*SNEAK PEEK*
Two little ponies tied on either sides of her head swayed to and fro in the same manner as she shook her head from left to right while playing with the doll in her hands. Singing her favorite lullaby that her mother sang to her every night, this six year old girl was having a good time on the bench of nearby park in the locality.
“Arnavv!! Give me my doll back!”
Happiness gone away from her face, Khushi screamed out in pure irritation when her so-called ‘best friend’ appeared there from nowhere and took the doll from her hands, making her run after him.
“Why do you girls play with these things? What is so good about this doll?”
“At least my dolls are prettier than your stupid video games and toy cars!”
“You called my video games stupid? No way you’re going to get this doll now!”
Khushi, though only a little girl, was fuming in anger as her friend screamed those words and ran away from her, while she went after him without any second thought. Arnav, roughly nine, always pretended to be more sensible and mature than his age, though he was not. He was rather a hot-headed, impulsive and mischievous little guy who found solace in annoying the crap out of his dear, his best friend Khushi…. Or precisely, his ‘only’ friend Khushi.
“Give me my doll back… You devil…”
Being equally stubborn as Arnav, Khushi managed to snatch her doll from him successfully and flashed her tongue to him in a teasing manner, but gave him an annoyed look again when he ran away from there after pulling her ponies mischievously.
“Monkey!”
Why did she ever make him her best friend? She always wondered.
*-*
“Why are you crying?”
“Arnav…” She muttered while weeping bitterly, making him even more furious as he looked at her worriedly.
“What happened? Did you fall somewhere? Did you get hurt?” He noticed a reddish cut on her forehead, “Oh… What is this mark?”
“That… Ruhan… He snatched my doll..”
It simply took a few seconds for his little face to turn red in all anger as he listened on carefully. Khushi narrated timidly how Ruhan,the nasty kid from neighborhood snatched her doll and tried to smash it. When she tried to get her doll back from him, Ruhan callously pushed her on ground and she got bruised on her forehead.
“Why did you go alone? Why didn’t you take Payal along with you?”
“Jiji… was busy studying for her test tomorrow…. So I sneaked out… to the park only to take… one round of swings...” Khushi spoke in a broken voice and then quickly grabbed the water bottle that Arnav offered her to drink, while softly blowing at her bruise.
*-*
Arvind furiously held his son’s shoulders and grabbed him to stand facing him. The little Arnav looked fearfully at him as his questioning eyes roamed all over his disheveled form, while Ratna worriedly went to grab some cotton balls and dettol. Obviously, after he had the so-called ‘face-off’ Arnav was very much expecting this situation.
“Now explain to me, why were you both fighting like bad children? Is this what we have taught you, son?”
“Ruhan snatched Khushi’s doll…. Khushi was crying…”
“So you went to fight on behalf of her?”
“Dad…Ruhan pushed Khushi first…She got hurt on her forehead….”
“Then you pushed him on the ground to get his forehead bruised… Not once but twice? What makes you think that you did the right thing?”
Arnav had no reasonable answer to keep in front of his father. He simply looked down, terror written all over his face as he continuously tried justifying to him that Khushi was the reason he took up that fight. A few seconds later he mentally sighed on seeing his mother coming back with a first aid kit in her hands.
Ratna gestured her husband to stop with the questionnaire as the little kid needed some first aid. Of course she was concerned like any mother would be, and in fact was always supportive of her son. Well, at least in front of Arvind…… Because only she was aware of Arnav’s anguish had both parents scolded him at the same time.
“Mera bachcha, you aren’t supposed to fight like this…. Its bad manners you know?”
Ratna explained to him in her ever so gentle tone, and the same gentleness was in her hands as she applied dettol to his bruise and kissed his forehead. Arnav always felt at peace when he had his mother tending to his wounds, the fearfulness started to slowly fade away from his face as he watched her.
“I know mom, but… Ruhan is a bad boy, he doesn’t know what is good manner and what is bad manner. Why did he trouble my best friend?” Arnav argued in his child-like attitude, though the anger within him was definitely not what a child would possess.
He was a hot-headed kid. Everybody knew that.
“Oh! And what about the times when you trouble Khushi?” Arvind looked at him in a not very pleased way, really wondering how he was even friends with such an adorable kid.
“Dad, I am her best friend. I can do anything. But nobody else will hurt Khushi.”
“Arre..”
Despite of Ratna trying to stop him, Arnav didn’t waste any second further to leave the hall and swiftly run upstairs towards his room. She exchanged perplexed looks with Arvind, who simply nodded his head in disappointment. They were proud parents to a son….. But at the same time they were very much concerned about his extreme behavior at such a tender age. This wasn’t going well with the Raizadas.
*-*
The little news of kids’ fight reached to Khushi’s family within an hour, as they were not only neighbors to the Raizadas, but also good friends with them. And most of the credit for that goes to Khushi-Arnav’s bickering, which increased the interactions among both families.
“You are such a crazy girl.” Payal commented sternly, while half of her mind busy in solving arithmetic problem. “Why do you always have to go to Arnav whenever someone troubles you? Later he gets scolded because of you…”
“I go to him because he is my best friend… Best friends help each other.”
Khushi retorted immediately, while snuggling closer into Shashi’s arms as he held protectively to make her feel at ease. Her father very well knew that she was more concerned for Arnav rather than thinking about her own argument with Ruhan, and somewhere he was proud with the fact that his daughter kept others before her own happiness, her own trouble…..She was far more mature than her age despite of her crazy antics.
“Thanks to Devi Maiyya that your mother is not at home today….else she would have scolded not only Khushi, but all of us!” Shashi said, making his both girls a bit fearful.
“Babuji…. Please… Please don’t tell anything to Amma…. Else she will lock me in the bathroom with many cockroaches! Eeww!”
Shashi watched the fear, disgust written all over Khushi’s face as she was reminded of the little punishments that her mother would scare her with whenever she did any mistake. And sneaking out of the house was hell of a big mistake! Though Shashi wasn’t very much pleased with the idea of punishments….He considered them to create more fear instead of stopping kids from committing any mistake in future. And he often had arguments with Garima about it.
“Okay my Gudiya. But you have to promise now that you won’t go out again without our permission.” Shashi calmed her down, while she nodded her head in agreement with his statement.
Payal grinned widely on seeing how her baby sister calmly sheltered herself in Shashi’s arms after creating a tiny havoc at Raizada residence, all thanks to her friend…. Ermm, ‘best friend’ Arnav. Khushi’s elder sister was just like any third person, who would just look at these two kids and wonder why they are even best friends when they do nothing except for bickering with each other like Tom and Jerry!
*-*
~INDEX~
Prologue- Pg4
Chapter One- Pg6
Chapter Two- Pg8
Chapter Three- Pg10
Chapter Four- Pg13
Chapter Five- Pg15
Chapter Six- Pg17
Chapter Seven- Pg19
Chapter Eight- Pg21
Writers Corner: Books, Stories & Poems
Anupamaa
Kumkum Bhagya
30