Chapter 49:

The next day everybody had busied themselves with various last minute tasks for the wedding, as there were still a million things to do. Outfits had to be tried on and taken for last minute adjustments, decorations and food arrangements had to be double checked, guests had to be welcomed and looked after. Quite a few of their batchmates had arrived early for the wedding as they were also planning to attend the Sangeet and Mehndi ceremony the following night. Some of Naina's school friends had also decided to attend, so she had to make sure they were well looked after and comfortable. In the end it was a very busy day, and the friends hardly had any time to spend together at all, although they made sure that they met up for lunch in order to compare notes on their progress.

Finally everybody was done for the day and all of the guys had arrived back at Raj's house, and were waiting for the girls to arrive.

"You know now that Alekhbhai is engaged, there's more pressure on you two." Ali joked to Huda and Yudi, "You're falling behind us, you had both better find yourselves somebody to get married to soon."

"What can we do about it?" Yudi joked back, "It seems like your room at the academy must have been the lucky one, since both of you room mates are now engaged. Maybe Huda and I are doomed to stay bachelors."

"Oh I wouldn't bet on that, Yudi." Huda replied confidently. "Huda can find a janani to marry whenever he wants, he just isn't ready yet. And when there's so many beautiful girls out there waiting for Huda's attention… then wouldn't it be a crime for him to choose only one."

Yudi groaned at this, Huda would always remain Huda.

"Then I'll make a bet of my own," Alekh said, "Yudi will definitely be the next one after us to get married. I bet you 1000 rupees, Huda."

"No way," Huda replied, "Huda doesn't make bets that he knows he's going to lose."

"Hey!" Yudi said indignantly, "Why are you all so sure that I'm going to get married first? Hasn't Huda always been the one with all the luck with the girls, none ever even wanted to look at me."

"Yudibhai, you don't need many girls to want to look at you, it only takes one." Ali explained patiently.

"Which you already have." Alekh announced casually, "So stop pretending that you don't."

"I have no idea whatsoever what you're talking about." Yudi announced airily, even as they could see his face turning slightly red.

"Then tell us with a straight face that there's nothing going on between you and Shalini." Huda replied, crossing his arms over his chest, almost as a challenge to Yudi.

"I'll tell you that… that's none of your business." Yudi replied, but they could tell by the smile on his face that he wasn't really offended.

"Tere to…" And Huda began to chase him around the living room, just as Raj opened the door to the apartment accompanied by all the girls, who he had gone to pick up.

Huda and Yudi both froze exactly on the spot, realising that they'd been chasing each other around Raj's living room rather than around their room at the boys' hostel, all they could think was that thank goodness they hadn't broken anything.

"Ahhh, are we disturbing something?" Raj asked them, "Because you know we can go out again and come back later?"

"No Sir, not at all!" Yudi replied very quickly, "We were just uh…"

"We were just having a bet about whether Yudi or I would get married first!" Huda announced with a sneaky look at Yudi, knowing that it would embarrass him.

"Oh it'll be bro, without a doubt." Neelu replied, "He's far more willing to settle down than you are." Saying this, she sent a rather significant look in Shalini's direction, who was trying very hard not to look at anybody at all.

Raj just grinned, it was good to have Shalini be the one who was embarrassed for once.

Revenge was sweet.

**

The next day proved to be just as busy as the one before, so Raj and Naina were not able to get any time actually meet at all before the evening. Raj was busy greeting guests who had just arrived and looking after them, while Naina also had a thousand last minute preparations.

It was five pm and Raj was already getting impatient to see her, knowing that she wouldn't arrive for at least another half an hour. He was just checking his watch for about the hundredth time when somebody grabbed him in a huge bear hug from the back.

"Who's…"

Raj turned around to see that it was Suriji who had hugged him, dressed up formally and with Lolitaji by his side wearing a Bengali style sari.

"It's so fantastic to see you two, thank you for coming!" Raj told them, and then shook Lolita's hand and hugged Suriji again, smiling as he remembered Shalini's advice all those months ago about 'no hugging Suriji'. Well, since he and Naina were about to get officially married, he didn't see any harm in it too.

"Congratulations Putar, Kitni sohni jodi hai." Suriji told him proudly, "We wouldn't have missed it for anything. When's our Naina due to arrive?"

