CHARACTER AESTHETICS

21| RADIO JOCKEY

24| CRICKETER

T R O P E S

Cricket Star × Radio Jockey

Enemies to Lovers

Slow Burn

Endless Banter

Celebrity Romance

Grumpy × Sunshine

He Falls First

Opposites Attract

Forced Proximity

Public Rivals, Private Feelings

Mutual Pining

Emotional Healing

Happily Ever After

D I S C L A I M E R

Every heartbeat in these pages is fictional.

This story is a work of imagination. The characters, places, radio stations, cricketing events, and incidents portrayed here exist solely for the purpose of storytelling. Any resemblance to real people, teams, organisations, broadcasters, or events is purely coincidental.

This novel is written to make you smile, laugh, ache, and fall in love, nothing more, nothing less.

So, turn the page, tune in, and let fiction take the strike.

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𝐌𝐀𝐑 𝐉𝐀𝐍𝐈 𝐉𝐇𝐀𝐍𝐉𝐇𝐀𝐑

I slapped him. Hard, and full across his cheek, in front of the entire, breathless city of Banaras. His head snapped to one side with the force of it, the sound cracking through the air like something struck from a temple bell, sharp, final, undeniable. The whole marketplace fell silent in the space of a single heartbeat. Eyes widened around me. Someone's breath left their body in an audible gasp. I stood there afterward, drawing in long, ragged breaths, as though the act itself had cost me more courage than I possessed, because it had. For a girl like me, it had taken everything. I could have stayed silent. I could have looked away, the way everyone else in that crowd had chosen to. But I hadn't. Why? I still don't fully know. It was instinct, pure and unthinking, I hadn't planned to raise my hand, hadn't imagined myself capable of it. But watching him beat that old man with such brutal, mechanical indifference had lit something in me that refused to be reasoned with. Couldn't he see the man was old enough to be his father? This wasn't the reckless violence of a man who'd simply lost control for sport. He must have had his reasons, everyone always does. But reasons or not, couldn't he have spoken instead? Respectfully. Was that truly too much to expect of a man, even a gunda like him? Maybe it was. His face was still turned from the force of the slap when the sky itself seemed to answer me. Thunder cracked somewhere far above, low and rolling, and a hard gust of wind swept through the marketplace so suddenly that I staggered half a step. Moments ago we had all been drenched in sweat beneath a scorching afternoon sun; now the air had shifted entirely, cool and heavy, like the held breath before a monsoon storm. My dupatta caught the wind and began to lift and flutter wildly, and I fought to gather it back, right as I felt him turn. Slowly. Deliberately. His head came back toward me, and though I couldn't see his eyes yet, I could feel his gaze land on me like a physical weight. No one had ever looked at me with that kind of intensity before, not affection, not anger exactly, not even simple menace. It was something else entirely: a burning, confused fury, tangled with something I couldn't name. My skin prickled beneath it. The fine hairs at the back of my neck rose, my whole body flushing hot as though I'd been dipped in something molten, goosebumps rising along my arms despite the sudden cold in the air. I was scared. Genuinely, unmistakably scared, I won't pretend otherwise. There was something in the very air around him, some invisible current of danger, that silenced me completely. And not only me. The entire crowd had frozen where they stood, trembling collectively in the wake of whatever aura surrounded this man, unable to step forward either to protect me or to save themselves. Then his hand rose. I closed my eyes instantly, certain, utterly certain, that the return slap was coming, that this was simply how men like him settled things, using their hands against anyone smaller, anyone weaker, anyone who dared to challenge them in public. But I told myself, even in that frozen second, that I would not stay silent if it came. I would fight. Whatever happened next, I would not simply let it happen to me. But the slap never landed. I opened my eyes slowly, cautiously, only to find his fist closed instead around my dupatta, the very fabric the wind had stolen from my shoulder, now caught and gathered in his grip, forming a strange, fragile barrier between his body and mine. Carefully, almost deliberately slow, he pulled it downward, and in that motion, our eyes finally met. And they were familiar. Familiar in a way that stole the air from my chest, as though I had seen them somewhere before, though I couldn't place where, and my treacherous, forgetful memory offered me nothing useful, no name, no place, no dream to anchor the feeling to. His expression gave away nothing. His eyes were empty in the strangest way, not lifeless, but vast, a hollow, black stillness that felt like both a curse and an invitation, the kind of darkness a person could drown in and somehow not mind drowning. My mind stayed caught there, snagged on his eyes, even as his hand continued lowering the dupatta and the rest of his face slowly came into view. A jawline framed by a neatly trimmed beard. A long, straight nose. Cheeks shadowed faintly along the jaw where the beard thickened. And then, without my permission, my gaze slipped lower, to his lips. I stopped there entirely. They were, simply, beautiful, a deep, dark red, perfectly shaped, unfairly striking on a man who had just been beating someone senseless minutes ago. Whoa. What on earth was I doing? I had never once in my life caught myself fantasizing about a stranger's mouth, and yet here I stood, doing exactly that, in the middle of a street, moments after slapping him T R O P E S Gangster × Historian He Falls First and harder Enemies to Lovers[Partial] Slow Burn Grumpy × Sunshine Forced proximity The City's Most Feared Man × The Girl Least Afraid of Him Fated Encounter Touch Her and Die Morally Grey Hero × Kind-Hearted Heroine Fated Souls Forbidden love

