Chapter 47: As soon as they heard the news, every single one of Naina's friends called her to give her their support. Everyone had the same message, that she had done the right thing and that they were all there for her. Huda said that he would bet his favourite buffalo Rajesh that her parents would realise their mistake soon, Ali told her that Allah always helped true lovers and Yudi started on quite a long and rambling speech about how challenges only increased love, leaving Naina to wonder whether he was talking about her or himself.

Raj had been wondering how he would manage to make all the arrangements for the wedding in the one week that he had on leave. Even Alekh had decided that it was an enormous task and that it was going to be no less than any army operation to get it done. However it was Pooja that solved their problems.

Two days after Raj and Naina returned from Nainital, she called her parents and poured out the whole story to them. Both Mr and Mrs Ghai remembered Naina from the time she had stayed at their house, how sweet and polite she had been and how she had helped Pooja to break the news about Ali. Both of them also admired Major Rajveer, having met him at academy functions.

The very next day, Mr and Mrs Ghai turned up in Delhi without any warning, immediately taking over. Raj was quite overwhelmed, but also very grateful. They were such warm and loving parents, and he knew that their presence was bound to make Naina feel better.

"You don't worry, Putar." Pooja's mother told Naina, "You've done the right thing. Children shouldn't sacrifice their happiness for their parents' sakes, especially not when it's about love. And you've chosen such a fine young man to make your connection with! I couldn't approve more of your lifelong plan!"

"Of course," Pooja's father continued, "We're here to support you, Beti. You're like our second daughter, we know how much you've helped our Pooja while she was at the academy and now it's our turn to help you. Whatever you need, we'll do it."

Gratefully, Raj turned the arrangement of the entire marriage over to them, knowing that it would've been impossible for him to do it from Ladakh and that it was far too big a job for Naina to do by herself especially under the present circumstances.

He had the date set while he was in Delhi, calling a pandit to find the most auspicious date which was in a reasonable time frame. It honestly didn't matter to Raj when he and Naina got married, as long as it actually happened, but he wanted to go through all of the rituals for Naina's sake at least so that she wouldn't be missing out on anything. The pandit finally found a suitable date in five months time, which was luckily during Naina's college holidays and the marriage date was set. All of their friends immediately requested their leave, there was no way that anybody was going to miss out on this wedding. Alekh even threatened that he would go AWOL if his leave wasn't approved, and Yudi convinced him that he was sure there was no need of that.

Shalini was the one who spread the news at the academy. When he found out, Suriji immediately broke into a dance, and started singing. Then he declared that everybody could have some chai or coffee free on his behalf. Lolitaji was happy, but at the same time she was a bit concerned that something might have happened to break discipline while she was the girls' hostel warden. Shalini promised her that it wouldn't have been the case. Major Nair just scowled and said that he knew that something like that had been going on. But Shalini wasn't very surprised by his response.

The second year cadets who remembered both Naina and Raj from the year before, immediately decided to throw a party (although they never needed much of an excuse to throw one anyway). The first year cadets were confused about why everybody was making such a huge fuss since they had no idea who either Raj or Naina was, but went to the party anyway.

Shalini was most worried about telling BC, not sure how he would take the news. The last thing she wanted was for him to decide that he was angry with Raj for falling in love with one of his former students. However Brigadier Chandook didn't seem surprised at all when Shalini told him the news, in fact he even seemed quite happy. Seeing the shock on Shalini's face, he just chuckled.

"Doctor," he told her, "As long as there's no evidence that anything happened while he was posted at my academy, I'm not worried. I wish them both the very best."

Shalini sighed in relief, at least the hardest bit of her job was over. However as one of the chief barathis from Raj's side, she knew she would have many more tasks in the days to come. In fact he had already assigned her the task of helping Naina with the shopping for the wedding. Raj had warned her that 'helping' would probably mean convincing Naina to buy things while she tried to refuse.

Raj and Alekh reluctantly left Delhi later that week. Both of them were at least a bit happier now, as Naina seemed calmer and less upset about the situation.

She couldn't count the number of times she had tried calling her family or how many times they had hung up on her so far. All she knew was that she had to keep trying. She started writing them letters instead, hoping that at least they might look at them. However most of the time the letters were simply returned unopened.

