In the Name of Love (Ishq Mein Marjawan) – Chapter 11

For those of you who have missed the 10th chapter, here is the link :

https://www.tellyupdates.com/in-the-name-of-love-ishq-mein-marjawan-chapter-10/

“Ishaan, we are getting late. Make it quick,” said Riddhima wearing her helmet. She had to first drop Ishaan by his school and then leave for her college. That was the way how it was being managed for the past one month or so. Gayatri had offered them to use of one their cars, but Riddhima had politely declined the offer. She was already beginning to feel burdened by their favours, she didn’t want to feel more.

Ishaan sat behind her on the scooty and wore a helmet too. Riddhima was very particular about following all the rules and laws properly, she hated those who messed with the law of the country or took undue advantage of it. She stopped her scooty in time by the red light and waited patienty for the green signal.

Just then Ishaan pointed towards a car standing adjacent to them, “Look Dids, Vansh is here too. Oh hello Mr. Raisinghania!”
Riddhima was so flustered at Ishaan’s childishness, that she decided she didn’t even want to look in Vansh’s direction. But mentally, she could picturise the death stare he would be giving them right now. Soon curiosity got the better of her, and she half wantedly and half unwantedly, turned around only to meet Vansh’s gaze. Within a split of a second, she turned her face away.

Even as the scooty sped past by him, Vansh was still left pondering in her thoughts. He said, “There is something about that girl. Something about her eyes. I see the same fire burning in her eyes, that a few years ago used to burn inside of me. A fire is of use only till it remains in its limits. Once the limits are crossed and boundaries are broken, it brings about only havoc. Plain havoc.”

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When Riddhima reached the parking lot of her college, she found it to be unusually deserted.

“Are today’s classes cancelled or something?” she thought.

As she fidgeted with her phone trying to call up her friend, Ashima, she felt a movement behind her. Before she could do something, she felt cold, clammy fingers tugging at her hand. She was pulled to a corner and pushed against a wall. When she finally saw who it was, she let out a gasp.
“Kabir!” she said pushing him away. “What the hell do you think you are doing over here?”

Kabir almost lost his balance with the push. But he didn’t become angry. In fact, he kept on staring at her with a smile on his lips and a longing in his eyes. He loved Riddhima’s fierceness and courage, and these very attributes of her had got him to fall head over heels in love with her at the first sight itself.

Inspector Kabir Sharma had lost his mother at a very tender age and it was his father, Vinod Sharma, a retired police officer, who brought him and his brother up all by himself.

Few months back, he had been patrolling through a secluded area in the later part of afternoon, when all of a sudden he heard the scream of a woman from atop a hill. From below, he could see the shadow of two men trying to force themselves upon a girl.

“I need to save her before it is too late,” said Kabir dreadfully looking upon the long and steep path that he had to trod upon to reach the girl.

“I don’t think I’ll be able to save her on time,” he said dejectedly while continuing to run uphill.

It was taking all of his strength to run against the gravity, but he did not belong to those who gave up easily. He looked up for a moment and the shadowy figures were now beginning to appear clearer.

He could not believe his eyes when he saw a young girl with black, lustrous hair appear from nowhere, and fight off the two molesters all by herself. He hadn’t even seen her face, but still it was at that very moment when he had lost his heart to her.

When he finally made it to the top, she was still busy fighting off the goons, and she was almost closer to a win.
When she finally turned around towards him, he saw the most gorgeous face ever with eyes as dark as ebony. She started approaching towards him and almost raised her hand to smack him, but he caught her arm in mid-air. Being trained in martial arts himself, he knew what her next step would be – she would attempt to kick him in the groin. But before she could do that, he caught hold of her leg firmly, and she stumbled to the ground.

“I’m not one of them,” said Kabir pointing towards the thrashed goons. He showed her his identity card. “Inspector Kabir Sharma,” he said.

He could see a look of guilt and shock pass across her her face. She obviously didn’t know before that he was a police officer and therefore attempted to hit him, thinking him also to be one of the goons.

“I’m really sorry, I had no idea….” she tried to say.

Kabir brushed her off. “It’s alright. What’s your name?”

“Riddhima,” she said slowly after a while.

“Riddhima – what a beautiful name! As beautiful as her,” thought Kabir with a smile.

“The girl has been drugged I guess,” said Riddhima worriedly. “We need to take her to the hospital ASAP.”

Just then the siren of an approaching police vehicle filled their ears.

“My team is already here. We’ll take care of these rascals and we’ll also take the girl to the hospital. You needn’t worry at all,” said Kabir. “You may leave now. Or even better, let me drop you home. You can see how unsafe it is out here.”

“Don’t worry Inspector, I can very well take care of myself, and you very well know that,” said Riddhima hopping onto her scooty.

Kabir spent the next few days thinking about Riddhima. He had her phone number as well as her address when she had filled out her details to pose as a witness to the crime, but he didn’t want to seem like a stalker by attempting to contact with her.

Days passed by and thoughts about Riddhima were beginning to fade away from his mind as Kabir became increasingly busy in his work.
One fine day, his father asked him to accompany him to his friend’s house for a game of bridge (a game of cards). Inspite of his refusal, his father, Vinod did not pay any heed to him and literally dragged him over to his friend, Sushant’s house.

Kabir was in for a pleasant surprise when he found Riddhima there, looking as lovely as ever. However, she didn’t feel the same and instead felt very embarassed to see Kabir as her father’s friend’s son.

“Riddhima, your father and my friend leaves no opportunity to sing your praises. He always reiterates about how intelligent you are. So today, you have to prove your father right by making our team win this round,” said Vinod.

“It is easy for you to say Vinod, when you have been teamed with Riddhima who is good at this. But your son, Kabir knows nothing about this game at all. We are definitely going to lose,” said Sushant.

