Shakti and I had met on a chance encounter, I used to love going on camps, and she had just stumbled upon one, while escaping something along with Rey.

In our wee Days when we had met, I had hated him, Shakti wouldn’t even talk to him, they had their own reasons and differences, but I had seen it, the way he cared for Shakti was what Naveen had always done for me.

Hence when one night, I had asked Shakti to give him a chance, I had never known that she would run off from there.

At that time Rey had said to me, “certain things are best to be let the way they are, if you dig in more they tend to hurt you… and I did just that.”
I was just 14, almost to be 15, but Rey, he was like my brother an 18 year old trying to find his sister in the darkness of the unknown jungles at the border of Karnataka and Maharashtra.

That night had given me two set of great friends, a brother had got his sister back, but I never got to know the truth behind their story.
Why did they run off from their place? Why was it that Shakti despised her own brother? What could have possibly gone wrong all the years back?

Their parents were a forbidden subject; their family was a forbidden subject. Everything related to Shakti was a forbidden subject.

And then all of a sudden I get to know, once again the two of them have gone missing, about a month or two later I get to know they are in their home town, the two of them belonged to a royal family and now have lost their dad, according to yet another prince, to a royal political accident.

I never knew I might as well have a dramatic life.

“You okay?” Jai asked as he sat back in his chair. We were seated in his office; a week had surely passed by after that one hell of an evening.

It made me realize how one bad news had an upper hand over countless good news.

“I am. I just wish I could have been able to go and be with Shakti right now.” I folded my hands on the table and then rested my chin on them, my eyes still on Jai as he looked over the files and began packing.

“It won’t be good right now; the officials won’t allow the outsider, these royal decrees, rules and regulations are quite strict.” Jai explained for the thousand times.  His experience with Veer had made him so calm about this stuff, but this was new for me.

“I don’t understand if they are no longer in rule, why follow those stupid practices?”

The way Jai took a deep breath and gave me a small smile… his tired smile, I let out a breath of my own and said,

“I am sorry…”

“There was a time when Veer had to go through worse than this, none of us till date know what it was, we couldn’t break the walls of the palace, we couldn’t entre the security that surrounded him, and at that time I felt the weakest person. I had money, I ruled the markets but when it came to them… they were stronger than I was.”

My ears perked up with each word that he said, stories of their friendship were quite fascinating, and sometimes it made me wonder how did my mediocre brother fit into all these things?

“That time there were a few seconds that we had got to have a word with Veer and he had said that the stories that the world talked about being king and queen and the hardships they go through are all false, this is all a game of prestige, wealth and power. And the years that I have seen him, I do know they are true, over the years I have seen that in Veer.”

He then smiled at me and said, “When you will really meet Rajkumar Veer Pratap Singh you will know the difference yourself, but I only wish you would never meet him.”

“Why?”

“Mitali how was Rey when the first time you had met him? I can guarantee you veer is far more worse than he was, because he doesn’t have what Reyansh had the moment the two of you had met.”

I kept on pondering on what it could possibly be, this was so confusing!
“You know what you are quite capable.” I complimented him and walked towards him and stood right in front of him.

“Really? At what?”

“You can surely distract me from the main issue… now is there any chance that we can go to Shakti?”

“Mitali, I wouldn’t have really taken of Veer’s words if it would have been anything else, but this is something he knows more than anyone of us… he has given me his words that he would not let anything happen to Shakti.”

“And Rey?’

Jai pondered or a few minutes and when he answered me, his words got me worried, landed me in yet another puzzle and curiousness.

“Well he said something down the line that the prince could be taken care off only if his sister agrees!”

********

Though I had failed to convince people to let me go to Shakti, I had other things to look after, for instance my engagement that my mom was hell bent on getting done in the first week of April, right after the pre decided success of the exhibition that was schedule for the first week of April as well.

Hence that brought me back to this shopping spree, with my mom, my soon to be mother in law, my sister in law and my fiancé.

