On the door, were Ashish and Sakshi. Shraddha tried to shoo them away. But Shraddha’s father saw this. But the oncoming guests were confused with the dilapidated state of the house.

“What are you here for? Tell me?”

Ashish looked at Shraddha’s father. He knew how angry he was when he got to know about Shraddha’s relationship.

“I am here for her.” He pointed towards Sakshi.

“Shraddha, I am sorry.” Sakshi said.

Shraddha stared at Sakshi “It’s okay.”

“Your job is done now. Now leave this place.”

“Now I understand from where Shraddha has got her temper. I was here because Sakshi had slapped your daughter because Shraddha spoke rudely to me, that day at Sahni uncle’s house. ” Ashish narrated, ” That day, I was really upset and wanted to do the same which Sakshi did. But as my anger vanished so did the desire. I did tell the incident to Sakshi. But I did not expect this from her.”

“All that between me and Shraddha was over months ago. I still respect her uncle. But now I have realised there is no use thinking good for certain people”, and he turned to Shraddha.

Shraddha lowered her head.

“What did you say, Shraddha?”

Shraddha was quiet. Mrs. Sahni narrated the incident at their place. Shraddha looked at her father who was looking at her.

” It is all my fault. All I have done for my daughter is to scold for every trivial mistake- she broke a glass and I scolded her as if she had lost a war. I remember when she got poor marks in her first year, I reprimanded her even when I looked that she was disappointed and had cried herself out the whole night. I looked upon everything and decided to ignore it because of my stupid ego. I failed to understand what Shraddha must have felt.”

“Shraddha did the same. Displacing her anger, her frustration on this lad. All because of my reprimanding. I feel ashamed of having set a bad example for my child.” He turned to Shraddha and said “Say sorry to Ashish and promise me that you would not do anything like this with anyone.”

Shraddha said sorry to Ashish and assured her father that nothing of the sort would ever happen again.

Next morning, Vijaylakshmi was arrested by the police and few days after that, Nisha was also arrested as Harshit had filed a report as well, after he was attacked. Vijaylakshmi had jealousy of Shraddha getting too close to Harshit and Nisha was annoyed by the fact that Harshit had broke up with him.

Both of them had decided to avenge on their circumstances but bore a police case.

Harshit and Shraddha were sitting in their college canteen.

“Could you believe? Vijaylakshmi could have done such a thing. I thought of her as a caring friend. She should have talked to me about it at least once.” Shraddha then turned to Harshit,” You’re not saying anything about Nisha?” She smiled.

“I knew that Nisha has wrath in her head for people who ill-treat her. But she would take such a huge step, that was unexpected.”

Shraddha looked at her watch and said, “I have got to go. I have my class.”

Harshit asked “Let’s have another programme of Chhole Bhature after class. What say?”

Shraddha smiled and nodded.

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