father-in-law Shravan very calmly.
Never interested in the patriarchal system of the society, he was a prominent lawyer of his time, who finally retired from his profession to enjoy grandparenthood after Amaira's birth.

Aarti grimaced, appearing to think of a decent comeback as Khushali assumed. Initially, she was a bit startled to see how cool everyone was in the Mehra house, which she hadn't seen in her deceased fiancè Sagar's family. Yet, she was happy to be part of this sarcastically classy family, which only had the best intellects and philosophical minds.

"Before an argument breaks out here, let's finish our breakfast, otherwise my wifey would give me an earful during our drive to her college," intervened Sidharth, before his mother could say a word. Khushali suppressed her chuckle.

"Smarty Sissy, I mean Siddy," chortled Aditya, before laughing loudly, with everyone-except Sidharth-joining him soon after.

The rest of breakfast time was spent in pulling each other's leg and having a good laugh over it.
Once the breakfast was over, the two young couples left for their respective offices while Amaira stayed back home with her grandparents, as she had an off today at school.

With Khushali on the driver seat and Sidharth riding the passenger seat, they started for their workplace. Though, Khushali had brought along her own car-that she bought for herself before marriage-with herself after marriage, she and Sidharth, both preferred travelling in one car only. Perhaps, because it gave them few moments of privacy where they could only be just themselves and not each other's spouses. But it had its own pros and cons, with Khushali despising the cons on every single day.

"Wifey, are you planning to get us killed?" questioned Sidharth sarcastically, as his wife just crossed the limit of 40 km per hour. "Just tell me beforehand, so that I can make myself presentable for the newspaper feature."

"What? No!" replied Khushali, bemused. She seemed a little shaken, driving wasn't her forte but she couldn't let the feminist her accept that she wasn't a good driver, not after her husband's sexist (or rather sarcastic) remark that women can't drive as proficiently as men.

"Then drive a little fast, or else your young students won't get to attend their lecture on Mahabharata. And I'll be late for my meeting with your college principal," muttered Sidharth, though his attention was more on his white shirt which had few creases.

He takes time to get ready, then blames me for getting late, Khushali shook her head. Then, from the corner of her eyes, she saw Sidharth smoothing the creases of his shirt and wondered, Can he ever, himself, differentiate between his uncountable and undifferentiable white shirts? Why's he so obsessed with this colour?

It was no secret that Sidharth loved white, just as much as Sagar loved red. And every time she thought of this, a twitching pain hit her heart, which always tried to numb, an old habit of hers. She still couldn't forget Sagar, her memories with him haunted her often. There was an itch in her heart to visualise how her life would've been had Sagar been still alive. Yet, a part in her made her feel blessed about her new family which was far more accepting than she had ever envisioned.

"You're free at 2?" asked Sidharth, as he and Khushali both walked toward the college building from the car parking space. Sidharth was here to meet the Principal of the College, Mr. M.K. Pathak, and the HOD of law department of St. Mary's. The college authorities wished to conduct an interactive session for all the law undergrads with Sidharth. He quite had a name in the city as one of the best taxation lawyers, working along with his elder brother in the law firm which was founded by Sidharth's grandfather almost forty years back.

"Yes, I don't have any lectures after 1," answered Khushali, leading him toward the Principal's office.

"Cool, I'll pick you up at half past one. It's been days since we went on a lunch date," said Sidharth. "I'll make reservations for us in this new restaurant in Connaught Place. I'm sure you'll like their food since they specialise in North Indian cuisines."

"Yes, I will," smiled Khushali. Then gesturing toward the Principal's office, she added, "Have a great meeting, and I'll meet you at lunch."

Sidharth grinned in response, and she left for her lecture. Since she had only three lectures, she waited for Sidharth to turn up for the lunch, which he did in few minutes. A smile plastered on her face, she walked toward the main entrance of the college and found Sidharth's car parked infront of the college.

Just as she approached the car, her smile faded a little. Sidharth was again busy on a call, not that it was unusual. He received a hundred calls a day, but what vexed Khushali was one particular call, on attending which Sidharth always had an indifferent look on his face. He seemed so secretive about the call, that sometimes Khushali wondered whether he was hiding something from her, something crucial.

Is there something that he doesn't want me to know, or maybe he just don't trust me enough.... she wondered. Though, before she could ponder more on this thought, Sidharth saw her and gestured her to settle in the car.

She nodded and shaking her head, she smiled sheepishly, unaware of the glance Sidharth passed to her, which neither seemed of love, nor of hate. It altogether had a different meaning, but Khushali couldn't notice it. Nor did she wish to; oblivion had ever been bliss for her.