Before we start and dive into this world of fiction, I would like to make one thing clear.

This story is a work of fiction created entirely from imagination. It is not written with the intention of hurting, mocking, or questioning anyone's faith, religion, beliefs, or sentiments. I have deep respect for every person and their respective beliefs.

Any resemblance to real people, events, or situations is purely coincidental.

I would also like to clarify that this story does not reflect any ideas, interpretations, or claims about Lord Shiva. Whatever is portrayed here exists only through the eyes of the protagonist and the way she understands and experiences the world around her.

If you feel that this story may offend you in any way, I kindly request that you stop reading here.

And to everyone who chooses to stay, thank you for giving this story a chance.

Now, let's begin.

Har Har Mahadev.

Her pov

"Haan, mummy, jao hu mandir,"  (Yes, Mom, I'm going to the temple.) I said, shifting the kalash carefully against my palm as I walked.

The brass kalash in my right hand was getting heavier. Or perhaps I had started noticing its weight.

There was a pause on the other end. Then my mother's unmistakable voice came through.

"Photo bhejna." (Send photos)

I rolled my eyes.

"Mummy yaar, mai kahu jab jao hu. Itna bhi bharosa ni ?"

(Common on mom, When I say I'm going, don't you even have that much trust in me?)

"Nahi." (No)

I stopped walking for half a second.

Excuse me?

I placed my phone between my left shoulder and ear, switched the kalash to my left hand, then picked up the phone with my right hand and pressed it properly against my ear.

"Fine. Bhej dungi photo." (Fine, I’ll send photos)

My mother ignored that and asked, "Aur mandir bhi lower-T-shirt mein to ni chali gayi?" (And you didn't go to the temple wearing those lowers and T-shirts again, did you?)

Of course.

Of all the things my mother could worry about on Mahashivratri, my clothes ranked somewhere above world peace and below national security.

I looked down at myself.

A simple pale yellow kurti, comfortable pants, flat sandals.

Nothing suspicious.

"Nahi yaar, mummy," (No, Mom,) I said, already knowing where this conversation was going. "Main kurti pehen ke aayi hu." (I'm wearing a kurti.)

"Maine bhi—" (I was only saying—)

I cut her off before she could continue.

"Okay, theek hai. Bye-bye. Main baad mein karungi, phone. Aur photo bhi bhej dungi." (Okay, okay, bye. I'll call you later. And I'll send the photo too.)

I ended the call before my mother could find another question.

For a moment, I smiled at the screen.

I slipped my phone into the pocket of my pants and looked up.

The temple stood before me.

It was almost unrecognizable beneath the decorations.

The white marble temple stood ahead, shining beneath the soft morning sun. Devotees filled the steps, their chants of Har Har Mahadev rising into the air.

For a moment, I stood there.

Mahashivratri.

Of course.

I had completely forgotten how crowded it would be.

Strings of marigold flowers draped from every archway and pillar. Fresh mango leaves hung over the entrance, swaying gently whenever the breeze found its way through the crowd. Long chains of tiny yellow bulbs wrapped around the white temple walls, making the entire structure look as though it had been carved from light instead of marble.

The sound hit me next. Temple bells, Hundreds of conversations, Children laughing, Vendors shouting.

I tightened my grip on the kalash. The cold metal pressed against my palm.

My mother would be pleased. I was at the temple. Wearing a decent kurti.

Carrying jal.

Behaving like a responsible daughter.

For once.

What she didn't know was that I was mostly here because she had called me six times before eight in the morning.

According to my mother, Mahashivratri was the perfect day to pray for a good husband. These instructions had followed me all the way from my hometown, Panipat, to Gurgaon because apparently being twenty-four, employed, and unmarried was now considered a national emergency.

I shook my head.

If Mahadev was listening today, He was probably tired of hearing mothers ask Him to find suitable grooms for their daughters.

Still, I climbed the first temple steps.

And then realized the crowd was far worse than I had imagined.

A long-suffering sigh left my lips.

Why couldn't I just come tomorrow?

Or the day after?

Or literally any other day when this temple wasn't apparently hosting half the city?

I wasn't someone who disliked temples. I believed in God. At least I thought I did.

Just not enough.

Spirituality had never been the center of my life. I wasn't the kind of person who could sit before a Shivling for an hour with my eyes closed and feel the universe speaking to me.

For me, God had always been something quietly present in the background.

And occasionally my emergency contact.

I decided to be as quick as possible. I could already imagine myself back in my room, changing into the lower and T-shirt my mother had been complaining about.

Jaldi. (Quick.)

