Bride of Sheesh Mahal - Season 3 - Part 40

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Chapter 40


Khushi’s POV


“Then whose child was she carrying in her womb, Daadi?” I bark.

“I don’t know his name… I don’t know anything about him.”


She tries to leave the temple room but seeing her hesitation in answering I am sure she knows something and is still hiding it from me.


“You will lose your grandson if you don’t tell me, Daadi. Are you willing to sacrifice him for concealing the bitter truth of the past?”


She stops in her tracks but doesn't turn around and I hope at least now she is going to give me some clue so that I start hunting in the right direction…

“Don’t say that” She scoffs at me, turning around. “Nothing will happen to Arnav.”

“Not if you tell me the entire truth…” I demand reaching her. “Do you even realize had you opened up about the secrets of this family before, we could have done a lot more to save Arnav by now.”

I grip her arms.

“Every second of your delay in telling me what the entire truth to Chandrika’s story is, is wasting my time in looking for clues Daadi. I want to save my husband and I’ll not mind to put up a fight with anyone from this family who is standing in my way.”

Daadi looks down dejected, her eyes filled with fresh tears.

“I am so sorry, Khushi…” she cries. “In the name of protecting the family’s reputation and pride I had promised my husband never to share this with anyone.”


My heart skips a beat. What could be the secret that could destroy the Raizada’s family reputation? I make her sit on the little chair and then kneel down as she begins to unravel the truth.

“One night when Chandrika came back to Sheesh Mahal, despite we had thrown her out of the Palace, I heard her speaking to my husband, Arnav’s grandfather in the basement. Seems she was pregnant and she claimed that if my husband doesn't let her marry my son, she will tell the society that she was pregnant with my son’s child.”


My swallow angrily.

“But we all knew she was lying. We didn’t know whose child she was carrying in her womb. My husband was worried if she would really go ahead with her blackmailing. My sons were unaware of all this nor my husband wanted to let them know or give them more stress. That’s why he asked Chandrika one week to think about it. She agreed and left the Palace.”


Daadi wipes her tears as she continues.


“I confronted my husband and he told me not to worry. He had already sent out people to know Chandrika’s background. And that if she was really pregnant, he would find the man responsible for it and send her back to him. After almost a week when Chandrika came demanding to know what my husband had decided, he opened up her cards..”


I gape at Daadi to know what that secret about Chandrika was.


“It seems Chandrika was already married to someone and she had ran away from her husband because of a fight. He was looking for her but during that time my son, Ayush had found Chandrika and got her to Sheesh Mahal where she stayed with us for some time and fell in love with him, wanting to forget she was even married already.”

That revelation stuns me.

“And that baby she had in her womb was of her husband, that same man whom Arnav’s grandfather had finally been able to find and had called him to Sheesh Mahal that same night.”

Daadi starts shivering and I know the main secret is now about to be revealed. What had happened that night?

“After knowing her plan had failed and that my husband was not going to let her marry my son, Chandrika fumed and she went insane and tried to stab my husband with the knife she had got. He tried to stop her from doing so and that’s when her husband arrived too and tried to stop her. Despite being pregnant, she had an unusual power within her to fight them both as they tried to snatch the knife from her. And in the attempt to do so, accidentally the knife stabbed on her husband’s chest and when we all realized that, it was Arnav’ grandfather holding that knife..”

What?? My jaw hangs in shock.

“I rushed inside.. panicked.. Arnav’s grandfather dropped the knife on the floor. He was as shocked as I was and Chandrika.. she was into another world altogether. Seeing her husband dying before her eyes made her even more mad. While I was consoling my husband, we didn’t realize when she picked that knife and the words she threatened us later with, was something we could never forget…”

“You killed him… You killed the father of my child… You’ll will die… Each one of you will die and I’ll make sure the Raizada family’s name is wiped off from history forever..”


“Before we could understand, Chandrika cut her veins. She committed suicide…”

My heart raced as Daadi finally meets my eyes.

“We were scared, Khushi.. No one knew such a thing happened so we had to make sure to hide it up. That night we dumped two bodies in the backyard, not one… One was that man who was Chandrika’s husband and the other body was Chandrika’s. This was the secret we couldn’t let even our sons know because we didn’t want them to live with it for their whole life. They were yet to grow and start their families. How could we spoil their future? So, whatever happened that night, though wasn’t anyone’s fault but an accident, me and my husband covered it up. And then we shifted that next day from Sheesh Mahal to some other rental palace where we decided to take forward Ayush’s wedding. We didn’t want to return to Sheesh Mahal again but since people started getting suspicious why we wouldn’t want the new bride to do Grihapravesh in Sheesh Mahal, which was our ancestral palace, we came back here after the marriage took place. But things weren’t the same anymore. We started getting negative vibes and when we confronted to the Priest Yogiji, he did some Havan here. Burning both the bodies were necessary so that their soul rested in peace and they don’t harm us but when we dug the graves, we only found one body and that was Chandrika’s husband. Chandrika’s body was missing… We had no clue how and who did this.. but now we were suspicious if someone else had come to know about us and we were scared to leave any clues or even stay at that place anymore until the matter becomes cold. So, we burned Chandrika’s husband’s body and then shifted to London forever as my husband was already starting up some business there and wanted both his sons to contribute to the family business.”


