Luck by Chance
"Dear, why are you looking worried. Is your health ok?" enquired Mr. Singh.
'I am fine, but I think Ritika is not for the last few days.'
'It must be your misconception. I just saw her having a gala time with her friends.'
'Being her mother, I can see the sadness even behind her smiling face. Maybe she had a fight with Jatin over some trivial issue. Also, I don't know about that girl Nisha, who arrived last night. Ritika told me she is her friend from college, but I have never seen her before.'
'If she told you that Nisha is her friend then she must be, also if she had a fight with Jatin then you shouldn't worry because they have grown up together. They are childhood friends; I am sure whatever it is they will sort it out.
"Waheguru ji, please help me with this dilemma of whether my daughter is sad because of some fight with Jatin or it's something else," said Mrs. Singh, while entering Ritika's room where the beauticians were giving final touches to her makeup.
Ritika with a cute smile on her face asked her mother, 'Mum, how am I looking?'
Mrs. Singh with hundreds of thoughts whirling through her mind looked lovingly at her daughter and said, 'You are looking gorgeous. Like the prettiest bride on Earth.'
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Ritika arrived at the mandap with her bridesmaids. She was dressed in a velvet lehenga with a heavily embroidered dupatta that veiled her head and face as per the tradition.
After the laavan ceremony and signing the marriage register of Gurudwara committee, Jatin's mother nearly fainted when she lifted her daughter-in-law's veil. She shouted at the top of her voice, "Who are you?"
"She is your daughter-in-law and soon to be the mother of your grandchild," said Ritika as she entered the mandap.
Mrs. Singh too was in a state of shock. Her doubt was confirmed. Bewildered she asked Ritika "Beta, what are you saying? Why is Nisha in your place?"
'Because that's her place, mum. Jatin has been in a relationship with her for the past one year. It's through God's blessings that I met Nisha last month at our common friend Mihika's party when our drinks got exchanged. There I saw Jatin's pictures on Nisha's phone. When I enquired, she told me everything, how Jatin had proposed to her and promised that he would talk to his parents soon about them.'
Ritika continued her explanation, 'That's how I came to know about his actual character, and decided to give him a taste of his own medicine for cheating me and Nisha. So, I swapped my outfit with Nisha and then sent her here as the bride.'
"Mum, Dad, I have done all this, so that Nisha and her unborn child get justice and are accepted by everyone."
Mrs. Singh slapped Jatin and instructed him to accept Nisha wholeheartedly or else she would lodge a complaint against him for fraud.
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Glossary
Waheguru ji - Dear God
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