𝐒𝐈𝐋𝐄𝐍𝐓 𝐈𝐍𝐅𝐄𝐑𝐍𝐎

B A N A R A S The pyres of Manikarnika usually claim the dead, but tonight, the fire had grown wings. It escaped the stone embankments, climbing the ancient stairs and licking the foundations of the temples until the entirety of Banaras seemed to be a golden, shivering ghost. The Ganga reflected not the moon, but a city self-combusting in a fever of its own making. It was a night that would be etched into the memory of the stones themselves, a night when the air tasted of salt, gunpowder, and the bitter incense of a love that had outrun its heartbeat. They stood in the center of this SILENT INFERNO, two silhouettes against a tapestry of orange and ash. Ishani's hand shivered, the cold steel of the pistol heavy against the warmth of his chest. It was a cruel irony; the gun felt like the only solid thing in a world that was liquefying into embers. Her eyes, usually pools of quiet resilience, were now overflowing banks of a river that had finally broken its dams. Across from her, his hand was anchored to her waist, his own weapon pressed firmly against the small of her back, a mirror image of a tragic stalemate. The silence between them was louder than the roaring Ghats. They had crossed every threshold of ishq, traversing the valleys of devotion until there were no more miles left to walk. They had loved with a recklessness that the world viewed as a crime, a frantic rebellion against the cold ledgers of caste, the rigid boundaries of religion, and the suffocating weight of status. They had forgotten the duniya-daari, the social arithmetic that dictates who is allowed to breathe the same air, and in doing so, they had authored their own destruction. "Humari bas yahi khata thi... humne ishq duniya-daari ko bhool kar kiya..." The words were a ragged whisper, a final confession before the altar of the night. Their only sin was forgetting that the world is a hungry beast that feeds on the pure. Now, they had reached the final station—Maut. Death was not a stranger coming to claim them; it was the only sanctuary left for a love that had no home on the soil of the living. She had always dreamt of a love that mirrored the eternal union of Mahadev and Shakti. She craved the kind of devotion that turned a sacrifice into a legend, a story that the children of Banaras would whisper as they ran through the labyrinthine lanes. She wanted to be the completion of a soul, a celestial alignment that the earth could not shake. But in her pursuit of the divine, she had forgotten the ending of the earthly myths. Perhaps they were never meant to be the icons of survival, but the martyrs of a lost cause. The narrow streets of Banaras, which had once been the witness to their stolen glances and secret smiles, now felt like the ribcage of a dying giant. She looked into his eyes and saw the ghosts of a thousand futures they would never inhabit. She saw the old age they wouldn't share, the children whose names would never be spoken, and the quiet mornings by the river that had been traded for this singular, scorching night. The tragedy wasn't just that they were dying; it was that they were dying by the very hands that had once offered them life. As the heat of the burning city pressed in, he pulled her closer, his hand on her waist tightening as if he could weld their bodies together one last time. His gun remained steady, a silent promise of an exit. T hey were two stars colliding, a beautiful catastrophe that illuminated the dark before the final collapse. The tears they shed were no longer separate; they mixed upon their cheeks, a singular saline stream that mourned the unfairness of a world that values power over the pulse of a human heart. Then, the world narrowed down to the space between their lips. It wasn't a kiss of passion; it was a devastating collision of two souls trying to pour a lifetime into a few seconds. It tasted of copper, salt, and the smoky air of the Ghats. It was a kiss that contained every "I love you" they hadn't said and every "goodbye" they weren't ready for. Their lips were parched, trembling, and desperate, a final, frantic attempt to breathe each other in before the oxygen was replaced by lead and silence. In that embrace, the shivering of her hand ceased. The gun against his chest felt lighter, or perhaps her heart had simply grown too heavy to care. The society they lived in, a fortress of old names and cold gold, could take their lives, but it could not touch this moment. They were making a sacrifice not to the gods, but to the purity of their own bond. If they could not live together in the light of the sun, they would vanish together into the shadows of the night, leaving the world to wonder what it had destroyed. The sky over the Ganges was no longer black; it was a bruised purple, choked with the soot of a city in mourning. The bells of the temples seemed to toll for them, a rhythmic, metallic weeping that vibrated in their very marrow. They were at the end of the map. Beyond this was only the river, the fire, and the unknown. They clung to each other like shipwrecked survivors who had finally realized that there was no shore in sight, only the vast, beckoning deep. Suddenly, two gunshots rang out, their sharp cracks cutting through the roar of the flames like a whip. The sound echoed off the stone walls, bouncing through the alleys and over the water, silencing the night for one heartbeat. The birds rose from the trees in a frantic cloud, and for a moment, the fire seemed to freeze. The two figures remained locked in their embrace, a statue of love and lead, as the smoke curled around them like a shroud. Did they die? Or did love, stubborn and defiant, refuse to end even then? Did they die, their blood staining the ancient stones of Banaras until it washed away into the holy river? Or did they survive, slipping through the cracks of the burning city to find a life where names and castes are nothing more than dust? The people of the Ghats will tell you that on certain nights, when the wind blows from the south and the river is high, you can see two shadows walking the narrow streets. They don't speak; they only watch each other with a devotion that the living cannot understand. Perhaps they didn't die. Perhaps they simply transitioned from the world of flesh to the world of myth. In the end, it doesn't matter if their hearts stopped beating or if they escaped into the dawn. What remains is the memory of a love that was too big for the world to hold, a love that burned brighter than the fires of Manikarnika, leaving behind nothing but the question that haunts every corner of Banaras: Is love a destination, or is it the fire we walk through to finally become free? Kahani ek junoon ki, shiddat ki, ishq ki, Kahani ek mukkamal dastan-e-rooh ki, jo maut ki dehleez par bhi juda na hui.