I was almost at the entrance. Just one more step.

Someone came down. Someone else came up. A child squeezed between two people. A woman called out to her husband.

And in the middle of all that chaos, a stranger and I stepped into the same patch of space at exactly the wrong moment.

He was coming out of the temple.

The kalash tilted in my hand.

A generous splash of water flew out.

A few drops fell on my kurti.

A few on my hand.

A few on him.

And I froze.

For a second I stared at the dark patch of wet fabric spreading across my kurti.

Seriously?

I hurriedly switched the kalash to my other hand and shook the excess water from my fingers before brushing my palm down the front of my kurti, trying to wipe away the water that was obviously going nowhere.

Only then did the words escape my mouth.

"Chore, dikhe koni tane?" (Are you blind or what? Couldn't you see where you were going?)

The stranger, meanwhile, was fixing his own clothes. He looked down at the damp patch on his kurta, rubbed at it once, and glanced at me.

"Chori, you could have seen as well." (Girl, you could have watched where you were going too.)

I finally looked up.

He was standing one step above me.

Apparently, he had just come out of the temple while I was trying to get inside.

Neither of us had exactly been looking where we were going.

I knew that.

He probably knew that too.

But my kurta was wet, and there were approximately five thousand people around me, so naturally, I chose irritation.

"Meri to foot rahi hai. Tane to dekha honda." (Apparently, I am blind. You could have looked where you were going.)

The man's eyebrows drew together. He clearly hadn't understood.

Of course.

It happened all the time. Sometimes people understood Haryanvi, sometimes they didn't. Apparently, there were so many people in Gurgaon who didn't know Haryanvi that over time they just started understanding bits and pieces of it.

He frowned.

"Huh?"

For a second, I looked at him. Then I shook my head.

"Kuch ni." (Nothing.)

And I moved to my left to bypass him.

But he moved to his right.

Directly into my path.

Now blocking it.

I stopped.

He looked at me expectantly.

"No. You said something."

My jaw tightened.

"I did."

Then he waited for a second before saying, with the patience of a man treating this like a matter of national importance,

"Then say it again."

I glanced toward the temple. Then at the crowd around us.

Then back at him.

My patience had officially left the building.

Before I could process my own decision, I reached out with my right hand, grabbed his right elbow, and physically shifted him a step to his right.

Not violently.

Just enough to slip past him.

"Mere dhore to itna time ni." (I don't have that much time to waste.)

And with that, I moved straight ahead in one swift motion.

The man turned after me.

I knew it without looking back.

"Hey!"

I kept walking and threw “whatever” over my shoulder to him.

The bells in the temple kept ringing.

The crowd kept moving.

So did I.

Behind me, the stranger remained somewhere on those stairs. Or maybe he didn't. I didn't bother checking.

Though I wouldn't mind updating this information later.

Sometimes, a language barrier was far more interesting than it seemed.

The moment I stepped inside the temple, the noise seemed to multiply.

Outside, there had been a crowd.

Inside, there was the entire world.

The temple opened into a massive hall surrounding the inner sanctum, and every visible corner seemed occupied. People sat along the marble floor in family groups, some chatting quietly while they waited for darshan, others reciting prayers beneath their breath. Long lines curved through the hall like rivers, breaking and reforming around pillars decorated with flowers and lights.

For a moment, I simply stood there, trying to make sense of it all.

Then, on my left, there was a corner designated for shoes and slippers. I moved there to take off my sandals, and while I was doing that, I heard the sound of a damru.

One beat.

Then another.

I turned my head.

On one side of the enormous hall, a smaller section had been decorated like a stage. A crowd had gathered around it, but strangely, nobody seemed impatient. People were watching.

I glanced toward the main sanctum and then back at the performance.

I'll just watch for a moment.

I placed my flats among the other footwear and moved toward the crowd barefoot. The cold marble beneath my feet felt good somehow.

Once I reached there, one minute became two.

Then more.

I found myself standing with the crowd. The performance was easy enough to identify.

Shiva and Parvati's marriage.

I had seen versions of the story before.

Every Mahashivratri seemed to include some variation of it.

Yet there was something strangely engaging about watching it unfold here, inside a temple filled with devotees rather than on a television screen.

A woman playing Parvati was already on stage, praying.

The actress was dressed in rich red and gold, adorned with enough jewellery to blind anyone standing too close. And she looked pretty too.

Beautiful, I would say.

Personally, if someone put that much jewellery on me, I'd look like a walking mannequin from a wedding showroom.

She somehow made it work.