I am speechless.


“We didn’t come here for a few years. Anjali was born, Ayush’s first daughter and then we got our second son married to Manorama. All went smooth.. And that’s when we came to India for some period again and stayed in Sheesh Mahal. It was as we had left it.. The maids and servants had kept the palace neat and tidy. Ayush’s wife was pregnant again and she came and told me first that the doctor said she had twins.. But she wanted to surprise to Ayush so we hid this fact…Everything was back to normal.. There were no threats to our family’s safety but my husband always restricted us to go to the basement, especially that room where we knew all this had happened. As is, Yogiji had locked away that room with his mantras to make sure the place where Chandrika and her husband had breathed their last doesn't create any problems to our family anymore and only he had that key to the room. We had started staying happily here until that accident happened.. with Ayush’s wife when she delivered Arnav and his twin. When she told me about the dead baby and how she had seen a shadow in the basement and even heard whispers of a woman coming from that room, I instantly knew it could be Chandrika’s ghost so I quickly insisted my husband to take us all back to London and though he wasn’t willing to, he agreed because that’s where he too saw the future of our business was. Then coming to Sheesh Mahal became yearly when Akash and NK were born. We just wanted our grandchildren to know the roots from where our family came from so bringing them every year here was mandatory. They were still young when during one such visit, my husband fell from the stairs and passed away. It made us all sad and to ease my depression, my sons flew us back to London soon. Then coming to India became rare. But Yogiji wanted us to continue doing the MahaPuja every decade which was our family’s tradition at the temple and we never missed that. Initially we didn’t bring Arnav and the rest of my grandchildren. Only me, my sons and bahus flew here and did the Puja and left the next day. We stayed here hardly for a night or so. Then Arnav’s parents died in a car crash in London which was once again a setback for all of us. But we managed to cope up. Years passed and this time all my grandchildren insisted they too wanted to come to India and live in Sheesh Mahal for some time for the Maha Puja. Even I was in a hurry to look for a bride for Arnav because Yogiji had told me that the coming of Arnav’s bride would turn things back to normal in the family and that woman would have some special stars aligned in her Kundali. So, when we met you and when I came to know you were Devi Maiyaa’s such great devotee, I instantly tried to get your Kundali through Payal’s father and he told me you had these special stars I was looking for in Arnav’s bride. That’s why I proposed the alliance to your father and fortunately Arnav also didn’t reject it. He liked you..”

She cups my face..

“The rest you know now… How to resolve the electricity issue Arnav blatantly opened up the doors of the basement room and since then everything changed..”

I nod.

“Since Chandrika is alive, that’s exactly what she was waiting for Arnav to do so that whatever spell she has casted on him comes into full form and she can control him completely…” I mutter.

“But how can you be so sure that Chandrika is alive?” Daadi queries.


And then I tell her about Yogiji’s daughter.. Sheetal and everything else how so far we managed to know all this from her. I don’t tell her yet that Sheetal and NK might have a love connection because this is not the right time for it. At the moment, using whatever information Daadi has given so far, I’ll have to use it to find some clues related to Chandrika about the basement and likewise also take updates from NK if he could find the mole who is the family or from the servants side who is a helping hand to Chandrika.


To be Continued

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Vansh Kapoor
My best friend, Taani, assigned me the responsibility to help her find a suitable groom for her sister, Vidhi. I would have gladly done so if Vidhi hadn’t been my runaway bride, who didn't even acknowledge our marriage bond for 24 hours before fleeing from my life. Now she is right under my nose, letting her sister hunt marriage alliances for her, and the worst part is, I can’t even claim her as rightfully mine.

Vidhi Gupta
Vansh Kapoor, the man I ran away from five years ago on our first night after marriage, was a childhood friend of my elder sister who was now looking for prospective grooms for me. Vansh was dragged into this responsibility as Taani trusted him more than anyone else in the world. I may have had a reason to marry him in the past, but I’d no excuses to hold on to that relationship anymore. Especially not when I knew the selfish reason why he had married me in the first place.


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Some Marriages are meant to be Hidden.
Never thought I would meet you again out of the Blue.
With my heart begging to spend the rest of my life with You.

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