Inseperable

                                                                        PART II
        Shweta was wearing her favorite blue frock and sitting quietly on the chair next to her mother. Bored she kept telling her she wants to go home. Her mother replies, "Just a little while dear, why don't you go play with your cousins?"
"But I don't want to, they keep telling me to wait on the side and that I'm not old enough to play with them"
She was only six and all her cousins were a decade older who preferred playing their own games that would not include a kid.
"Its going to end soon I promise, its the last part of the wedding. Go get a plate of ice cream from the counter" She comes back with vanilla ice cream with chocolate sauce poured all over it. Shweta decides to wait until it melts a little because it tastes better.
       The bride is now leaving the hall and a group of people are around her, some crying, some consoling each other.
"Ma, why are didi and maasi crying?"
"Didi is going to her new home"
"Whats wrong with her old home?"
"She is going to live with Shreyash jiju"
"Will maasi go to the new home?"
"No, maasi will live her in her old home"
"Why is she going if she doesn't want to go?"
"She is going because she loves Shreyash jiju and wants to start a family with him"
"So why is she crying?"
"Because she will miss her ma"
Shweta is quiet for a while. She decides she doesn't want to eat the ice cream anymore and puts aside the plate on the chair next to hers.
"So will I have to go like Divya didi?"
"Well, if you get married you would"
"But I dont want to go! I want to stay with you!"
"We'll see about that when you're Divya didi's age"
"Will you let me go? You don't even let me go to Anuja's house"
"That's because she lives far and you're still a little small to travel all alone"
The mother then stands up to meet the bride the last time. When she comes back to her chair, she is wiping tears off her eyes.
"Ma, did you cry when you got married?"
"I did not, your pappa had a bet with your mamas that I wont cry. So I didn't" She smiled.
"So you don't miss your ma?" She went silent. Stood up and hugged her. "Until I got married, I couldn't imagine life without her. Wouldn't you miss your ma?"
"I'm not going anywhere ma. I promise. I love you soooooooo much" She said with her arms open wide.
 Shweta's mother kissed her on the cheek as she fell asleep on her shoulder.

The Big Day.

                                                                  PART I

She stood there, in front of the mirror in her wedding dress. Big day she thought. Do I really want this? she felt sick and anxious. She wasn't the only one in the room. Next to her was her mother and cousins and sister in laws mocking each other and joking about who is getting married next. In all of that chaos, when her mother says, that she had only spent 21 years of her life in her mother's house but 38 years with her husband, the panic kicked in. There was so much confusion all of a sudden. In all the married couples, all the relationships she had seen and had been into she never really saw the endurance of what people called love. It was there but then it was more like 'I know you are always going to be by my side, so why should I care?' She felt like she was choking, and as if the heater was at full blast in the middle of December. She excused herself to the rest room, and even though it was difficult to wash her face because it would ruin everything done on her face from the last 30 minutes by the make up guy, she wanted to cool down.
   Finally picking up the phone she calls her fiancé, "Hello?"
"Hey baby, what happened, I thought if we weren't supposed to see each other, we weren't even supposed to talk. Everything okay?"
"I don't know if I can do this"
"What happened? Are you okay?"
"No I am not, there is something inside me that says this is the end. The end of all that I've felt for you all these years. I really feel so scared, I dont want this to be over, its like I am so sure this is not going to be the same after some years. And after a decade or so we might even hate those things about each other because of which we fell in love"
"Okay, wait. Just do me one favor, will you?"
"Yes?"
"Meet me on the second floor, room number 216"

She hung up the phone. Got out of the washroom, and went straight to her best friend. "Shruti!", "There you are, what were you doing in there for so long? You have to understand we have only an hour to get all this done Shweta, we wont get it done if you keep wasting time!" 
"No Shruti wait! I am not feeling very well, I need some fresh air. I'll be back in about fifteen minutes, please dont be mad?"
"Fifteen minutes?! Are you crazy? We'll have to reschedule everything!"
"Please?" She said with a voice that made Shruti realize something wasn't right. "What happened? Are you alright?" "Second thoughts about this whole thing.." "What whole thing? This decoration? I told you to look through properly before deciding, you were so con..." "No, not the decoration! This thing, this marriage"
"Okay, do one thing, go get some fresh air, everybody gets cold feet before they do something big, just breathe a little"
"See you in a bit"
"Please don't be too long"
She reached the second floor, and knocked on the door of room 216. He opened the door and smiled at her. She went in, and hugged him. "You okay?"
"Not exactly"
"What happened?"
"I am scared"
"What scares you?"
"Honestly I don't know! Maybe that this is only chance I have, and I really don't to mess up. Or may be I could be doing so many other things than taking up this huge responsibility. There was even a time in my life when I swore never to get married, was I right then? Should I have traveled more? Should I be doing more things that I cant ever do again?"
"Listen sweetheart, we're only getting married, not dying!"
"Then why do I feel like I am choking?
"Do you want to do this some other time?" "Do what?"
"The wedding?"