"There's still around half an hour to go," Raj told him, "And I hear that we'll have to be offering you two congratulations soon as well. When's the wedding?"

"It will be in two months." Suriji told him happily, as Lolitaji looked a little shy, "It would've been sooner but our families couldn't decide whether the marriage should be by Punjabi or Bengali customs."

"Well I hope that we'll all be getting an invitation, Sir." Huda told him, choosing that moment to join them. "After all, us former cadets were all cheering on your romance during our academy days."

"Definitely, Putar." Suriji promised him, "I hope that you'll all be able to make it. Now," and he went to pull Huda aside, "What are the arrangements for tonight, I hope that it's going to be a dhoom dhaam celebration."

Raj smiled as they all walked over together, and Alekh came over, pulling uncomfortably at the kurta pajama he was wearing. He still hadn't gotten used to wearing formal clothes.

"Everything alright, Sir?" Alekh asked him, "Don't worry, only half an hour until they get here."

"And I can't wait for it," Raj told him, "Even you must be eager to see Neelu, right?"

"Of course, Sir, after all now I'm a…" Alekh thought about the words for a moment, "Committed man."

By the smile on his face, Raj could tell that Alekh had never been happier in his entire life. Raj thought it was probably a combination of seeing Naina so happy and being about to settle down himself.

It was then that Ali came up to them, holding a mobile phone which Raj was guessing had probably been a present from Pooja.

"They're on their way," he informed them, "They'll be here in about fifteen minutes."

Raj thought that those were probably going to be the longest fifteen minutes of his entire life.

**

The moment that Naina walked in with her friends, the whole room turned to look at her.

She was absolutely glowing with happiness, and it was easy to see. They had barely gotten five steps before Pooja stopped her.

"What is it, Pooja?" Naina asked confused, and very eager to go forward to where she could see Raj waiting.

"There's just something that I have to do," Pooja told her, and then without warning she made the sign to avert the evil eye from Naina and then using her eyeliner, applied a tiny black dot to Naina's cheek. Naina just blushed, as Neelu grinned.

"Now you're ready," Pooja told her, and allowed Naina to walk forward to where Raj was waiting for her.

"Have I ever told you that…"

"This would be the fourth time." Naina said with a grin, knowing exactly what it was that he wanted to say. Raj grinned back at her, and then taking both of her hands in his, he raised them to his lips and kissed them.

Naina tried not to blush, as the room erupted in cheers and whistles, especially from her former batchmates.

They soon sat down on the couch and the chief mehndi artist arrived to begin Naina's hands and feet, since hers was going to be the longest process. In the meantime, friends and colleagues kept coming up to congratulate them all. There was a live band, so some of the crowd had started dancing, while others were happy to just stand around and talk.

Abhimanyu came up to greet them, and enthusiastically hugged Raj.

"Raj you are truly the best! You know, I thought you might not invite Nandini because of everything that happened in the past, but she's actually here! I can't wait to go and catch up, this is the best opportunity to… well…" and then suddenly he caught Naina staring at them both and realised he might have said too much, so he left rather abruptly.

"Who's this Nandini?" Naina asked Raj.

He was rather uncomfortable answering but decided that it was best to be honest. "She was our batchmate." He told her, "And both Abhi and I liked her, I think she liked Abhi rather more than me, but nothing ended up happening between them."

"So should I be jealous?" Naina asked him, only half joking, "Were you serious about her?"

"Not at all," Raj reassured her, "I can realise that now when I know what real love is, and believe me Naina, I'm not even interested in looking at any girls other than you."

Naina practically melted at his words and she would've hugged him right then if she hadn't had mehndi all over her hands already. She settled for leaning her head on his shoulder instead.

Suddenly Naina noticed that she hadn't seen any of her friends for the last few minutes, and that they all seemed to have mysteriously disappeared. She was just wondering where they had gotten to when suddenly a spotlight appeared on the stage, and she saw a familiar figure holding a microphone.

"Listen up, khotiye," Suriji announced, "We're here for a special reason tonight and that's to celebrate the mehndi and sangeet function of Major Rajveer and Lieutenant Naina, as well as attend their wedding tomorrow." This was met with huge cheers from absolutely everybody in the room. "So we're going to make sure tonight's celebration is truly the best, and for that we've got some help from KMA's batch of 2008!"

