Nuptial Sulma - Wedding dress
The annual school picnic was always a frivolous affair. Our planning used to start a month ago. Primarily the subject of discussion was use to who will constitute the picnic group, what menu will consist for lunch. Badminton rackets, cardboard games, playing cards and yes a music box. Bollywood cassettes and sometimes western pop music. Michael Jackson , was a popular figure. Though I had no idea from where he was. His song "Beat it" was my favourite, even though I couldn’t understand a word from the lyrics.
Well on the d- day all dressed in casual clothes , faces all lit with beatitude I use to walk down till the town with my share of tuck to catch the bus. Venue was at a beautiful river side with plenty of trees , hard to find in a cold desert. So after settling down at the picnic venue. We want for a brisk walk, to snoop around the tents.
There I saw a sylph in a sulma , beneath a tree in front of a small brook. My inquisitive mind confronted to me go ahead, and see who she is. When I came close, and pretended to just walk by, I got know it was her. Those slender fingers which I was very familiar from the occasional glance at morning prayers, were attending to her hairs. She had made pigtail from her tightly woven hair and was wearing a beautiful silk sulma. And yes of course she was smiling. This was no ordinary sulma. It was a wedding sulma and she was getting ready to click some photographs. This was a usual affair among the girls, to carry multiple dresses either to click photographs on picnic or to change clothes. There were other girls in the group and I really don’t remember, who were they or what dress they were wearing. The only thing missing now was a rows of turquoise with a golden kau (a hexagonal jewel box) in the centre to form the lovely peyrak. The eternal headdress of the women folk. It should be flanked by the two ear flaps, like a two little wings of an angel. On top of peyrak a long katak (a while silk scarf) would look wonderful.
I didn’t wait till the sulma was captured in the film , as I might have drawn some attention. My that picnic experience was sublime bliss not because we had danced to the tune of Michael Jackson or played cards. It was neither the swimming in the cool stream with all clothes nor the cardboard games.
It just because I had sighted my Holy Grail.
The winds of ochre desert and the glare of sun in the school alley had always kept my hopes unshaken and aspiration alive. Little they knew,that my mendacious dreams will cause those little invisible tears will roll down and drop to the ground.
What a wonderful words form Steven Taylor :-
“While youre far away dreaming
I could spend my life in this sweet surrender
I could stay lost in this moment forever”