“can’t we just skip this and go somewhere?” jai whispered once again in my ears, as I glared at him and walked a few steps ahead to be with Vanshika who was yapping on her phone.

“Okay so I will check into those two shops and let you know. “She said into the phone and hung up and finally announced,

“Alright, we have a few options, like there is Raas, roopkala, kalki…mom, Aunty where do you want to go first?” Vanshika announced, and the moment she did we heard a loud what coming from right behind me.

“Why do we need to look in three different shops, Mitali one would do!”
I looked at our moms and rolled my eyes at them and said, “maa do we need him?’

“Mitali!!” I heard Jai calling out in exasperation once again.

“Shut up Jai, you can go home now; I know what kinds of clothes I have to get… you are not needed anymore.”

“But I have to select my clothes as well.” He continued to argue once again.

I looked at Vanshika and asked her, “did you take his measurements when I had asked you to?’

“Yeah I did.” She smiled at me in that cute way she always did, while I turned once again to my lovely fiancé and said,

“Your measurements are here, you are not needed.”

“Mitali we will be waiting for you at the Raas, you get rid of him and come quickly.” I nodded my head at Jai’s mom, while the son took hold of my hand and pulled me a little farther.

“I wanted to have lunch with you today.”

:”Jai, this is way important, if I don’t do this now, we might miss out so many other lunches, I prefer to work on our upcoming lunches, dinners and what not than the present one.”

Jai gave me a small smile and pulled me into a small hug, as he nestled his nose into the crook of my neck and said, “I would love to have the limited lunches that I have with my girlfriend, I don’t know how my wife would be?”

Letting go off his hug, I kissed his cheek and said, “How about a dinner?”

“Ummm dominos or may be pizza hut?” I smiled at him cheekily and said, “Okay done!”

We were on the verge of saying goodbye when all of a sudden I heard someone calling out to me, as the two o us turned around, I was quite shocked to see Tejal walking towards us with a bright smile on her face.
“Hey, girl!!” I called out excitedly and soon we were wrapped in a tight hug. I was sure as hell that the passersby would be eyeing us spastically.

“Where have you been Tejal, no call nothing?”

Tejal was about to answer me when Jai tapped my shoulder and whispered in my ears,

“I will be waiting for you at home, take care.” And with a small peck on my forehead he nodded once towards Tejal and walked off towards the other direction where we had parked our cars.

“Isn’t that Jai Kapadia, the owner of Kapadia industries?” Tejal asked as soon as I turned back to her. Her eyebrows scrunched in confusion.

“I prefer to call him my fiancé now.” I smiled at her, but it soon turned into fit o laughter as she choked on her own saliva.

“Damn, where did you even found him?”

“Remember the guy you assumed at fell in love with me on first sight… that was him all along.” Winking at her, I looped my hand with hers and pulled her towards the shop where the other ladies had walked off to.

“We are here for my engagement shopping accompanying me, and tell me all the scandals that you are having with those psychic patients of yours.”

Her eyes narrowed at me, yet she kept on walking.

It was then I remembered the times when we would have lunch and she would be still pissed off with a few patients that she had received at the hospital that she was interning.

‘people think we are sinners, if they get their kids to us, they think that there might be some heinous disease that we might contaminate with.”

Mental health and having psychological problems were two different things, so was having depression, and being mad. Yet people had always failed to understand the small and trivial thin difference between it. But somewhere I was as well one of them. I understood the difference between a normal painting and an oil painting, but was it understandable for a commoner?
It hadn’t been until I had met Tejal that I understood the trivial difference between having psychological problem and having a mental problem, and realized that certain things are always there around us, it was just that we are so busy being us that we fail to notice it.

“My patients are pure souls, unlike those art dealers of yours.” Tejal commented as we crossed the road.

The busy roads of Santacruz market made us stumble at our own feet as the black smoke from the famous autorikshaws made us asthma patients for a moment, all the while giving a foul taste in our mouth.

“What would my art dealers do to you?” I stopped by the side of the road as the pedestrians eyed us weirdly and continued to their way.