Then the sound of the damru came again. The crowd immediately grew quieter. And that was when Shiva entered the stage.

For a second, I genuinely forgot I was watching a performance.

The man looked less like an actor and more like someone who had walked out of an ancient painting.

His entire body was covered in ash.

Thick rudraksha malas hung around his neck and chest.

His matted hair fell almost to his waist, and a large snake coiled around his shoulders with unsettling realism.

I blinked.

Good lord.

Whoever had prepared him had clearly decided that subtlety was unnecessary.

The actor stood motionless at the center of the stage, his expression calm, detached, almost severe. Under the bright lights, the ash covering his skin made him appear otherworldly.

For several moments, neither character spoke.

Then the music changed.

A familiar rhythm emerged.

A ragni.

The moment the first lines began, I smiled.

Of course.

Trust Haryana to turn every mythology into a conversation in the unmistakable rhythm of a Haryanvi folk song.

Lord Shiva began to sing. The song was playful, almost teasing.

He looked toward Parvati as though he were explaining something painfully obvious. Shiva seemed genuinely confused as to why Parvati insisted on marrying him.

The song listed his flaws one by one with impressive enthusiasm.

Look at me, it seemed to say.

I'm covered in ash.

I wear snakes as accessories.

I wander through cremation grounds.

I don't own a palace.

I don't possess wealth.

I don't behave like a king.

I don't even live like a normal human being.

Then the focus shifted to Parvati.

A princess – Graceful, Beautiful.

Raised among comfort and luxury.

Someone who could have chosen any king, any prince, any respectable man in the world.

The contrast became increasingly ridiculous with every verse.

The audience laughed.

I laughed too.

The actor playing Shiva had excellent timing, delivering each complaint with exaggerated disbelief as though he genuinely couldn't understand Parvati's life choices.

Yet beneath the humour, something about the song lingered.

Maybe because at its core it wasn't really about ash or snakes or palaces.

It was about someone looking at another person and saying—

You deserve better than me.

Damn.

I liked this ragni far more than I cared to admit. Actually, I had loved this ragni since I was a child.

I found myself singing along under my breath.

"Re mai bhaang ragad ke piya karu, mai kundi sotte aala hu..."  (I grind and drink bhang, I have mortar and pestle only….)

The singer's voice rose with the next verse, and the damru joined the rhythm.

Around me, people watched peacefully. Nobody was pushing. Nobody was checking the queue.

For these few minutes, the enormous temple seemed to have forgotten that thousands of people were waiting for darshan.

I forgot too.

The kalash in my hand suddenly felt lighter.

Eventually, the ragni came to an end. There was a final beat.

Then everybody shouted together—

"Har Har Mahadev!"

The crowd clapped.

And then came the dialogue.

Parvati stood before Shiva, determined as ever, while Shiva continued to argue his case with the patience of a man who had apparently decided that marriage was an excellent opportunity to list all his shortcomings.

I watched, amused, as the conversation went back and forth.

Eventually, after enough teasing, pleading, and dramatic expressions, Shiva finally gave in.

The crowd cheered.

Someone behind me said excitedly, "Dekha? Shivji maan gaye." (See, lord Shiva agreed.)

I smiled.

Then came the baraat.

And apparently, this was where things became wonderfully ridiculous.

Shiva appeared with his baraat of bhoots (ghosts)and strange-looking companions, everyone dressed to make the procession as chaotic and theatrical as possible.

Children laughed.

People clapped along with the music.

The damru started again.

I was still watching when a woman standing nearby leaned toward her daughter and said excitedly,

"Whoever asks Lord Shiva for a good husband, He helps them find the perfect match." I blinked.

Really?

My eyes moved toward the stage.

Toward the man playing Lord Shiva.

I almost laughed.

So that was it.

Apparently, finding the man of your dreams was that easy.

Just walk into a temple on Mahashivratri, ask Lord Shiva for a husband, and—

Congratulations.

Dream man delivered.

I pressed my lips together to stop myself from laughing.

As if Lord Shiva had nothing better to do.

As if it were genuinely that simple.

As if men with all the qualities on my imaginary list were standing somewhere in a warehouse waiting to be dispatched by divine order.

I reached for my phone.

The screen lit up.

I checked the time.

My eyes widened.

"What?"

I stared at the screen again. Almost an hour had passed. I had planned to get in and out as quickly as possible.

Great.

Suddenly, I remembered the kalash in my hand.

I slipped my phone back into my pocket and looked toward the queue.

"Damn it."

The line stretched far beyond where it had been earlier.

I hurried over and joined it.

It moved slowly.