𝐈𝐒𝐇𝐐 𝐇𝐔𝐀 𝐇𝐈 𝐇𝐔𝐀

हलचल हुई, हलचल हुई ज़रा शोर हुआ, ज़रा शोर हुआ दिल चोर हुआ, दिल चोर हुआ तेरी ओर हुआ, तेरी ओर हुआ ऐसी चले जब हवा इश्क़ हुआ ही हुआ ऐसी चले जब हवा इश्क़ हुआ ही हुआ In the final year of school, eight teenagers find their lives unexpectedly intertwined when a new seating arrangement brings them together in Class 12-C. Alishka Tripathi, a cheerful yet dreamy head girl hiding her secret wish to become an author, returns from hostel life to live with her overprotective brother ARHAAN. Alongside her are her closest friends: Nandini Srivastav, the quiet topper who hides the pain of a broken home behind perfect grades; Samaira Randhawa, the endlessly cheerful girl burdened by the cruel label of being a "curse" after her mother's death; and Vaishali Rathore, bold, fearless, and unapologetically outspoken, who refuses to follow life with a fixed plan. Their lives collide with four boys who each carry their own battles- Agastya Rathore, the respected head boy determined to honor his late army father; Nishchit Randhawa, the charming class favorite suffocating under family pressure to abandon his love for music; Adhiraj Malhotra, a quiet transfer student searching for the childhood friend who once understood him better than anyone; and Arhaan Tripathi, fiercely protective of his sister and constantly clashing with Vaishali and fighting hids own trauma. As friendships deepen and rivalries spark, love slowly blooms between them-through stolen glances, heated arguments, shared secrets, and silent support. Together they navigate the chaos of adolescence, family expectations, broken dreams, and the fear of growing up, discovering that sometimes the most important journeys are not about success or ambition, but about finding the people who make life worth li