“Not really your- your art dealers, but art dealers in general.” Tejal though shrugged her shoulder in a non coolant manner, her statement now seemed a bit suspicious to me. She had almost turned around and was about to walk ahead, but it seemed my reflexes were quite strong as I took hold of her hand and said,

“Hey, hey, hey, you are not going to go just like that… So tell me what that statement all about was?’

Tejal’s expressions turned several of shades, all unknown to me; it was at that moment I wished I had a way or some knowledge as to how to read a person. But surprisingly other than Jai it wasn’t anyone else whom I could understand well.

After a long wait of hundreds of seconds, she finally took in a deep breath and said,

“So there is this patient of mine…”

“Ohh, I love this doctor and patient stories!” I exclaimed, but the excitement the slight excitement that was building within me died down as she glared at me.

“I guess you don’t want to know ahead.”

“Ohh no, I do.” Smiling sheepishly at her, I once again hooked my hand into hers as we began walking to the shop whose name Vanshika had suggested.

“So this patient of mine, he says he is a art dealer, he seems to be from a well family, there are people at his disposals, his data, medical history everything is said to be secret… my boss he himself is personally looking into his case.”

I hummed at her words, a weird kind of picture began to frame in that tinny brain of mine, like those exaggerating Hindi movies, with a heavily jwelleried man attended my number of women and men and eating away a bunch of grapes that he held in the pinch of his two fingers.

“So you think he might be suspicious?” I asked.

“No, the problem is his case is weird, there are people who understand that something is wrong with them and then get help, some know that there is something wrong with them and yet try not to get help… but this person he isn’t ready to believe that there might be something wrong with him.”

Tejal looked so stressed out as each of the words that she spoke, something felt as if this patient made her feel as if she failed to do something that she knew she was best at.

Something like being disappointed in oneself!

“He comes daily at the clinic, takes counseling sessions, but when we ask him to try and continue with his normal routine he would refuse. The worst is he doesn’t have any family with him. As much as we are frustrated with him, his situation makes us feel bad. "

As her story came to an end, we found ourselves standing by the gate of the shop. Unknown to myself what I was feeling and thought of the situation I turned towards her and said,

“You know you are his doctor, you can only do things for him unless and until he wants you to do. Don’t pressurize yourself; just wait for the right time, and when it comes, swipe the card right through.”

Tejal quickly wrapped her hands around me in a tight hug. And the warmth that spread through my body gave me shivers. The tight hug reminded me of Shakti, and then my own words rang into my ears.

It was only so much I could have done for Shakti with her being unwilling. She knows I am there waiting for her to call out to me.  She had to just reach me out and I would be there for her, maybe I might not help her, the way Tejal would help her patient but I would surely be that one friend that I believed I was of Shakti.

“Tejal or now, my fiancé here has given me his Credit card to spend something on me… why don’t you help me with it?’

“Why not, as it is you are yet to tell me how the hell did this all happened!”

I felt my eyes rolling at the exasperation that she showed at me being engaged to one of the most eligible bachelor of the town. Surely it was one of a kind new, atlest  or all those magazines and newspapers that had been at our back to get some news something as good as a glimpse o my ring that shined in my ring finger.

Hello lovely people. 
Doing well?

I know I am very much late,  but finally my Computer is back to work and I Can now go back to the writing and posting stuff. 

Any which ways, did you all heard about wattpad India Awards?  Well if not... Then these are the awards that are organized by the official wattpad India account for the Indian Authors. 
Cool isnt it?

Well I have registered Enchanted Pursual,  and I hope you all love it,  to support it when the time arises. 

But before that what do you think of the chapter??  Of the story till now?

Do let me know through your comments and votes. 

Personal messages are as well welcomed.  If there are any new readers do. Let us know about you... And welcome to this amazing Journey of Enchanted Pursual. 

One last question,  what is that one thing of your life, that you believe might have an enchanting story of its own??

Socho socho,  and then tell me through your comments. 
Happy reading
Yadni Bagwe