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...
After spending a restless afternoon in anticipation of the negative kind I had to again get ready for the mehendi ceremony, where the groom's side sends the mehendi to be applied on the bride's hand.
The amount of time I spent changing my clothes for each occasion, I had started to feel like a model on the ramp with the other ladies evaluating me and giving me marks. And then there was Roopmati, the embodiment of competitiveness. I wondered how much luggage she had brought. When she must have 'given orders' for loading the trunks, didn't her parents wonder if she was planning to run away?
It was obligatory for me to keep changing dresses being the focus of everyone's attention, but that woman kept up with the times I changed dresses with a new dress of her own. Others I knew weren't changing dresses so often as I had seen my friends and relatives go around in the same dress if the occasion didn't demand.
I was now completely sure that she had come with a full arsenal of clothes to compete with Rudra's bride whoever that might be.
The girls gathered up in my room before going down for the mehendi ceremony and their topic was, of course, the one and only Roopmati. My already upset feelings were further crushed when I heard them discussing how Roopmati had attended Rudra's ceremony which was held post-lunch. They bisected and dissected the whole episode of how she hung around right in front of him trying to attract attention. I didn't get to hear about Rudra's reaction as nobody imagined that their brother would want to change his bride and so nobody had paid attention to him.
Instead of enjoying the festivities as I had done previously at the fort from the perspective of a time traveller, everything had started to lose its lustre the moment it was my life which was at stake. Things now were really happening to me. I felt like the reader who wanted to cheat and read the last chapter of the book to know the end.
I again accompanied by my friends and was made to sit on a separate chair with a footstool nearby.
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Mehendi for the bride
Taisa along with Gayatri who had again changed sides got the mehendi in a bowl to be applied especially to me. There were other bowls of mehendi placed at small junctures so that the rest of the ladies too could apply on their hands.
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