1 Marriageable age

It was fate

Like in all Indian marriages, if the parents of both the bride and groom agree to their would be son in law, or daughter in law, as in looks, temperament, status etc. the fates of their children were sealed.

N if you are lucky enough and find a partner out of love , either way you get the blessings of the elders in the family and the marriage is fixed.

Dev, an arrogant boy, rich and handsome, aged 28...marriage material type as seen in the eyes of his parents ,was in search for his would be wife.....

So in the regional newspaper, they gave an advertisement, that they needed a bride, good looking, ambitious, working , for an engineer groom, height 5'11", fair, handsome and witty. They were waiting for the responses and Dev's father was taking in notes, as his phone went on being constantly busy.

Dev had an elder sister Ika, who was eight years older to him. So he being the youngest in the family was pampered rotten. Anything he wished, his parents would bring in front of him.

His father was very powerful, in the coal industry. So everyone in the Indian business industry knew him and would not do anything to harm his pride. Dev's mom was a home maker. She was famous for her kitty parties and NGO projects. She did not give time to home, but when she did, it was mostly to scold the servants for not heeding to her son and his wishful tantrums.

Ika, seeing that the son of the family gets whatever he wants and she being shoved in a corner, decided to take the reigns of her life in her own hands and married off early, and settled far away with her doctor husband , away from her parents and brother.

Dev on noticing that his whims and fancies were being taken care of at the earliest, started getting influenced by many people. These people were generally his school mates, friends, seniors and his father's colleagues( junior staff) , etc

At the young age of eight when his mother was busy into kitty parties and father busy in earning money for the family, his butler, Thakurji, wanted to get into the good books of the young master. For this, he started to give him alcohol in small tea cups, saying the rich and influential are into these drinks, which give them the capacity of drinking and thinking.

To conquer loneliness, the neglected child, thought, to be able to be like his father, he needs to be a grown up man and think big, so to think big he started alcohol.

By the time he was 12 years old, he became used to alcohol. Bali, his father was unaware of it. So was his mother Gopi. Ika had seen all this coming and had tried to warn her mother, but Gopi did not heed her young daughter's advice and good intention. Gopi thought it was sibling rivalry.

Dev got very less marks in school and so as to improvise him, like in any traditional, Hindu family, of India, he was sent to a hostel for Rajkumar College, away from home.