Thaal



It's believed that if you ask for anything good while mother Holika is burning then it will come true. This belief got me to mentally plan out the wordings of my wish, as I got my thaal (plate) ready for the puja (prayers) of the Holika (bonfire). I had learnt from all the stories I had heard as a child about how important the perfect keywords were when asking for a wish, as one little word at a wrong place could turn it into a curse or ruin the wish completely for you. I planned to get this one right the first time itself leaving no loopholes for any kind of misinterpretations.

Loads of firewood had been assembled in the courtyard for the Holika Dahan(burning of Holika) at the night. After preparing our plates we girls had to make a colorful rangoli around the bonfire. I felt excited at the prospect as it gave me an opportunity to step out. It wasn't like I had been forced inside the house but after the incident on the terrace I had lost all bravado, especially if it meant meeting Rudra without anyone else present. After the self confession I had become even more conscious of him and had trouble controlling my blushes when he was around.



Holika

It was relatively close to evening when we girls got to go out in our new dresses and jewelries. I was now an owner of quite a good collection of jewelry pieces thanks to my would-be mother in law. Some of them were quite heavy and not at all to my taste, so I had given them to maasa for supposed safe keeping. I knew I would never wear those pieces but didn't want to shade the happiness of taisa as she had given them to me with so much of love.



Lekha :)

Gayatri the artist of the family got the job of making the outlines of the rangoli using atta(wheat flour) while rest of us filled it with colors. I simply duplicated all the fills seeing where Vasundhara and Lajo were putting which color.

"May I help too?" said a voice from behind me, which I couldn't relate to though it sounded familiar.

"Bhaisa!" shouted Gayatri before I could even turn around.

"O o... don't come near me with your dirty hands little sister. You will spoil my dress. What will all the girls think..?" said Vikram in mock horror as Gayatri rushed towards him. My smile grew wide as the siblings hugged each other despite her hands being dirty with flour. After the greetings were exchanged with all present, Gayatri asked"Where had you been bhaisa? I thought you would have come earlier at least to help with the preparations."

"I had to visit some friends" he said.

"Friends... what friends... that I don't know off" smirked Gayatri.

"You are acting more matured then your age, little sister" he laughed, pinching Gayatri's ear in mock severity.

"No problem bhaisa... all I have to do is... give a hint to maasa about my suspicions" laughed Gayatri after deftly dogging out of his grabbing arm.

The rangoli seemed to have been forgotten as they ran around the bonfire with Vikram chasing Gayatri. Gayatri kept on shouting at Vikram to tell the truth. We girls laughed seeing their antics.

I felt as if someone was watching. I looked up towards the entrance of the house and saw Rudra standing on the porch with his arms folded leaning on one of the pillars with a wide grin on his face. The only difference was that he wasn't watching the running duo like us but was instead watching us. As our eyes met he quickly hid his expression and averted his eyes towards the duo. I was taken aback by his presence, so mindlessly forgot about the others and kept staring at him. He must have sensed my perusal so he slowly unfolded his arms and with his eyes bent towards the suddenly interesting floor went back inside. I felt a pang of guilt as it seemed I was the cause of his withdrawal.

I couldn't tolerate this game of hide and seek any longer. I went after him. He had reached the stairs and seemed to be moving slowly towards his room. I kept my distance not wanting to have a confrontation where anyone could hear or see us. As he reached his room, he closed the doors without even looking back. I stood outside his room in a nervous silence wondering how to begin the conversation when I faced him. Standing there for a minute or two I lost my nerve and turned to go back downstairs.

As soon as I took the first step to move away from the door, it opened suddenly revealing Rudra who looked at me with question filled eyes. He just raised his one eyebrow at me but otherwise kept silent, watching me like a hawk.

"I ... I mean" I stammered at being caught.

Now both his eyebrows were raised prompting me to go ahead with what I wanted to say. I clutched my one hand with other as all my bravado flew out of the window.

I took a deep breath to calm my nerves and then with eyes bent admiring the interesting fine grains of the snow white marble I blurted out "Why did you come away from outside?". It almost sounded accusatory even to my own ears.

"Were you worried that I got a fainting spell because of the heat?" he asked in an amused voice making me glance up at his twinkling eyes.

"Oh... I mean no... It's just that I thought you came in because of me ". I blushed hard at that.

"Why will I avoid you? Have you done anything that I should be avoiding you." It seemed he was not willing to give me an easy escape route out of this situation.

