Arjun stepped through the threshold of his home, only to find his mother standing at the door with a weary, extinguished spirit. The welcome he received was as muted as the heavy silence that hung in the air—no rituals of affection, no warmth of reunion. The spectacle that had unfolded earlier had left no room for such expectations.She simply stood there, gazing at him. Her face bore no clear expression, yet the deep exhaustion of her long illness was etched plainly across her features.
Even the sight of her son arriving with an unfamiliar young woman elicited no surprise from her. After a long pause, she asked in a quiet, subdued voice, "Son, how did all this happen? Are you happy?"The question struck Arjun like a blow. His throat tightened, and his eyes dropped in shame.
Ranjana, who had returned to her maternal home after many days upon hearing the news, immediately sensed the heavy silence between them. Her eyes, too, welled up with pain, for she knew her brother's heart better than anyone.
"Brother," she said gently, "I care more about your happiness than about what society thinks."She led Shreya to her room and began tending to her needs with the tenderness of an elder sister.
"Di," she told Shreya, "you are now a member of this house—Mother's second daughter and one of its pillars. Whether this bond was forced or born without consent, we must now nurture it with affection and make it our own."
Arjun's eyes brimmed with tears. He looked at his sister and spoke in a calm, measured tone, "I feel the same. It is one thing to bind someone with love, but quite another to tie them with pressure. That only brings pain to both."
"Tell her, Ranjana," he continued, "that I will not keep her imprisoned. This house is, for now, the safest place for her. There is no point in delaying this matter. We should call Captain Raghav today itself, explain everything to him, and then do whatever he advises. Until he arrives, we will wait.
"When Arjun finally called him, Raghav's voice carried the weight of pain, accusation, and bitter complaint.
"You had gone there as my mediator," he said, "yet you returned with Shreya as your bride. I trusted you so completely, Arjun, and you have taken everything from me."Those words shattered something deep inside Arjun. He wanted desperately to explain that none of it had been his will, but the frenzied crowd had refused to listen. Their personal story had been drowned beneath the weight of age-old customs and rituals.
Even Raghav had now turned away from him. He declared that he could no longer bear the burden of this relationship. His parents had already been opposed to it; now, after seeing the viral reel, matters had spiraled beyond repair.
Arjun felt as though he were being crushed like a weevil between grains of wheat—trapped unwillingly between two hearts that had once loved each other. He had failed to preserve either the friendship or the love, and the regret of it gnawed at him relentlessly.
Never had he imagined that Captain Raghav would fail to understand his anguish. Both trust and friendship seemed to lie in ruins. In the blink of an eye, he had fallen from the pages of Raghav's good books into the list of his enemies. The weight upon his heart grew so heavy that even breathing became a struggle.
Until now, he had seen himself merely as a victim of circumstances; now he began to feel guilty as well. If only he had roared like a soldier that day in front of everyone and summoned the courage to speak. If only he had shouted aloud that this marriage was unacceptable to him. If only he had not remained silent and had rebelled instead… That very silence had now become his harshest punishment.
He was left with neither friendship, nor trust, nor peace.This unwanted bond and the broken faith felt like the cruelest joke destiny could play. Everything he tried to save slipped through his fingers like sand.Never, even in the valleys of Kashmir, had he felt such a crushing burden. There, his fellow soldiers would lift one another's spirits when needed. Even while standing guard on snow-covered peaks in freezing cold, breathing had never felt this suffocating. These days, his duty was in the highly sensitive Rajouri sector of Kashmir, where skirmishes with terrorists and the Pakistani army occurred almost daily. In the Rajouri-Poonch sector, Arjun and his comrades kept vigil through biting cold and eerie silence along the border.
All night they remained alert, guarding the frontier against the enemy's treacherous gaze. The adversaries used darkness as their ally, so the soldiers kept their eyes as sharp as flaming torches, ever watchful, every step cautious. Suddenly, the thunder of gunfire would shatter the stillness, filling the air with the acrid smell of gunpowder, the crack of bullets, and the shadow of death. Yet a soldier's heart never wavered. He would press his rifle to his chest, roar "Jai Hind!" and raise his voice to bolster the courage of his brothers-in-arms. Even when bullets tore through a soldier's uniform, he refused to yield.
A soldier's final breath remained devoted to the motherland. As long as life lingered, he stood firm on the border. And when his last breath came, he would utter "Vande Mataram" and offer his all for the country. With the arrival of a new dawn, the frontier would once again lie secure in resolute hands.
When the mortal remains of an Agniveer, wrapped in the tricolour, reached his village, he received the same honour as any martyred soldier. The nation bowed its head before that Agniveer just as it did before a regular jawan. In Rajouri-Poonch and across other sectors, many Agniveers had written immortal tales of valour with their blood.
Late that night, after everyone else had gone to sleep, his mother called Arjun to her side.
In a frail voice she said, "Son, the world may say whatever it wishes, but the sadness on your face tells me everything. A forced relationship brings pain, yet if you and this girl become each other's support, this very bond can grow into a true home."
"Mother," Arjun replied softly, "she is the beloved of my senior, Captain Raghav. I only knew her in passing. I had gone there with the intention of reconciling them, but I became a victim of the situation instead. I cannot harbour any such feelings for her."
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