#//had to recast ayush bc the dude i picked turned out to be filipino and also too old

[dvarapala]

reintroducing: ayush dahiya

has there ever been a sweeter deal than this? ayush dahiya (josh heuston) doesn't think so. he gets to travel around with his girlfriend - his soulmate - omisha kaushal. they get to tag team ghosts and monsters. they get to help the dying. they understand dead. they understand it'll never touch them so long as they remain dharmadutas - so long as they remain in the service of dharmadeva zaman.

truth be told, he hated it at first. the ghosts and monsters were annoying, but not half as annoying as the people who'd died and whose souls he was supposed to escort to dharmadeva's abode. always whining and whinging. yammering about how they're shouldn't be dead, about how it's a mistake. he'd only joined upon his mom's insistence that he should actually do something with his life.

after all, his mom (vidya balan) made it quite clear that he couldn't hide forever behind the near death experience that shaped his youth and allowed him to see spirits and sense prana.

then he ran into vena zaman (santhosh sreeram) - the only son of sunita and only grandson of dharmadeva, and no one's saying nepotism out loud but they're all thinking it; ayush was thinking it, at the very least, because vena spent an awful lot of time on earth, with the living - who told him in no uncertain terms that his abilities would be sealed away and that he'd be kicked out, if not killed outright, if he didn't get his act together.

in order to get some assurance that ayush would, in fact, get his act together, vena assigned ayush a partner.

that partner had been omisha kaushal (ashley ganger) - a spitfire of a girl whose loyalty to dharmadeva and her fellow dharmadutas far outshone his own.

though that is not to say that she didn't know how to have any fun. ayush can personally attest that omisha does, in fact, know how to party.

anyway, it had been everything at first sight for these two: love, lust, loathing.

and vena's plan had worked. ayush got his act together and he and omisha have been a team ever since. and sure, omisha is very possessive but it's actually kinda hot, and hey. it's nice to be wanted. and the sex is mindblowing.

if asked, ayush would say that things were good until they weren't and, honestly, he blames the little planet hopping dvarapala for it. udyati rao (maitreyi ramakrishnan) didn't have to antagonize kalindi zaman (aishwarya rai). she didn't have to swear a vachan - a verbal vow with physical consequences if not fulfilled - but she did it anyway. and now she can't even tell them why she swore that vow in the first place!

shame, that.

it sent vena spiraling. it almost cost him his relationship.

in another life, he might've called her a friend.

in this life, he calls her an enemy.