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 Udai bhaisa 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).

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"

The word bhabisa again caused me to blush.

"Lekha has instructed us to call her by her name till the time of marriage" said Vasundhara.

Both the boys looked at me quizzically but didn't say anything.

I was just going to pop a berry in my mouth after rolling it in the salt which was given too to enhance the taste of the berry, when I heard the too familiar voice.

"What are you both boys doing without your horses, walking on the hot sand" said Rudra.

"Kakisa had sent us with the berries you plucked, to give it to bhabisa" said Vikram looking quite innocent, though others apart from Rudra could understand his naughty innuendo, especially when he had been recently told not to use that word.

That made Rudra look towards where I sat. I felt like a deer caught in a headlight, with my mouth open and my hand holding a berry midway to my mouth. He stared at me as if seeing me for the first time.

"Ahem..."coughed Vikram  with a silly grin on his face.

"The berries are quite sweet and ...and... you should share them with the girls" Rudra instructed with his impassive face on again.

That moment I felt like throwing all the berries at his head. What did he suppose that I was such a hog that I wouldn't share the berries with his sisters?

Before I could retaliate he turned his horse around and without turning shouted  to the boys to get back to their horses. The boys obeyed him as usual but not before they passed me a silly grin as if they achieved a minor victory. I quirked my brow up at them.

That at least saved me from the boys but the girls were as bad as them, as their giggles turned to laughter at my expense.

Now that everyone was fresh from the recent nap and also the entertainment had been provided at my expense, the talks turned to their life together which I found quite interesting. Even without the modern amenities it seemed life was great and full of fun for the younger generation. They seemed to have similar kind of games like the ones we played in our childhood, but with different names. I wondered if I introduced them to some of ours like cricket, netball etc , would it change history. Well then the British would not be able to take the credit for the gentleman's game. Maybe I better learn some of theirs which sounded quite interesting to expand my general knowledge.

The topic of my marriage was raised again as they discussed what all had to be done at their end. As Rudra's name came up again and again in the conversation, I thought it to be the best time to ask about the girl who seemed to be associated with Rudra.

"Gayatri ... you were going to tell me about the girl everyone keeps hiding the details of from me " Gayatri seemed uncomfortable at that and even Vasundhara seemed saddened, which was a big thing considering her happy disposition.

"You promised me that you would tell me. You know I am going to be married to your brother. How would you like if you have to marry someone with a secret you didn't know" I insisted again with pleading eyes.

"You have to promise me that our names will not come in the context. No one talks about it in the family" whispered Gayatri.

I wondered why she was whispering as there was no one apart from us in the carriage. As her eyes looked towards the front of the carriage I remembered that the driver could listen to us if we were loud even though we had a decent partition between us.

"I promise that both of your names shall never come up and I would not let anyone know that I know about the girl" I whispered back.

As I looked at Gayatri with both curiosity and apprehension, she took the dramatic pause of the narrator trying to assemble all her thoughts before the retelling of the story.

"It all started with bhaisa being engaged to Roopmati the daughter of Sujan Singh from Rajkot an estate one day's journey from our place. Bhaisa was quite young at that time around sixteen years old and Roopmati was two years younger than him. Things were great and bhaisa we heard was quite smitten by his fiancé. She was extremely beautiful. I had seen her for the first time when we had met at a wedding of our common relative. Even then she was very elegant and poised for a sixteen year old. Bhaisa use to manufacture excuses to visit her quite often, I heard maasa say once. "

I wondered why my heart felt pain hearing all this. It was not that I even liked him. He was an arrogant person not worth my sympathy.

"The same year bhaisa went hunting with few of his friends. As they reached a nearby village they saw that the village was being attacked by some bandits. He and his friends joined the villagers in fighting off the bandits. While rescuing a small child from being killed, he  got a nasty gash from the sword of the bandit on his face. In the end they won the fight and all the bandits were either slain or ran away. Bhaisa and his friends got heroes' welcome when the story reached our estate. I was there when he came home."

I could hear the pride in Gayatri's voice as she narrated the part about her brother's heroic deeds.

"He succumbed to fever because one of the injuries on the leg which had been overlooked at that time as a minor scratch had got infected by the time he reached back home. It took three days for his fever to subside. He use to murmur Roopmati's name in his delirium state. As soon as he was well enough to move a little he wanted to meet her, and it was only after a proper scolding from bapusa did he lay down to take rest properly. He use to ask me constantly if there was any news from her side or whether her family had been informed about him. He didn't dare ask my parents so I was his only connection with the outside world. 

One day Sujan Singh and Vijay Singh the girl's brother did come to inquire after him and visit him but they gave no news of Roopmati. Maybe to my parents they did but I was unable to glen anything from them or even by eavesdropping on their conversation with my parents. Bhaisa had become very restless after that.

After one month when he was allowed to go freely by vaidhji (doctor), he vanished for two days saying he was visiting some friends. My parents it seemed had an inkling to where he went though he didn't tell them directly. Two days later we saw a changed man enter our door. He was quite drunk and luckily only maasa and I saw him enter. All we got to know was that the engagement had been broken by bhaisa. "

There were tears in all three of our eyes as we tried to understand the sufferings Rudra must have gone through. My heart pained still but this time it cried for Rudra.

"He never told us the real reason behind breaking the engagement. Later a messenger from Rajkot just delivered a message written by Sujan Singh that the children by mutual consent seemed to have broken the engagement. He being a doting father didn't want to force his daughter into an unwanted marriage. He begged bapusa also not to force this issue further, as the happiness of both the children were connected with not going through with this marriage.

Only one good thing which came out of it was that bapusa stopped blaming bhaisa for breaking the engagement. It seemed both of my parents understood as to what might have apparently happened when bhaisa had gone to meet Roopmati.

Six months later we heard that she was engaged to another man of a wealthy household with better connections. We tried to hide the truth from bhaisa but he got to hear about it from outside source. We thought he took it rather well but somehow during that time we realized that we had lost the cheerful and ever enthusiastic person who was our bhaisa. In place of him was the bhaisa whom you see now. "

She touched my hand and said "Please bear with him Lekha. Deep in my heart I feel that you are the person that can bring back the bhaisa we lost. Give him a chance."

I felt numbed by all the jumbled up emotions so just nodded my head in acceptance. The look of gratefulness she gave me in return shook me  up to the core. It was a big responsibility, which I still was unsure how to fulfill especially if the other person was an arrogant egoistic fool.

The carriage was filled with complete silence as we all tried to get a grip on our emotions. I wondered that if the whole story pained us so much then what Rudra must have gone through in actual life. I didn't pity him but I somehow now understood his actions it seemed. I understood his mistrust in women and also maybe why he thought all pretty women try to lure unsuspecting men.

Was this the reason I had been teleport-ed to this century, I wondered.

Two updates before my actual deadline ... I pat my back  :D . The story bubbling inside me  didn't let me sleep :)

So dearies enjoy. Till the next update. Take care.

I would love to hear from you.