Sushant was right. Kabir was struggling to keep his pace as a newbie with the other experienced players, and finally he and Sushant lost as a team.

“Yeah! We won! It’s after so many days that I won against you Sushant,” shouted Vinod excitedly. “Riddhima the trump card you played towards the end, whoa! It was amazing.”

Riddhima beamed with joy and slapped her hand against Vinod’s to give him a high five. Kabir happily looked at her. Even though he had lost the game of cards, he had a strong feeling that he would win this game of love.

With each increasing visit to her house, Kabir became more and more well versed with the game and along with Riddhima as a team, even started winning against their respective fathers.

Riddhima started to grow closer to Kabir and started to consider him as a good friend. She never realised that he held any feelings for her until after a month or so, when he expressed his love for her.

“I really love you Riddhima,” he said looking into her eyes.

Riddhima was taken aback by this sudden confession. “But…I have always seen you only as a friend.”

“I know,” said Kabir. “I know you don’t love me as of now. But if you give me a chance, you will realise that my feelings are indeed pure and honest. My love for you isn’t sudden, I have been in love with you since the first time I saw you saving that girl from those goons. It wasn’t your beauty, but your courage that caught hold of my heart.I had wanted to disclose my feelings in front of you much before, but always felt afraid thinking what your reaction would be.

He continued, “I cannot force you to love me back, Riddhima. If it’s a no from your side, feel free to reject my feelings. If you wish, I’ll also never ever show my face to you.”

Riddhima remained quiet for a while. “If I say ‘no’, can we still atleast remain friends?”

“No Riddhima, I don’t think I can remain just friends with you, especially after how I have kept my heart wide open in front of you,” said Kabir.

“I need some time to think over,” she said a little sadly. Kabir had turned out to be a good friend of hers, and the thought of losing this friend hurt her. He was the most sincere guy she had ever met, and she was awed by how honest and simple he was with his proposal. He didn’t do any of that nonsense over-the-top stuff that other guys out there did to impress girls. Bouquet of flowers, candle light dinner, expensive gifts, this didn’t seem romantic to her. Romantic to her was the earnest way in which Kabir had approached her.

“It’s a yes,” she blurted out. “It’s a yes, Kabir.”

Kabir who was almost about to leave stopped in his tracks midway and turned around.
His happiness knew no bounds, when he heard her say that. She hadn’t told him ‘I love you’ yet, but she was willing to give him a chance, willing to try and love him. And this was more than enough for him.

The next few days were the best moments of Kabir’s life. He didn’t take her out on dates, neither spent hours on phone calls or sent her expensive gifts. He simply visited her house along with his father on the pretext of a game and and managed to steal some brief moments with her. Plus her entrance exam was nearing up and he didn’t want to pose as a distraction to her dreams.

But things weren’t going to remain as rosy. Kabir soon came to know that his dad was suffering from terminal cancer for which, he had to take him to US for further treatment.
He was away for a whole three months. As soon as he returned, the first thing he did was to visit his beloved Riddhima. But right now she was in no mood to listen to him.

“I don’t want to even see your face Kabir,” said Riddhima furiously. “Get lost!”

Kabir tried to explain. “Riddhima, I can understand your pain. Please atleast listen to me once.”

“You are a blatant liar Kabir,” cried Riddhima. “You had told me that you love me. You had told me that you’ll always be by my side when I need you. Then where the hell where you when I needed you the most? Where were you when my parents went missing? Where were you when my mom’s body was found? Where were you when my own uncle and aunt started playing games against me and my family? Where were you when I needed a shoulder to cry upon, because I couldn’t cry in front of my little brother? I tried calling you umpteen times, sent you atleast a thousand messages, but you were enjoying in your own sweet world!”

“Enjoying? Did you really say ‘enjoying’? Damn it, I was busy running from one hospital to another for my Papa’s treatment!” said Kabir.

“So you couldn’t even lift my calls or answer my messages for once?” asked Riddhima.

“No, because my phone had got stolen,” said Kabir.

“What?”

Kabir took a deep breath. “Yes Riddhima, that’s what I’ve been trying to explain to you for the past few minutes. When I was staying with Papa at the hospital, someone stole my phone when I was fast asleep. It had all the important contact numbers including yours. You know how bad I am with numbers. I so badly wanted to reach out to you, but didn’t know how.
Since Papa’s treatment got over, we returned to India yesterday itself. The first thing I did today morning was to visit your house where I was thrown into a rude shock when the security guard told me about how Sunidhi Aunty had passed away and how Sushant Uncle had been missing since more than a month. He also told me that you guys had moved away yesterday itself to some distant relative’s house about which he had no idea at all. Thankfully, he remembered the name of the college you were studying in, and that’s how I happen to be here.”

Kabir moved closer to Riddhima and grasped her hand in his. “Please forgive me, dearest Riddhima. I know I wasn’t there with you in your worst times of crisis, and it pains me to such an unexplainable extent. But now, I am back and I will never leave your side, come what may.”

Riddhima looked at him with tears in her eyes. He was now standing in front of her spreading his arms wide open, waiting for her to hug him. She finally buried her head into his chest and cried some more.

Precap : Vansh and Riddhima have a huge argument. Vansh decides to punish her for interfering in his personal matters.

Vansh comes to know that Riddhima is stuck in a place where riots are going on. He decides to go there himself and save her.

So that is it for today guys. Some of you had already guessed the person in the precap to be Kabir. (I know many of you won’t be very happy to know that Riddhima already has a boyfriend.) Anyways, do comment below citing your opinions about this update. Question for you all :

Do you like the dynamics between Kabir and Riddhima? Do you think Kabir is trustworthy?

Why will Vansh and Riddhima argue? Do you think he’ll be able to rescue her from the riots or not?