Gauri: Goodbye
August 1980
Now, Vineet was back in America, and she was on the bus, going to say goodbye to Mallika. Looking out of the window, she thought of how, after confessing his love to her on Randhir’s terrace, Vineet had rushed home and told his mother and sisters that he wanted to marry her. You’ve told them, but you haven’t asked me, you i***t, she wanted to say later, but she didn’t, because she was so disarmed by his straightforwardness, by his absolute certainty that he wanted to live the rest of his life with her. It felt small-spirited to say, ‘Vineet! You should have asked me first!’ Mallika’s example was always before her – the fact that neither Randhir nor Arnav had shown any desire to marry her, even after all these years. So what if Vineet hadn’t asked her? Her answ