Raj called her daily, sometimes more than once, checking that she was okay and that everything was going alright with the preparations. He had told both Pooja's parents and Shalini that money was no issue, Naina should have the best of everything.

Occasionally they would call him to check about details but mostly they were in complete control of the preparations. Pooja's parents kept travelling back and forth between Delhi and Jallander while Shalini occasionally came to visit from Ambala on the weekend.

It was when Raj received his share of the invitation cards that he started thinking about who he should actually give them to. Naina and he made a list of people while on the phone one night, most of whom were in the military. There were also some relatives on both of their sides that they thought would be safe to invite as well as Naina's school friends, most of whom she hadn't seen for years but who she still felt she should send cards to.

"What about your friends?" Naina had asked him, "Surely there's somebody else that you want there."

Raj thought about it, he had only really had two good friends in his academy days, and Navin's death had torn him and Abhimanyu apart due to the unspoken guilt that Raj had felt. Still, as Naina was suggesting it, Raj decided that it might be time to finally try and repair their friendship.

It took him awhile to track Abhimanyu down from the army directory, but when he did, he couldn't help smiling. He suddenly remembered of their academy days, pulling pranks along with Navin and he thought it was appropriate that another friend of Navin's would also be there to see them married.

Dialling the number, Raj waited until the phone was picked up and then asked for his call to be redirected to Abhi.

"Hello?" Came the reply on the other end.

"Still remember your old friend?" Raj asked him, "Or has it been so many years that you can't recognise my voice?"

"Raj!" Abhimanyu immediately replied, his voice happy, "I haven't heard from you in an age, how are you?"

"I'm fine," Raj told him, "And I was thinking exactly the same thing, we shouldn't have fallen out of touch."

"Well at least you've called, doost," Abhimanyu replied warmly, "Now tell me what's new with you."

"I need to get your address so that I can send you an invitation card." Raj told him, introducing the subject in a very round about way.

"Really? What for?" Abhimanyu sounded both interested and curious, "Don't tell me you're getting promoted to Colonel already? I haven't even caught up to you with as a Major yet." Raj laughed at that, Abhi had sent him a congratulations card when he was promoted, but his friend had always been competitive.

"No, no promotion." He reassured him, "It's an invitation to my wedding."

There was silence on the other end of the phone for a minute. "Wedding?" Abhimanyu finally asked, "Is this a joke?"

"No, I assure you, it is definitely not a joke. I'm getting married in five months, the cards have been printed and I want to send you one. I'd like you to be there."

"When did this happen?" Abhi asks him, sounding happy but very surprised, "Is it a love marriage or arranged? Where did the very shy Rajveer Singh Shekawat finally find a girl that he liked enough to marry?"

Raj laughs at this, remembering his academy days when he barely even spoke to girls.

"It's a love marriage, and how and when it happened is a very long and complicated story which will have to be told another day."

"Well the girl must be special if you're about to get married. Do I know her?"

"Sort of," Raj replied, wondering how Abhimanyu would take the news.

"Sort of?" Abhi asked him, "What does that mean? Shouldn't I either know her or not? What's her name?"

"Her name is Naina Singh Ahluwalia," Raj tells him quietly, almost able to hear Abhimanyu's mouth drop on the other end of the line as he puts two and two together and gets four. "Navin's sister."

"Alright, that's it." Abhimanyu tells him, "You have to explain to me how this happened, how did you two even meet, was it because of Navin's case?"

"No," Raj told him, "I was posted to Kanchanjunga Military Academy as a teacher and I met her there… she was my cadet."

"Wow, I can't believe this." Abhimanyu tells him, "I'm definitely going to have to get the details off you some time, but for now I'll give you my address and tell me the date right now so that I can request it off."

There was no way he was going to miss this wedding for the world.

**

Naina both longed for and dreaded the wedding, longed for it because finally she and Raj would be married, and dreaded it because in a way it was a type of deadline for her parents to have changed their minds. If they didn't give in before the wedding then that was it, she would've been married without her parents there and nothing could change it. But they still weren't returning her calls, and she never received any response to her letters, even when they weren't returned unopened. Naina's friends had tried calling her parents too, but as soon as Mr and Mrs Ahluwalia realised what it was about, they would hang up the phone.