"No ... I mean what did I do? ... I mean... "I felt my cheeks burning with embarrassment.

"So?"

"That day on the terrace... I mean... you have been avoiding me since then" I struggled with my speech.

"You think so?" I simply nodded my head.

"Lekha... first look at me" I saw his face had become dead serious. I waited for something brutal to take place, a massacre of my heart again.

"After what had happened that afternoon... I had just wanted to give you space. I didn't want you to be discomfited by the thoughts of marriage to me. I will always treat you as a friend like you..."

"But...I didn't..." I interrupted him wanting to clear the air considering that I was willing to accept him at all cost now, even if he didn't love me back.

"Let me finish Lekha. We might not get a moment like this again before our marriage. I don't want you running scared of me whenever I am present. A husband and wife can always be friends. No one needs to know about the kind of relationship we are in. We will face each day with whatever it offers us and cross the bridges only when we arrive at it. I have given it a great deal of thought so be assured from my side that I will not pressurize you into anything you don't want. I promise you this today."

There was complete silence after this as I contemplated what it meant for me. Here I was almost on the verge of a confession and then his confession left me floundering for words. His eyes had softened as he looked at me as if trying to help me understand the enormity of what he had just promised me. All I wanted to do was melt into those beautiful chocolaty eyes.

"Lekha... wont you say something?" he asked softly as if not wanting to disturb my reverie.

"I ... I just wanted to say is that I am happy with whatever you decide" I said and instantly kicked myself for being such a coward.

"We will make good friends" said my traitorous mouth without a single thought as to what the heart wanted. There goes the last nail of friendship in the coffin of my broken heart, I thought as I gave him a small smile to solidify our pact. There was nothing left to say after that so I turned to leave showing my back as the coward that I was.

"Lekha..." I turned instantly at that, slightly hopeful.

"You are looking pre ... nice. So... meet you ... in the evening festivities"

I smiled brightly at him as I had caught on to his incomplete compliment. My heart sang a little at that. It gave a small yet important confirmation to my heart that he was just a bit awkward right now but would soon come around to see things from my perspective.

I skipped down the stairs in happiness. It seemed nobody had noticed my absence as they were busy trying to make Vikram spill out the truth. He was a new soul to be teased mercilessly and I joined the fun happily, till the time I was not in his shoes. Udai bhaisa and Suraj had also joined the fun as the poor soldier who had been travelling with Vikram had spilled the beans under shameless threats by the girls.

He had been visiting the village of the girl named Maitri whom we had made friends with at the palace. The pretext had been of meeting her brother related to some security issues but the girls had been quite clever at putting two and two together. I still didn't have much knowledge about who was related to who or who belonged to which village but Vasundhara explained it all to me right in front of Vikram with great relish. Few points were highlighted with great dramatic pauses to see Vikram's reaction rather than for my benefit.

After a reminder from a maid who asked us to hurry with the rangoli as the auspicious time for puja was fast approaching, we got back to our task with greater enthusiasm then before. Each one had their own reasons for the smiles on their faces. I was happy with the little light shinning at the end of my tunnel of love. It sounded a bit mushy and cheesy to even myself but I loved the imagery in spite of it.



Puja being done by the women

The rangoli had come out quite beautiful with full credits to the skills of Gayatri. We gathered our plates which we had prepared earlier from inside the house as all the older ladies too gathered around the bonfire. There were only a few ladies from the household who came for the puja as the villagers had their own separate bonfire.

Taisa being the eldest amongst us placed idols representing Prahlad and Holika made of cow dung on the bonfire. Some toys had been also similarly made in the shapes of sun, stars, moon, swords, shields etc which were tied together with strings and were placed around a pole in the center of the bonfire by everyone. I kept getting instructions from maasa as she knew that I was new to all this. She explained the story and meaning of all the rituals to me.

The mantras were chanted by all as they did puja putting the offerings in our plates in the Holika. I felt a bit hesitant at not knowing all the mantras but it was mentally assigned to my to-do list. I simply followed what everyone did. We later tied raw yarn around Holika by circumambulating it seven times. Later we poured the water in our small copper pots in front of the holika as an offering.

By the time we completed the puja the men had started to gather up outside for lighting the bonfire. I didn't find Rudra anywhere as I looked around.



Hope you like this chapter. Putting up an extra chapter , unconnected with the story for those who do not know the legend.

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