𝐄𝐍𝐀𝐌𝐎𝐑𝐄𝐃 𝐀𝐓𝐓𝐑𝐀𝐂𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍 | 𝟏𝟖+

The moment the car door opened, the questions hit like gunfire. Cameras flashed in a strobing wall of white. Microphones jabbed forward, held by hands that seemed to multiply with every step. Mallika kept her chin level, her expression carved from stone, but the noise pressed in from every side. "Ms. Kulkarni, why did you marry the man accused of orchestrating your father's murder?" She didn't flinch. Didn't slow. "Is it true you're romantically involved with your own client?" A second voice cut over the first, sharper, hungrier for the reaction it wanted. "Since when have you been sleeping with him?" Then a third, uglier than the rest. "You're defending a rapist because you're sleeping with him,is that it?" The words landed like static in her ears, meant to break her stride, to catch her off guard on camera. She had rehearsed for this. She had not rehearsed for this many voices at once. Beside her, he didn't say a word. He simply stepped half a pace closer, angling his shoulder so the nearest boom mic couldn't drift toward her, so no stray hand or shoulder could brush against her in the crush. He'd slipped his own AirPods into her ears before they'd even left the car,a small, deliberate thing, a wall of silence he'd built for her ahead of time, so the worst of the shouting would reach her only as a distant hum. To him, the reporters weren't press. They were noise to be managed, obstacles between her and the door. "No comment," he said finally, voice flat, final, closing the subject like a door slamming shut. He didn't touch her. He didn't need to. He simply moved, and the crowd parted, and she walked through it like it wasn't there at all. A reporter leaned in too close, hand rising toward her arm. He was already there,one step, no wasted motion,a wall between her and the crowd before the hand could fall. "Don't," he said. Just that. Quiet. Final. The man froze, hand dropping. To him, these people were nothing,insects who didn't get to come near his goddess. No one touched her. No one ever would, not while he stood there. Rain lashed against the tall windows of their Mumbai penthouse, the city lights blurring into streaks of gold and crimson. Mallika Kulkarni stormed into the bedroom, her heels clicking sharply on the marble before she kicked them off. Her husband trailed behind, carrying her purse in one hand and her discarded heels in the other. He set them down on the low table without a word. Mallika dropped onto the wide couch, legs spread, shoulders tense. Rainwater still clung to her hair. She glared at the floor, jaw tight. He stood before her, tall in his black suit, eyes locked on her like she was the only thing that existed. For him, she was everything. The empire he ran, the boardrooms he dominated, the power he wielded, all of it bent to this one woman. She lifted her gaze. "Today was a very bad day. I'm bored, devastated, and feeling low." Her voice dropped lower. "So sweetheart... STRIP." He didn't ask her to repeat herself. His dark eyes traced every line of her face, every curve of her body, committing her to memory again. A slow smirk curved his mouth. "Anything for my queen," he said, voice low and rough. "I'll strip bare and let you use every inch of me until that boredom drips out of you and all you feel is my c*ck buried deep where it belongs." He shrugged off the black blazer, letting it fall. The black t-shirt followed, peeled over his head to reveal the hard planes of his