Naina immediately realised exactly where it was that all of her friends had disappeared to.

The lights went dark and then suddenly the stage was lit up by a spotlight as Alekh, Huda, Ali and Yudi appeared along with Pooja and Yudi. Naina glanced over at Raj but he looked just as clueless as she did, so it was obvious that they had all planned this secretly by themselves.

The music started up and they started performing to the title song of 'Salaam E Ishq', as there were once again huge cheers and whistles from everybody in the audience. Naina had to admit that it was quite a good performance, there weren't any major mistakes and they all seemed to know the steps fairly well. She honestly wished that she could clap along with everybody else, but once again the mehndi on her hands stopped her. When their performance was over, Naina was the one cheering loudest of all, while Raj was clapping very enthusiastically.

As they came over to sit with Raj and Naina afterwards, she shook her head at them in disbelief.

"How did you ever manage to arrange that without either of us finding out?" she asked them, "That was amazing, guys!"

"Well Pooja and Neelu choreographed the steps, and then we've been practicing like mad for the last two days." Yudi told them, "Why do you think we were all out of the house for so long or did you think that we were all simply off romancing?"

"Well…" Naina had to admit, that was exactly what she'd thought they'd been doing.

"Okay, don't answer that then," Yudi told her rather hastily,

"Well some time was spent romancing," Pooja admitted, "And we did have to take care of some arrangements, but the rest of the time we were practicing the steps."

"I can't thank you guys enough," Naina told them, "That was absolutely perfect."

"Could we do anything less for our Phoolan?" Huda asked, "Your wedding should be perfect."

The rest of the evening passed smoothly, everybody was soon dancing as the band played a variety of upbeat filmy songs. Raj was content to simply sit beside Naina for most of the evening, feeding her sweets, and chatting quietly. They were never alone for long as absolutely everybody wanted to come up and congratulate them, and their friends also kept coming over to have a chat. Everybody knew that there would be no chance at the wedding because Raj and Naina were leaving almost immediately after the ceremony in order to catch a flight for their honeymoon.

Neelu, Pooja and Shalini soon came over to join them permanently, as they also had to get their mehndi done before the ceremony the next day. Nandini came over to meet Naina and say congratulations, and Naina was pleased to see that she didn't seem to be interested in Raj and that she kept looking over in Abhimanyu's direction.

It was towards the end of the evening that Raj decided it was probably time he said something. Letting Naina know what he was about to do, he went towards the stage and picked up the microphone. He immediately had everybody's undivided attention, as they couldn't wait to hear what he was about to say. After all, it was one of the most awaited weddings of the year.

"I'd like to thank you all for coming," he told them, "Whether you're old friends or new, batchmates, colleagues or my former students." A huge cheer went up at this, from the batch of 2008. "Whoever you all are, you have a special place in Naina's and my lives, and that's why you're here tonight. And so from both Naina and I, I would like to thank you for your support."

He searched for Naina's eyes across the room before he said his next sentence, and meeting them, saw her nod her support for him. "Things haven't always been easy for us, in fact we've faced many challenges in order to get to this point."

Raj decided that maybe that was a bit of an understatement…

"There were times when we didn't know if we would make it, and if we have then it's only due to the support of some very special people." Raj told them, "So tonight I would like to specially thank those who have stood by us through thick and thin, and who without this wedding wouldn't have been possible. And so now, announcing in no particular order, I would like to thank Shalini, Yudi, Huda, Ali, Pooja, Neelu and Alekh, you're the best friends we could ever ask for."

The room erupted in applause at this, and Raj looked over at Naina to see that she and Pooja were both crying happy tears while even Neelu, Shalini and the guys looked like they were becoming very emotional.

When Raj sat back down next to Naina, she leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. "Thank you," she told him, "I couldn't have said it better."

Raj placed an arm around her shoulders and kissed her on the temple affectionately.

"No matter what happens, Naina, whether we have family members or not, we definitely have our friends." He told her.

Naina nodded, no matter what happened, she was ready for tomorrow. It was time for her to begin a new phase in her life, and she would do it with the most important people in her life by her side.

Naina couldn't spend her life regretting the past, she couldn't allow her personal sorrow to ruin her upcoming life with Raj. They had overcome challenges in the past and she knew there would be many more in the future, but they were going to be together and that was what was important.

She was ready to get married.