If you ask my mother she'll tell you she raised a "sanskari, well-mannered, marriage-ready" daughter.
If you ask my friends, they'll tell you I'm more like a "shy-looking but secretly a total rebel" kind of girl.
And if you ask me... well, I'd say I'm still figuring myself out somewhere between those two extremes.
From the outside, I'm your classic good South Indian girl—neat braid, pastel kurtas, polite smile. Inside? My brain's a messy playlist of breakup songs I've never lived through, late-night Wattpad stories I shouldn't be reading, and fantasies that would make my mother faint mid-pooja.
Which is why standing in the middle of our flower-decked living room on my engagement day feels so... ironic.
The place smells like a mix of fresh jasmine, roasted cashews, and my mother's stress perfume. Strings of marigolds hang from the ceiling, and fairy lights blink like they know a secret. Cousins are running around with plates of laddoos, aunties are adjusting their sarees like it's an Olympic sport, and I—Sahiti Vishwanathan—am supposed to be glowing with happiness because my parents found me The Perfect Match.
Dev Iyer.
Dev is the kind of guy who makes you feel like you're in a jewellery ad—tall, handsome, polite, and dangerously charming. Our families have been friends forever. He's the son of my father's benchmate partner, my dad's bestfriend's son, which makes this whole "match made in heaven" thing sound more like "match made in a balance sheet."
But here's the twist no one sees—
I don't want this.
Not because Dev's a bad guy. He's... actually too good. And that's the problem. I'm twenty-three, still craving my first real kiss, my first sex, my first love that isn't gift-wrapped by my parents. I wanted the messy kind—hookups I'd regret, dates I'd laugh about, boys who'd make me question my taste. Not a clean, safe, perfect fiancé my mother can brag about at kitty parties. But someone who trully matters to me and i matter to him.
"Beta, smile properly!" Amma hisses at me as she shoves a gold bangle onto my wrist. "People will think you are unhappy!"
I am unhappy, Amma. But sure, let's fake it for the photographers.
"Amma, this blouse is too tight," I mumble, tugging at the sleeves.
"That's because you don't sit straight! Posture, Sahiti!" she snaps before gliding away to scold the caterer.
i quickly got ready, wearing matching silk pattu red and yellow combination saree gifted by my ammama, i was adorned with long veni, as i wanted to have a pixie haircut but here my family standards are such like which might hurt our dreams of having such hair, for them its a very big taboo of even wearing a freaking skirt!! as they are very stereotypical of wearing suchbut here in the neighborhood women dont have problem of aunties speaking dirty minded talks about new couples about other people wearing repeated gold jwelleries, sarees and other clothes wore by poeple all the time, judging wrongly instead of minding their own buisnesses.
Meanwhile, Suhasini aunty, Dev's mother, is busy whispering about how her son has been "such a good boy, never looked at girls, focused only on career." I bite back a laugh. I've seen Dev's Instagram—he's liked more bikini pictures than travel reels, where all the neighbour waale aunties dreamt of him being their future son-in-lwas to their sanskaari daughters where the uncles wanted to peep into his dollar paycheck and the girls all over walking towards him like butterflies and becoming wet by looking at himm fixing his tie when he came from england to here for the first time . But hey, let aunty dream.
Dev finally walks in, wearing a crisp ivory kurta and pancha(lungii) that probably costs more than my semester's college fees. He spots me across the room, and for a second, the noise fades. His smile is slow, confident, almost teasing. My stomach does that annoying flutter thing, and I mentally yell at it—No. We're not doing this.
"Hey," he says when he reaches me, leaning just close enough for me to smell his cologne. It's warm, spicy, and... unfair.
"Hi," I reply, keeping my tone neutral.
"You look..." he pauses, his gaze lingering in a way that makes me blush, "...different."
"Different good or different bad?"
"Good. Very good."
And just like that, my brain short-circuits. This is exactly why I didn't want to marry someone like Dev. He's the kind of man who could make you forget your own rebellion.
The engagement rituals begin. We exchange rings—his fingers brush mine, and there's this stupid spark that makes me clench my jaw. Our parents beam like they just closed the best merger deal of the year. Guests clap. My relatives nudge each other and say things like, "Perfect jodi! So lucky, Sahiti!"
Lucky? I feel like a bird in a golden cage. Pretty, admired, but still caged.
After the ceremony, we sit side by side for photos. Dev leans closer. "So... are you always this quiet, or is it just around me?"
"I'm only quiet when I'm thinking of ways to run away," I whisper back.
He chuckles, clearly amused. "I'd like to see you try."
I glance at him, wondering if he knows I'm serious.
The rest of the evening is a blur of blessings, sweets, and small talk I couldn't care less about. My cheeks hurt from smiling. By the time the last guest leaves, I'm ready to throw myself onto my bed and never get up.
But life has a twisted sense of timing.
While Amma is busy counting the gifts and Appa is chatting with Dev's father, my phone buzzes with an email notification. It's from a university in Britain—the one I secretly applied to months ago. My hands tremble as I open it.
"Congratulations! You have been accepted into the Master's program in London..."
London.
A whole ocean away from this living room. From the bangles and sarees and polite yes-betas. From Dev.
My heart races. This isn't just an admission letter—it's an escape plan.
But as I'm grinning at my phone, Amma walks in, holding a tray of leftover sweets. "Sahiti, who are you smiling at?"
"No one," I say quickly, locking the screen.
She gives me a suspicious look but shrugs.
I sneak one last glance at my phone before slipping it under my pillow and i drift off to sleep. London means new streets, new people... maybe even the first messy love,sex hot kisses feeling of wanting to be loved and loving someone I've been dreaming of. But I have promised myself that i wont repeat a single mistake which would hurt dev or my parents even if it hurts my heart but still
But for now, I'm still the obedient daughter in a gold bangle, pretending to be the perfect fiancée.
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