Seven Summer Nights - Ashok aatreya (rm book recommendations TXT) 📗

motherly gestures. Her big rounded eye’s were twinkling like stars …How wonderful all this world was, she thought for a moment. Julia could not connect her feelings to the real words but her lips were vibrating in emotions. When Sameer told Julia what her words meant she simply told…Oh,Thanks.!
.
Julia was tired so after putting off the light she went to deep sleep. The light outside her room was giving low green glow and the old man was sleeping there outside between the two rooms in the Jeffery.
In the early morning Julia woke up from her dreadful dream-‘the old round face black house- owner was sitting very close to her cot…he had opened the buttons of her blouse and was starring her open breasts, his moustaches soon touched that nude part and his teeth were encroaching ample bosoms …moreover she smilingly welcome his this menace and gave him an advantage to press and play with her sensitive balls, as if the old man was her bosom friend’… then in sleep she suddenly heard some shrilling sounds from behind her room .She got scared…There was nobody in the room accept the old lady. She was snoring …In the dark she could not think what to do as the sounds were quite disturbing to her ear…She put on the light…
‘Kaanee baat hai beti tuun iyaan kiyan udhhagi…’ (What happened dear daughter, why you got up like this?)The old lady asked her…Still not knowing what to do she went out of the room and came to Sameer…got hold of her…in puzzling and fearing voice she told him-‘See Semi few children are weeping behind my room in the garden…Sameer took no time in understand what happened to her. He told her-‘ Julia these are the sounds of Peacocks…The beautiful Indian birds…Come with me I show you how wonderful they look when they dance…! Julia came out of the house. It was beautiful morning…The red gold shining bountiful nature was spreading its wings…with dancing of Peacocks …Very charming…Julia realized how nice was this Indian man…can I…She smiled within herself…the answer of her thought was assertive…Yes she can take a chance with Sameer.He ought to be my….She smiled again.
With his magical whisper the crying metallic weeping sounds of the ‘ children’ transformed into golden musings of dancing birds !Julia also shared her dream with Sameer which disturbed her sleep…Sameer took it lightly but enjoyed her narration of nude-story from within. He told her after slow walk in to the garden and returning home—‘Now go to your bed and sleep…At tea time I will tell you the story of this Peacock Garden and the old man. The first summer night was over following a new dawn in their life.


Julia could not get the ticket for Palace on Wheel, since the train was already reserved till next session. She had the fascination in her mind to travel by that Royal heritage train as she read in the tourist brochure about the luxury attached to traveling in royal saloons…she had no idea of whole one year advance reservation of the tourist train…She felt little sad and told Sameer –‘It was my life time dream…how can it come true. Can you help me please…?’
‘Not right now but I can try…You have to wait for that…by that time…Sameer could not complete his sentence and she told him-‘ I better go to Ajmer…I read the literature it is very close to Jaipoor.
‘The Pushkar fair…it’s very famous…It’s the fair of creator of the cosmos…Brhma..’
Creator of the cosmos! Very interesting …when the train is going? Suddenly some old memory struck her mind…she had visited Pushkar earlier with her friend Barbara….but she felt no need to reveal it to Sameer.
‘No train now but you can catch the ordinary bus …It will take you to Pushhkar in three hours.’
‘O.K then let me go by bus…’
‘If I come with you …?
‘You have no school.
‘Today I will take leave for you…leave for my guest…guests are gods in India..’
‘No objection if you please…’she told him.


Sameer and Julia had the exciting and happy go-round . …Pushkar , a mythical oasis wrapped by barren hills was the ‘Yajna’ land of the creator of the cosmos. A lake sprang was dedicated to him. It was not a fair season yet the place was charming and gave the impression of a big pilgrim place of Hindus. It was very much touching for Julia and was like a fairy tale… It was in her memory when last time she visited this place with her friend Barbara. It was fair season around festival of lights…In the infinite stretch of desert the life of folk was pulsating in colors …decorated camels in hundreds…the dancing lady snake charmers and a sea of crowd on the fair ground all along the beautiful lake…the hour of cow dust of returning animals and the people…all was spell bound for Julia
Again with that same stock of memory she came very close to Sameer and in the crowded street strongly took his hand in her fold and knowingly or unknowingly rubbed her body at many occasions…laying pliant ,she even gave him a warm kiss behind the temple of lord Brahma and filled his heart with joy. That was her warm complement for his good and exciting company which seemed no more boring to her then.


