Chapter 16

Thank you so very much for your wonderful comments. It really feels incredible to have people loving and appreciating your work. 

To all my buddy's - a humble request. It would be great if you could share the link to my FF with all friends on your list, so as to spread the word about my writing. I would love to have more and more people reading and critiquing my work.

To my silent readers, please take a moment to hit the like button, or even better leave me a comment. It won't take more than a few seconds of your time, but your comments and feedback mean the world to me!

A big Thank you to Nidz for the amazing artwork!

A lot of my readers have asked me about why I haven't written anything with regards to Arnav's family so far. Well, this chapter is specially dedicated to those readers!

Chapter 15

Lavanya Kashyap was busy packing her office space. Not that she had much to pack. It was the one office space that had never been used in its history by any of its predecessors. Her cabin consisted of an extremely neat desk behind which were lined a series of shelves all stacked with a ton of books on corporate law.

Lavanya neither read nor understood Corporate Law, much less had a penchant for the subject. Owing to the fact that AR Corp's Business Developer was "always on vacation", the shelves had been loaned to the Director of the Company and joint head of their legal department - Anjali Jha, whose current office was already beginning to burst at its seams.  

Not that Lavanya minded. The books made her otherwise blank office look stately.

Anjali Jha (ne Raizada) was Arnav's only sibling and older sister by 4 years. A tiny bespectacled woman with her hair always neatly tied into a bun, this woman was well known for her razor sharp brain and tongue. A graduate from Harvard Law School, she had offers from some of the world's biggest law firms, even before she graduated. And yet, Anjali declined every one of them to join and support her brother's fledgling business back in India.

When Anjali took the reins of the Legal department at AR, there were just two people in it including her. Today the department boasted of 20 lawyers and 10 paralegals working round the clock on AR's contracts, mergers and defamations. 

A defamation suit wasn't an uncommon occurrence in AR. ASR's "crush your opponent at all costs" attitude often wrung that response. And yet Anjali had single-handedly managed to settle every defamation suit in AR's favor.

If people in the business community were scared of ASR, lawyers fretted over the fact that they were going up against Anjali Jha. Nicknamed "the dragon lady" by her fraternity, she not only completely lived up to it, but also regaled in its glory. 

Five years ago, Anjali Raizada had tied the knot with a leading New Delhi criminal lawyer named Shyam Jha. Both Shyam and Anjali, on the outside, were seemingly headstrong personalities and the New Delhi socialite grape vine expected them to part ways within the year. They all dubbed it a "marriage of convenience" and often wondered aloud, who would end up paying the alimony, in the eventuality or in this particular case, the certainty of a divorce. 

Anjali's own close friends had strongly dissuaded her from marrying Shyam citing those very same reasons. "It won't work", one friend told Anjali. "Shyam and you are so similar, you both are lawyers, you both are extremely successful and you both are used to getting your way."

Another friend said: "Think about this. Marriages work best when partners are of opposite temperaments, as they tend to complement each other. With both of you being Type A personalities, there is no way you will ever reach a compromise with each other. And it's not that you guys are head over heels in love to begin with."

A third one had urged Anjali to think through her decision yet again. "Anjali, you are the most practical person I have come across in my life. And yet, what you are about to do by marrying Shyam is nothing but foolishness. This is not going to work, there is every reason for it to not work, don't do this."

Anjali thought and thought hard about what she was going to do. Everything her friends had told her was logical, and yet her gut instinct told her to take the plunge. It had never led her astray so far. She had met Shyam Jha only a few times and had felt this odd attraction to his persona. True, he was tall and handsome. But she had met other tall and handsome men and had never felt this way. It might not be love, but there was definitely something between the two of them.

Anjali decided. She would marry Shyam and she would make her marriage work. Her friends didn't agree. Arnav did. He knew his sister better than anyone else. If Anjali had decided to marry Shyam, she would have thought through everything. She knew what she was doing and what the future might hold for her. He, as usual, would support her. 

When Anjali told Arnav that she had refused to have a pre-nup drawn, Arnav was not surprised. Anjali was always like that. She never got into deals knowing that an exit strategy would be the eventuality. Losing wasn't an option for her. She thought very hard before taking something up. But once she decided to go ahead with it, she would work hard night and day to make sure the decision worked to her favor.

When Anjali and Shyam announced birth of their daughter Anya on the occasion of their fourth wedding anniversary, to say the New Delhi socialite gathering was stumped would be an understatement. Nobody understood how this marriage, which was doomed from the start, had worked. Nobody really cared anymore. Now that Anjali and Shyam were a regular, happily married couple, they were of no interest to anyone. 

Chapter 16: http://www.india-forums.com/forum_posts.asp?TID=4343261&TPN=33