But there was so much to do that it was easy for her friends to distract her from her sadness. Apart from her studies, which were growing more difficult by the day, there were many things that Naina had to do to prepare for the wedding.

Finally, three months before the wedding was due to happen, Shalini arrived for a week to help with shopping for the outfits. Raj had offered to let her stay in his apartment while she was there, but Shalini insisted on staying with the girls, having missed them a lot. They set up a spare bed for her in Naina's room.

That night at dinner, she announced a very important news to them. "You know Naina, you're so lucky to have found such a great guy." She told her, "And you've waited long enough to know that he really is the right one for you. I got married way too young and quickly, and you all know how that turned out."

All of them looked at Shalini sympathetically, if there was one thing that they wanted, it was to see her happy as well.

"You know ma'am, it's not too late to change your lifetime connection." Pooja told her, "These days people don't have to stick with their network if they're not getting a good deal from it."

"You're right, Pooja." Shalini told her, "And that's why I'm finally getting divorced, it's final now, the paperwork is all done and from next week onwards my marriage will be finished.

"That's excellent!" Neelu exclaimed without thinking, "That means that you're finally going to be my…" She was interrupted by a hard kick in the leg from Pooja, who could just tell that Neelu had been about to say something that she shouldn't, "Uh, going to be single again." Neelu finished a little lamely, glaring at Pooja as she rubbed her leg.

Shalini couldn't help blushing a little bit, guessing exactly what it was that Neelu had been about to say.

"Are you sure you're okay, Shalini?" Naina asked her, she had started calling her by her first name after graduation, knowing what a good friend Shalini had been to Raj through everything. "I know it's for the best, you deserve some happiness."

Shalini smiled, knowing that Naina didn't realise she was repeating Raj's words from all those months ago. "I'll be fine, Naina." She told her, "But I think that what I definitely need is a good deal of therapeutic shopping, so this week with you girls will be fantastic."

They were all on their mid semester breaks from college, which was why this week was perfect to get all the shopping done. As well as choosing outfits for themselves, they were also in charge of choosing something to wear for Raj and all of the boys as well. Overwhelmed with happiness, Raj had promised to pay for absolutely everybody's outfits, which Naina had tried to talk him out of.

Neelu had rolled her eyes, "Oh that's right, it's going to be your money soon so you don't want him spending it on us." She had joked.

At least it stopped Naina from protesting.

For the rest of the week they visited the best shops in Delhi, trying to find the perfect outfits for both Naina and Raj for the wedding. In the meantime they bought everybody else's clothes, and also many more outfits for Naina. All she had to do was even look at an outfit once for Shalini to buy it for her. In the end, Naina felt it was getting ridiculous and threatened to walk through shops with her eyes shut if she didn't stop it.

"Hey, this is all on Raj's orders." Shalini told her, "Don't you want to look beautiful while you're on your honeymoon? Oooo that reminds me, we should go lingerie shopping."

Naina just groaned, imagining what it was going to be like to go lingerie shopping with all three of them.

Two hours later they emerged from the shop with Naina looking very embarrassed but with still quite a few bags in her hands.

They still hadn't chosen her wedding outfit yet but had narrowed it down to three choices, she was determined to wear a very traditional red outfit so that was what they had been concentrating on. They would wait to buy Raj's outfit until hers was decided on, so that they could be certain that the two would match. In the meantime they had at least managed to buy her something to wear for the joint mehndi and sangeet ceremony.

Once they got home, they all dropped the bags and then collapsed on the couches. Naina looked especially tired but she was smiling, and Pooja and Neelu exchanged secret smiles about this. It took a lot to distract Naina from her sadness, but at least they had managed to do it for a little while.

Getting up reluctantly, Naina decided that they all needed some hot chai after their huge shopping trip. She had barely been gone for a minute when Shalini followed her in, exchanging curious looks, both Neelu and Pooja got up to also follow them. After all, Shalini hadn't told them not to.

Naina was just stirring the pot when Shalini walked up to her, "You know Naina, a lot of girls are very nervous when they get married," she told her in a very understanding voice, "So I just want you to know that if you have any questions about the wedding night then you can feel free to ask me, after all, I'm a doctor and I have been married myself."