Then all of a sudden she expressed her inner self-‘Why people come to Pushkar ,perhaps you don’t know…I tell you Semi…For love…I love you…Semi…I want to marry you today….Julia became very emotional…She felt fully compos mentis when she disclosed her heart .Sameer was thoughtless .Is she joking…he thought in himself…!
‘Are you j..ok..ing, He asked with fumbling words.’ …How can we marry today?
‘I will be very happy to marry you…any moment…It was Julia’s overwhelmed plosive expression. Was it a reality or drama, irrational behavior, straightforwardness of western life style or a plotter from her side, was not clear to Sameer at that moment?
‘But you know I am still not in job Julia…’
‘Oh that’s not a problem…Can’t you complete your diploma after marrying me?…I will not disturb you…She told him and took his hand on her leap…They came towards the Gaooghat near the lake…One Panda( professional priest) was standing very close to them and he wanted to explore the possibility of formal worship of the pious lake by them so he came forward and proposed Sameer to offer flowers and conduct Sankalp-Pooja combined with his foreign friend. The priest told him that the worship in Gaooghat (cow courtyard) is considered religiously fruitful for fulfilling all the desires of life…When Sameer told the importance of what was being told to him by the priest, Julia jumped in joy and agreed to offer flowers …The priest from his side gave them a saffron cloth to cover the heads in union…and after instructing them to sit close, he conducted the ceremony with religious fervor and spiritual scriptures. He also blessed them a long and lasting friendship.

After this worship Julia became very emotional ,she felt a sort of attachment for Sameer. Her heart was dancing and eye’s shining in some dream…She almost thrown money in the market and purchased lot of fancy items for herself ...Tie and dye dark blue gown and peacock blue topper…She had the idea of winter color code and good dress-sense hence she chose black dull gold and metallic apart from blues…She gone for another combination of grey, deep purple and burgundy Punjabi Ghaghara and Gherdar Salvar-Angiya suit with a Moghalia jacket …different colored beads ,semi-precious stones and a special brace-let of topaz with Tantrik design, symbol and diagrams. She also took a beautiful embroidered light green Kurta for Sameer her, love mate…They had their Dalbati -churma special dinner in hotel Sarover and enjoyed the night stay in Pushkar. The morning filtered sun put oar in their boat of life and found them stark naked on the lush-green carpet of semi circle luxury suit. The double-bed was not sufficient for their night sports .Perhaps, they turned over a new leaf and the second summer night for this new ‘couple’ was hunky-dory.
.However by the first morning bus they left for Ajmer , and in the company of two very close friends, Sameer wedded Julia in Arya Samaj in the same evening with jet-set-go spirit.The ‘kanyadan (offering the daughter by father for wedding ) formality was completed by a friend of the priest.

That way Julia was lucky. At least she played her first part of ‘game’ very nicely as she came to India with a particular mission! She was going to her husband’s home as a legal bride now. They were traveling by bus to a nearby village-home where Sameer had his roots. His parents, near and dear relative and his friends…he never thought in his life that his dream would be true in such a short period…although he was also prepared and worried for the obloquy. He held his breath as the time scuttled along the fast speed of the bus.


‘Now that means I am a four legged man now-‘Sameer told Julia looking at his sindoor (red organic substance parting her hair in semi-circle )‘certificate’ of the Indian married woman)-He was talking absurdly ,almost trying to translate whatever idea jumped into his mind…finding it difficult to connect his ‘miraculous’ wife in her language,
‘I don’t understand that…’
‘After marriage the bridegroom becomes four legged, since he ‘gets’ (acquires) two additional legs of his wife.’
‘And what about the wife…does she remains two legged? She wanted to know about her position.
‘Well I have no idea about that…
‘So that way I am still not part of you…?
‘No… not that …You are hundred percent my (mine).It’s a relation of ‘janma janmantar’..I mean last birth this birth and every future birth also.in bigger sense you are my better half.’ He told her convincingly .Then again he added sorry my English is ‘tooti-footi’…working.
‘But how could you rate me better…? She again asked him intelligently.
‘You are better and butter both-He laughed…You must know our greatest god lord Krishna was very much found of butter. for his use he would steel it…I’ll tell you story later. You are my sweet ‘hearts’ now. and with these flowing words he took her in his close arms and wanted to stamp his lips on her lips…but realizing suddenly …this is India, he simply put his head on her shoulders.
They were traveling by Roadways bus to home town of Sameer…his home town was Dausa, very close to Jaipur the capital city. Sameer thought about his father and mother and other family members …All illiterate farmers. They were very rigid people. His father was a small primary school teacher but a poet with progressive thoughts. He wrote lot of controversial articles especially about ‘their’ orthodox community. He had a liberal attitude towards life and that was the reason his father even allowed him to join amateur theatre and learn dance which was never a tradition in their family… but at the same time his uncles always opposed to his moving with small status girls of society and hi-fi fashionable men- women who were hard-liner and always opposed modern ideas and new wave education and fashion. Her mother was a religious lady, very humble in nature. He had three younger school going sisters and one youngest brother. They had only small three room old house but an unused big uncultivated land on the border of national highway. Overall it was a lower middle class family to which Sameer belonged…and what he was boasting about the family background and their old house in Amber ,a tourist attraction was all imaginative and baseless false perception of his innocent mind sine he never thought that he will be marrying