Very slowly.

At this rate, my marriageable age was going to expire while I stood here waiting for jal visarjan.

I sighed dramatically.

Then I looked at the kalash. And at the remaining water inside it. Half the water had already been accidentally visarjaned (offered).

On me.

And on the stranger.

I frowned.

Okay.

I tilted my head toward the sanctum. Maybe not visarjan. I looked at the remaining water again.

A sponge bath, perhaps.

I snorted at my own joke.

The line moved exactly one step.

"Are yaar."

It was Mahashivratri.

They were standing inside a Shiva temple. Surely, I reasoned, the line should move like a fast-moving snake.

I smiled at my own thought.

Fast-moving snake.

Okay.

That was actually funny.

I looked around, trying not to appear like someone who had already lost patience after approximately three minutes.

A few people joined behind me. Then a few more. Then even more. I glanced over my shoulder.

The line had grown considerably.

I looked forward again.

By the time I reached the front section of the queue, I felt as though I had aged several years.

The sanctum was visible now, though still frustratingly distant. I could see devotees entering in small groups, offering their prayers before being gently encouraged to move along by temple volunteers.

I was close enough to feel hopeful.

Which was probably a mistake.

Hope and queues rarely worked well together.

For one dangerous moment, I considered abandoning the queue and going back.

The thought was genuinely tempting.

Then I looked toward the sanctum again.

No.

I had suffered far too much to leave now. I was practically a veteran of this line. Nothing short of divine intervention was getting me out of it.

Somewhere behind me, the sound of a damru suddenly rose above the noise of the crowd.

As I turned my attention back to the queue, an odd sensation prickled at the back of my neck.

The unmistakable feeling of being watched.

I frowned and glanced around.

A group of women stood nearby chanting quietly. A child was attempting to climb a pillar while his increasingly desperate mother tried to stop him. An elderly man counted prayer beads. Two teenagers nodded dutifully at their parents while very clearly listening to absolutely nothing being said.

Nobody was looking at me.

Instinctively, I turned my head toward the performance area. Apparently, the play was still going on.

Everyone seemed occupied with their own lives.

I watched for another moment before finally dismissing the feeling. Maybe I was imagining things. The crowd was large enough to make anyone feel self-conscious.

Shrugging the thought away, I turned forward again.

The line moved.

Finally.

I could now see the entrance clearly.

Almost there.

Almost.

The person standing directly ahead of me moved forward, and automatically I prepared to follow.

Then somebody walked past from the side. Not someone trying to find a family member. Not someone confused about where the line began.

Someone who simply walked straight past everyone else and stepped directly into the space that had just opened in front of me.

For a moment, I stared.

Surely not.

Surely nobody was that shameless.

Apparently somebody was.

The man carried a backpack slung over one shoulder and seemed perfectly comfortable bypassing several minutes—possibly hours—of collective suffering. My reaction was immediate.

Before he could take another step, I reached out, grabbed the strap of his bag, and yanked it backward.

The movement caught him completely off guard.

He stumbled slightly before regaining his balance and turning around with the expression of a man who felt personally betrayed by gravity.

"Line," I informed him coldly.

Only then did I properly look at his face.

And froze.

Oh.

It was him.

The staircase guy.

Recognition flickered across both our faces at almost the same moment. The victim of my flying kalash water.

The human roadblock.

The language barrier.

Today, apparently, Mahadev had decided our paths would continue crossing.

He was wearing a soft sage-green kurta that reached the upper part of his thighs, paired with white trousers. His thick hair covered nearly half his forehead and looked like he'd lost an argument with a hairbrush and simply accepted defeat. A few days' worth of beard softened an otherwise sharp jawline.

His dark eyes settled on me. Lazy-looking at first glance. Yet strangely focused when he actually looked at someone.

I watched recognition settle into them. His expression changed immediately.

"Ah."

A smile appeared.

The fakest smile I had ever seen in my life.

"Chori. Hello." (Girl, Hello.)

I narrowed my eyes.

He continued as though we were old friends meeting unexpectedly.

"I have to go inside. It's urgent."

Urgent.

Of course it was.

Everyone's excuse was always urgent.

I was still holding onto his bag.

And unless my memory had completely failed me, he definitely hadn't been carrying this bag when we had met on the stairs earlier.

Interesting.

"We all have to go inside," I said. "That's why there's a line."

His smile widened.

Unfortunately, it remained just as fake.

"No, no. I'm not going inside the temple."

“Liar.”

The moment I let go, he would disappear straight toward the sanctum.

I knew it. I glanced toward the entrance.

