Lekha is an orphan who has quite a fascination for all things connected with Rajasthan(India). The fascination comes to life as she is pulled into the century when the Mughals and Rajputs are in a tussle over Rajwara (Rajasthan of today). The story...
The journey from the dharamshala (rest house) was quite tedious as nothing much was scenically visible outside except for the desert sand sprinkled with small cactus or small bushes. The monotony of it all was broken by few babul trees or sometimes by few villages at quite a distance. We seemed to be travelling on some kind of route which skirted around all the villages. instead of passing through them or near them.
The heavy lunch, the heat and the swinging motion of the moving carriage again put us back to a lethargic sleep. The conversation after the initial burst of curious questions from both the girls which I was able to ward off quite calmly, lulled down to drowsy yawns.
The carriage flaps were flipped open suddenly making us all jerk awake to the grinning faces of Udaibhaisa and Vikram.
"What are you doing here and where are your horses?" asked Gayatri surprised at the sudden intrusion.
"Rudra bhaisa sent this for you girls" he said with a naughty smile playing on his face. He opened a cloth pouch and in it were lots of red ber ( Jujube berry).
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Ber
I felt my mouth open with surprise as Rudra wasn't the kind of person to send us girls these kind of things . I saw the girls react similarly. Gayatri was the first one to recover.
"No he did not" she contradicted.
"What makes you think he did not? Lekha is new to these parts so he might have wanted her to taste these berries" joined Udai bhaisa.
I blushed hard unable to adjust to these subtle or not so subtle inferences to our engagement, as all this was still new to me.
"No he did not"
"No he did"
"Not"
"Did"
As the fight progressed the boys walked along with our carriage, which moved slowly because of all the sand.
"O there is bhaisa... let me ask him the truth...Bhaisa!.." shouted Vasundhara before anyone could stop her.
Both the boys and I screamed "No..." in unison at her.
I immediately turned to look in the direction she must have seen Rudra, to check if he heard her but there was no one.
The boys too looked back shocked almost missing their steps.
Vasundhara and Gayatri both smiled victoriously at the boys.
"Now ...tell the truth or we report this to bhaisa the moment the carriage stops" blackmailed Gayatri.
"Okay... it was bhaisa who got the berries but for kakisa and maasa. She had asked him to go and pluck some from the berry grove ahead on the route. It was actually kakisa who sent it for you girls. Happy now ... spoil sport" said Vikram."We just wanted to see bhabisa's reactions"
