A young woman agreed to marry an 80-year-old man despite her parents’ disapproval, but she was determined to marry him. During the following months, she had to serve her husband until 3 a.m. every night before she could rest. 6 months later, the man received bad news….
The day I decided to marry Mr. Arvind Kapoor, the whole small neighborhood in Jaipur seemed to explode with gossip.

I – Aanya Sharma, 23 years old, graduated with honors in Fine Arts, long, soft hands of an artist, a face with strong Northern Indian features.

As for Mr. Arvind, he was 80 years old, a famous businessman in Rajasthan, but he had to walk with a cane, his hands trembled because of mild paralysis of old age.

People whispered that I was a “gold digger”, marrying him just to wait for the day of inheritance. My parents were so humiliated that they announced their disownment on the day I got into the wedding car.

On the wedding night, I couldn’t sleep. And for the next six months, every night, our bedroom would make strange noises, and I would have to “serve” him until I was exhausted.

At exactly 9 pm, when the door closed, my “work shift” would begin.

Mr. Arvind was extremely strict, not allowing me to be careless even for a moment.

“Harder! Not like that! Push deeper! Watch out for that curve!” – His voice often shouted, mixed with my tired panting.

The servants passing by all blushed. They giggled:
“You’re so old, but you still ‘torture’ your wife so much, she moans every night…”

I was truly “broken”.
My whole body was sore, sweating profusely, my once-artistic hands were now full of calluses and scratches. There were days when I cried while working, but looking at his fiery eyes and his urgency, I gritted my teeth and continued.

Outsiders saw me in a luxury car, living in a Jaipur villa, but no one knew I was…living in a hell of being exhausted every night.

Six months later

One morning, the doctor announced:
Mr. Arvind’s heart is too weak, he doesn’t have much time left.

He was silent and then suddenly asked me…to increase the intensity of his work, as if he was afraid someone would take away his last hours.

That fateful night, when I was still exhausted from “serving”, he suddenly collapsed, a satisfied smile still on his lips.

He was gone.

Jaipur’s biggest funeral

His children – all successful businessmen, older than my father – cried but their eyes always glanced at each other with calculation. They glanced at me with contempt, whispering:

“This girl is about to be kicked out into the street. She has no money.”

My parents also came. My father stood still like a stone statue, while my mother looked at me with anger and pity.

Then Arvind’s personal lawyer appeared to announce the will.

“…All real estate, cash, and company shares are divided equally among the children.”

His children breathed a sigh of relief. Their eyes looked at me as if to say: “I knew it.”

I bowed my head, preparing to leave. I had not come to him for his wealth.

But then…

“…As for my wife, Aanya Kapoor…” – the lawyer’s voice rang out clearly –
“I leave full ownership of the secret sculpture studio behind the house and the driftwood work ‘Silhouette of Mother Bharati’. At the same time, Aanya will be the Director of the Arvind Kapoor Art Foundation.”
The whole room was stunned.

“Silhouette of Mother Bharati?”
That was the legend in the Indian sculpture world – the work Arvind had cherished all his life but could not complete because his hands were paralyzed and shaking.

The lawyer played a video recording of the last six months of his life.

On the screen, Mr. Arvind sat in a wheelchair, and I – sweating profusely – held a chisel and hammer, bending over to work on a giant block of driftwood.

His voice rang out, slow but full of pride:

“Do you think Aanya married me for money? No. I married her because I needed a pair of hands to replace my own crippled hands.
Aanya has natural talent, but was neglected. For the past six months, she has stayed up until 3 a.m. every night, chiseling out each line for me.
Dad is the brain, and Aanya is the hands.

The words ‘Harder’, ‘Deeper’ that you hear every night… are not carnal. They are the sounds of art.
Her hands are bleeding, her shoulders are swollen… but she has never given up. Without Aanya, my life’s masterpiece would have been buried forever.”

The screen changed to the image of the completed statue – majestic, sacred, every line soft yet strong.
At the foot of the statue is engraved:

Artist: Arvind Kapoor & Aanya Kapoor

I burst into tears

All the resentment and humiliation of the past half year melted into tears.

It turns out that the nights I “struggled” to exhaustion…
were not because of lust,
but because he passed on his profession, using the last time of his life to train me to become a true artist.

Arvind’s children bowed their heads in shame.
My parents were stunned.
My mother ran to hug me tightly:
“My child… we were wrong…”

I stood still, looking at my husband’s photo.

Arvind left me not only a priceless artistic asset,
but also gave me a career – a future – a name in the Indian sculpture world.

I lost a husband,
but the art world had a new name:

Aanya Kapoor.