There isn't even a line at the sanctum entrance once you're close enough. Once someone got close enough, they could practically merge into the crowd.

He looked mildly offended.

"I'm serious."

I tightened my grip on the bag. He glanced down at my hand. Then back at me. Then at my hand again.

I still didn't let go.

"Then why are you here," I asked slowly, "if you're not going inside?"

His fake smile twitched. I narrowed my eyes. Around us, the line continued moving. Neither of us moved with it.

For a second, he looked at me. Then his expression changed. Just enough to tell me he was deciding whether to answer honestly.

Which meant there was definitely a story.

He pointed in a direction past the sanctum.

"See? I'm going there."

I followed the direction of his finger.

A small office-like room stood along one side of the temple hall. People occasionally entered and exited through the door, though it was far enough from the sanctum that it didn't seem related to the queue.

"I have to go to that office," he said. "Seriously. I'm not breaking the line."

I squinted at the room.

Then at him.

Then back at the room.

And that was when I noticed another man standing just outside the office.

And what on earth—

That man had someone by the back of his neck. Not in the way friends grabbed each other while joking around.

Not playfully.

Actually, holding him.

Or more accurately, restraining him.

The scene looked suspiciously like either a very aggressive conversation or the opening sequence of a crime documentary.

The man holding was annoyingly handsome, too.

The sort of man whose face suggested he should be starring in advertisements for expensive watches instead of intimidating people outside temples.

The other man looked significantly less confident.

Which somehow made the whole thing worse.

Because in my experience, attractive people often received entirely too much benefit of the doubt.

I mentally cursed myself for even noticing that in the middle of this situation.

I looked at the stranger beside me.

Then at the man outside the office.

Then back again.

Yep.

Definitely Gurgaon men.

Half the city's men looked like they belonged on magazine covers and behaved like rejected movie villains.

More importantly, I suddenly realized something.

This was Gurgaon.

And continuing to stand here holding onto a strange man's bag was probably not a brilliant idea.

Perhaps I should let this idiot go.

Not because I believed him.

I still wasn't entirely convinced.

Even if he somehow slipped into the sanctum afterward, I would rather wait an extra five minutes than accidentally involve myself in whatever was happening over there.

With a dramatic expression that clearly communicated my opinion of him, his explanation, and possibly his entire existence, I released the bag.

"Hn."

The sound escaped before I even realized I had spoken.

His mouth twitched. Not quite a smile. Definitely amusement. He adjusted the strap over his shoulder and shook his head lightly.

"Thank you for your cooperation."

"Hn."

I rolled my eyes.

I didn't know why I did it. It simply happened.

He laughed.

Actually laughed.

As if my annoyance was somehow entertaining. I immediately disliked him a little more.

Without another word, he walked away.

I watched him go.

Only because he was heading in the same direction I had just been looking.

Nothing else.

Mostly because I wanted to confirm that he wasn't immediately sprinting toward the sanctum.

To his credit, he wasn't.

He headed exactly where he had claimed he was going. Toward the office. Maybe he hadn't been lying.

The realization was mildly disappointing.

I had been enjoying being suspicious.

A few moments later, he reached the office area. The annoyingly handsome man was still standing there.

The second man looked even less happy than before.

Without breaking stride, the staircase idiot slipped the bag from his shoulder and tossed it toward the handsome man.

Not threw.

Tossed.

Like this happened every day.

The other man caught it effortlessly.

Then the staircase idiot immediately turned and began walking toward the performance area where the play was still taking place.

I blinked.

That was it?

That was the urgent mission?

Delivering a bag?

The second man suddenly tried to make a run for it. An extremely bad decision, apparently.

Because in one smooth motion, the handsome man reached out, grabbed the back of his T-shirt, and stopped him before he had taken more than two steps.

The entire movement looked effortless. The fleeing man nearly folded backward.

I stared.

The handsome man looked up. And for one terrible second, our eyes met.

Immediately, instinct took over.

I snapped my head forward so fast I nearly gave myself whiplash.

Nope.

Absolutely not.

I suddenly became deeply interested in the sanctum.

In fact, I had never been more interested in anything in my entire life.

The sanctum was beautiful.

The sanctum was peaceful.

The sanctum had never once made eye contact with me while holding another grown man captive by his shirt. I focused on it with religious dedication. Just a little longer. I was almost there.

The line moved again.

Finally.

I stepped forward eagerly, tightening my grip around the kalash.

Only a few people remained ahead of me now. Just a few more.

Soon I would offer the remaining water, take my darshan, collect prasad, and leave.