The monsoon festival of Teej is important to Marwari women. The mehendi, the new clothes, bangles, bindis and the decorating of the traditional sweet sattu kept the Agarwal women busy. Sanyukta and Vidushi took turns swinging on the jhula slung from the mango tree in the yard while Anju spent the day in fasting and other rituals.

Sanyukta had scoffed at the idea when she was asked to undertake a fast to fulfil the wish of getting a desired life partner and for his long life. The whole idea seemed illogical and regressive to her, especially after she had seen how boring and uninspiring the men in her extended family were. To her their single-minded pursuit of money made them the most unromantic partners. She would much rather opt for a modern day Prithviraj who, according to the legend, had swept her namesake literally off her feet.

The only one to fit the bill, in her opinion, was her cousin in Kolkata who had eloped with a stunning Bengali girl but was canny enough to return and set her up in his ancestral home. Much to the chagrin of the family the young couple lived by their own rules. The new beendni refused to abide by the orthodox code, when questioned her smart reply would be "O boleche" (he said so). She would shamelessly snack on fish and egg chops that she bribed the house-help to sneak into the strict vegetarian home.

According to the other women of the house her enviable moans late into the night during their amorous adventures could easily raise the bar in Sonagachi. She flaunted her hickeys and hardly cared that she provided flavour to the kitchen gossip about how she got her husband lapping up his dessert "down there" rather than off his thali! Of course Sanyukta had been much too young then to figure out what was being referred to, but she was perceptive enough to guess that this couple were privileged to share an intimacy that was sorely lacking in the mediocre lives of the others.

She nearly cracked up when a particular tale of the Teej was being recited by a senior lady. It was about how a woman would faithfully drop off her husband to a prostitute's doorstep each day until a deity intervened and he returned to his wife with a promise to never again seek his pleasure outside. It brought back memories of the Bengali beendni in Kolkata- she noted with amusement how husbands would be much happier if their wives took more interest in enlivening the marital bed rather than in performing austerities.

She knew her mother would be shocked if she ever read her mind, so she discretely shared only with her bestie Vidushi who had some of her own secrets to tell. She also noticed that such "impure" thoughts were coming to her more frequently off late. Did that have anything to do with how her body was filling out and getting curvier? Or was it related to her on-going fantasy of being swept off her feet by a horse-back rider with a rather familiar face?