chest and the faint scars from years of ruthless ambition. His fingers moved to his belt next, unbuckling it with deliberate slowness while his gaze never left hers. · · ─ ·✶· ─ · · The rain hadn't stopped yet. Mallika was gathering her files when her gaze drifted toward the window, Reehan stood there, as always, as if he'd never left. "Tum abhi tak yahin ho?" she asked, a trace of surprise in her voice. ["You're still here?"] "Tum jab tak nahi nikaltin, main kahin nahi jaata," he said, in that simple tone of his, as if it were nothing at all. ["Until you leave, I'm not going anywhere."] Mallika picked up her files, but her hands trembled slightly. Today had been heavy,another witness had vanished, and she knew someone was working to stop them. "Reehan, mujhe darr lag raha hai," she finally admitted, for the first time in years. ["Reehan, I'm scared."] Something shifted in his face. He took two steps closer, close enough that his scent, a mix of rain and out, wrapped around her. "Jab tak main hoon," he said, his voice carrying that particular hardness reserved only for her, "koi tumhara baal bhi baanka nahi kar sakta. Yeh mera wada nahi, yeh meri qasam hai." ["As long as I'm here, no one can touch a single hair on your head. This isn't my promise, it's my oath."] Mallika looked into his eyes. Eyes that appeared cold, indifferent to the rest of the world,but before her, only before her, they held fire. A love that never went out. "Tum har waqt mere peeche kyun rehte ho?" she asked softly, though there was no complaint in the question. ["Why are you always following behind me?"] "Kyunki," he took another step toward her, "tum wo jung ho jo main haarna nahi chahta. Duniya mujhe zalim kehti hai, qatil kehti hai,hone do. Lekin tumhare saamne khada hoon toh sirf ek dua ki tarah hoon, jo sirf tumhare naam se shuru hoti hai aur tumhare naam pe khatam. Main sirf... tumhara hoon." ["Because you're the battle I don't want to lose. The world calls me cruel, calls me a murderer, let them. But when I stand before you, I'm only like a prayer, one that begins with your name and ends with your name. I'm only... yours."] She fell silent. Outside, the rain grew heavier, but inside, in this small space, there was only their breathing. "Log kehte hain tum khatarnak ho," she said. ["People say you're dangerous."] "Sirf unke liye jo tumhe nuksaan pahunchane ki soch bhi rakhte hain," his voice held no softness now,only that terrifying calm that comes before destruction. "Tumhare liye, main sirf... ghar hoon." ["Only for those who even think of harming you. For you, I'm only... home."] Tears filled Mallika's eyes, but she was smiling. For the first time in years, she felt safe,not because of any object, but because of a person who walked beside her like her own shadow, asking for nothing, saying little, only protecting her. "Chalo," he extended his hand. "Ghar chalte hain." ["Come on. Let's go home."] T R O P E S Advocate × Accused Partial Enemies to Lovers Slow Burn Forbidden Love Forced Proximity Legal Drama Somwhere b/w Dark and soft romance Murder Mystery She Fell First, He Fell First and Harder Let the World Burn Look at Her and Die, ohh not dying not easily, Face real Reehan singhania Touch Him and Lose Your Hands Fake Marriage Contract Marriage

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𝐌𝐀𝐑 𝐉𝐀𝐍𝐈 𝐉𝐇𝐀𝐍𝐉𝐇𝐀𝐑

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𝐄𝐍𝐀𝐌𝐎𝐑𝐄𝐃 𝐀𝐓𝐓𝐑𝐀𝐂𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍 | 𝟏𝟖+

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