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Nandani was ready, but her heart refused to be calm.

Every girl fears this day—the day the boy’s family comes to see her.

She had watched what happened to her friends.

How their in-laws sat in the drawing room, talking about dowry,

and looking at those girls as if they were inspecting property, not a bride-to-be.

The same questions were now circling in Nandani’s mind.

She couldn’t afford to look weak.

Yet her mother’s voice echoed in her head—words she’d been hearing since childhood:

_“Keep your gaze down. Speak only when asked. Don’t say too much.

Learn how to be the perfect bahu.”_

Her mother had always said the same thing: Become a good daughter-in-law.

Nandani had never truly felt like a daughter in her own home.

She often thought her mother was preparing her—not as a child, but as an asset.

Something to be polished, so she could marry into a big house—

a house with money, power, and a name people feared.

Just like everyone feared her Baba and Bhaiya.

And now, that was exactly the kind of boy her mother had found:

her mother friend's nephew—a zamindar from a big village, soon to be the sarpanch.

Nandani’s biggest fear whispered in her mind:

Would Mahadev give her the husband she had prayed for?

Or would she get what her mother had chosen?

But she trusted Mahadev and Maa Parvati completely.

She believed they would never let anything wrong happen to her.

She knew how marriage changed a girl.

How her home, her identity, her very name—

all got stitched to her husband’s.

She had seen it in her own house.

Her bhabhis had changed after marriage.

They lived in fear of their husbands,

couldn’t even meet their eyes in front of their mother-in-law.

Nandani was lost in these thoughts when her bhabhi’s voice cut through:

Avantika: “Nandani, go and scatter these rose petals on the chaat. Make it look nice.”

Nandani obeyed and went up to the terrace.

She was arranging the petals when she heard the sound of a jeep.

She looked down—and saw them. The boy’s family had arrived.

Her eyes landed on a boy in a white kurta.

Those deep eyes—she had seen them just a week ago in the temple.

At that exact moment, the boy looked up.

Nandani quickly stepped back.

She leaned down again to look, and the rose petals slipped from her hands.

They fell—right onto Rudrakansh below.

Rudra stopped in his tracks.

He looked up, but no one was standing there.

Still, his heart began to race, as if Mahadev had just given him his answer.

And upstairs, Nandani rushed back to her room,

her heartbeat pounding.

It was the same boy from the temple—

the one whose chant had filled the air with something unexplainable,

as if Mahadev himself had spoken through him.

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