Ruquaiya peeped into the well and tried to gauge its depth. It was a huge well lined all around neatly with moss laden bricks, but it was dirty. Hmm ! the houses in the village she was visiting, for a friend's wedding, had taps to provide the vital drink and so the wells were like antique pieces dotting the Kakadmati gam (village in Gujarati) and had their own old world charm. While she was very much a part of the current world, she was hooked onto things that were sort of 'historic' may be because they had some story about themselves, and this fascinated her. She would go off in a trance like state while visiting old architectures. Taj Mahal had been one such incident when the people she was with, had to yell for her to come back as the tour bus was leaving and she ? She was somewhere in Shahjahan's time and wondering what all had been in the so romantic Emperor's mind and how much of his mind was occupied by Mumtaz ? How much effort had he taken in the minuscule details that made the Taj a masterpiece indeed ! A loving (emotional) heart and a constructive (logical) mind ! What a match !
How mystifying she thought as she once again gazed into the still waters of the well. While it takes feelings in as much as to make a heart tender, it takes reason to build tangibles. A combination of both is sheer pleasure to have around be it a man or a woman. That reminded of Dheer, the guy her friend had introduced as a cousin. Now he was a gaamwala (villager) as his attire showed but his being exuded charisma. His eyes spoke and his being told that he did all the hard work a village life demands from an inhabitant. While the calmness of the village was an ecstasy for short term visits of the towner, the regular hamlet dweller had to walk distances on the bare mud, in the sun, sort the waste from the useful produce both of which Mother Earth generated in profuse, find the market for them and then relax which she guessed was a rarity. She practically found Dheer ever staying at a place. Talk about her kins who stayed abroad and had to do their own household chores as the labour was costly, here the scene was no different. People washed, cleaned, cooked which took most of the day's time. She learned later that Dheer's dad, a banker owned few acres of land in the village, and that he was a post graduate in Human resource development who stayed in the nearby city of Ahmedabad, along with his mother who worked for the telephone department. They grew Alhonso's, rice, lentils etc as per the season and this being the Alphonso season, Dheer was all geared up for the work the fruit demanded and so the villager's attire. She could not stop herself from clicking like crazy the views the village household or the premises presented and bang clicked Mr. Charisma suddenly as he lifted his head up while 'datooning' (brushing teeth from the Neem stick). Perfect she thought, a typical 'gaam' pose. Dheer smiled and offered to take her around for few more photographs. My ! they were literally chasing peacocks that ate cucumbers which Dheer's aunt had planted. The brinjals hung low while the salad king lay asleep on the mud amidst the leaves. They ate a local fruit, 'the chibdo' that tasted like 'Kharbooz' (a kind of melon) sprinkled with sugar. She found his company utterly pleasing and he in turn enjoyed her wow ! every few minutes. Then he took her to a well that was deserted and told a story of the hamlet's wherein two youngsters of different community had fallen for each other, often meeting by the well and later had eloped in fear.
He was strictly against inter caste marriage he told her. Though they both fell for each other too in the few days she stayed, he gave the feeling that he was rooted to the 'gam' and its customs. They promised each other to meet up in the city. And there he was at the Cafe Coffee Day in Levis and Nike, where she was sipping the Latte dreaming about the past few days. And she ran into his arms not caring about the permanency of the bond that had developed.
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