Naina's mouth dropped open, and she dropped the spoon in shock, yelping as the hot milk splashed her where the spoon had hit it. Quickly she picked up the spoon again and tried to regain her composure.

"Uh…thank you very much Shalini, but I'll be fine, I mean, well, I mean that… it will be perfectly okay." Naina finished, having turned as red as a tomato.

"It's nothing to be embarrassed about, Naina!" Shalini told her, "It's just a normal part of life and if you would like any advice or information then I'm here for you."

Right then Naina remembered Raj's words that sometimes he thought it was Shalini's only mission in life to embarrass him, right now she thought that maybe Shalini had changed her mission to focus on Naina instead. It didn't help at all that both Pooja and Neelu stood in the doorway smirking.

"Don't worry ma'am, she'll be fine!" Pooja told Shalini brightly, "After all she's…" suddenly catching Neelu's glare, Pooja realised exactly what she had been about to say in front of their former teacher. "She's read a lot of romance novels!" Pooja finished, just hoping that she hadn't said anything too bad.

Shalini had a very suspicious look on her face, Naina decided that it was time to distract her from the situation.

"Chai is ready, everyone!" she announced way too brightly, "Let's go and drink it before it gets cold!"

**

The next day they finally found the perfect outfit for Naina, and soon afterwards bought one for Raj as well. It was soon afterwards that Shalini disappeared for an hour, arriving back home in a taxi with a bag in her hands.

"Where did you go?" Neelu asked her curiously, since she hadn't told them beforehand.

"Well Rajveer asked me to wait to do this until you'd chosen your outfit, just in case they didn't suit it and you needed new ones. But I think they'll be just perfect." Then she began to pull jewellery boxes out of her bag before opening them to display the contents.

There was some stunning gold jewellery inside, which was quite old fashioned in its design. Naina just stared at it, unable to believe how lovely it was.

"He didn't…." she began to say.

"Don't worry, he didn't have to buy it." Shalini told her, "This was his mother's jewellery. He wanted to give it to you while he was here but it didn't seem like the right time. So, although it's a little too late…" Saying this, she picked up a pair of bangles that were sitting on a handkerchief. "Here's the shagun officially, I hope that you'll accept them."

Naina looked completely and utterly overwhelmed and then she burst into tears.

"I really love him so much," she sobbed as they all tried to comfort him, "There was no way that I could live without him. You all understand, don't you? You know that I couldn't have ever left him even for their sake. You do understand, don't you?"

"Of course we understand, Naina." Pooja told her soothingly, "Your connection with Rajveer Sir is something that happens only once in a lifetime. Now dry your tears and let's put these bangles on you."

Finally getting a hold on her emotions, Naina allowed them to put the bangles on her hands.

"They really are beautiful," she told them, "And I think I'd better go and call Raj now to tell him that."

She went into the bedroom to use the phone and everybody found something else to do, wanting to leave the two lovers to talk in peace.

Raj picked up almost as soon as she had dialled, Naina wondered how he always knew it was her.

"Your mother's jewellery is beautiful," she told him softly, "Thank you."

"She would've been happy for it to go to you." Raj replied, "In fact I think she would've liked you very much."

"I wish your parents were still alive," Naina told him, "I wish we would've had the blessings of at least one set of elders at our wedding."

"Me too, Naina." Raj told her, "But think of it this way, we'll have BC and we'll have Suriji as well, even Colonel Shakti is going to come. I know they're not relatives but they're sort of like elders."

Naina smiled at this, while she had now accepted that her parents wouldn't be attending, they wouldn't have any lack of blessings when they began their new life together.

"I love you," Naina told him, "Everything we've been through, it's all worthwhile."

"I know," Raj told her, "I can't wait until we're married, I've been waiting for this day for a long time."

"Only three months to go now." Naina told him, "Then nobody will be able to separate us."

"You'd better believe it," Raj told her, "After our marriage I'm never going to stay without you for such a long time again."

Telling each other that they loved each other, they both hung up the phone with smiles on their faces.

The most important day of their lives was less than three months away.

Neither of them could wait.