Chapter 47
Iram smiled, reading about Hajan and Avantipora and Kishtwar and Kargil. Had it been six years already to that spring when she had toured these very places with Atharva? He had built himself and his party from nothing in front of her.
Now she was seeing him drown the same party that he had given his blood, sweat and tears to.
He didn’t show it, but Iram saw how it pinched him to break down the same things that he had built with his own bare hands.
He was putting his conscience on the side and doing this, working day and night, between Uttarakhand booth management, Punjab student organisations and Himachal’s unions.
He was being the man who did not look back at Kashmir, while digging a tunnel back.
“Last day of exams! Wooohooo!” Daniyal came hooting out of his room, twirling like Maha used to as a kid.
“And I can wake the whole house up!” He pumped his hands in the air. “I am going to be a free biiiiird! Wooohooo!”
“Wake the whole house up for sure, but if you wake Arth then he is yours to put back to sleep,” came Atharva’s heavy croak from the top of the stairs.
Daniyal didn’t care. Iram observed one of his rare ecstatic moods.
He was always smiling, cracking jokes, being happy.
But these glimpses of the kid he had once been were rare, peeping from those cracks.
“Were you up all night studying?” She asked, moving away to grab a cup for him.
He yawned, opening the fridge to bring out the milk. “Almost.”
“What is almost?” Atharva asked, coming down, rubbing his eyes.
“I mean, I can’t remember.”
Atharva stilled on the second-last stair, eyes on him — “Tell me you will pass.”
“With a glow up and all,” Daniyal grinned. “Bhabhi, no sugar…”
“Why?” She paused, the spoon poised over his cup of water and coffee.
“I am going off sugar and joining Atharva Bhai’s gym today after my exam.”
“You haven’t put on any weight, Dani…”
He shrugged.
“It’s to make muscles and impress girls,” Atharva bounded down the last two stairs, rumpled in his tracks and T-shirt.
“You impressed Bhabhi, now it’s my turn.”
“I was not impressed by his muscles,” Iram frothed the coffee. She didn’t wait for Atharva’s snort, or his gestures. She knew what they would be. She glanced up to grab the milk and caught it.
…couldn’t stop staring.
She stared at him now.
“Where is Shiva?” He changed the topic like the expert he was.
“Gone for a morning walk.”
“Shiva goes on morning walks? Since when?” He reached for the newspaper on the platform and switched on the panel light over the dining table, glancing at her cup. She had already made her lemon water. Usually, he was the one to do it as she readied his coffee.
“It seems everybody is out for healthier living,” Iram handed Daniyal his coffee and grabbed another cup for Atharva.
They had decided that she would make his morning coffee, or she had decided it and decreed it so that then she could alternate sugar and jaggery as per her mood.
She started to reach for the bottle of grinds when the jar of green tea leaves caught her eye.
Noora had brought it from his last trip to Kashmir.
“Atharva?”
“Hmm?”
“Want kahwa today?”
Grey eyes behind those glasses whirled up to hers. Daniyal was sipping his coffee quietly. She shrugged — “It just feels like it.”
His mouth tightened. But he nodded.
“With jaggery,” she plucked the jar of tea leaves.
“Then give it to Daniyal only.”
The poor boy was left sputtering his coffee. Her husband kept reading his newspaper.
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Those few precious minutes of his morning were all he had to himself. And even those were his only when he was home. Waking up, watching the sunrise, seeing his son sleep, bantering with his wife as he had his coffee and she had her lemon water, glancing through the newspaper.
Post that, Atharva had nothing but calls.
At least, when he was in Shimla. If Vikram was around, they would meet in the outhouse.
Since he was in Jammu & Kashmir and had been there on and off for the last few months, Atharva had been cooped up in the observatory all day.
He didn’t even realise when Shiva had brought and taken back his lunch.
Just that he had eaten something at noon.
“…the student wing can go national, Atharva Bhaiji. Delhi can be next.”
“I agree, but for now, we are holding onto the current ground we have covered.”
“Give me one chance and I will start recruiting in Delhi University also…”
“Not now, Harman. Not now.”
“Ji, ji Bhaiya.”
“Send me the lists and add me to the WhatsApp group.”
“You, Bhaiya?”
“Yes, me. I am on all the student WhatsApp groups.”
He laughed — “No, no… I was just surprised. You were CM of Kashmir. You will be in these low-level groups?”
“I am now a party worker like you, Harman. We will together set up the culture of this organisation. For that, I need to be on all the groups.”
“Correctt, Bhaiya. Correctt. I’ll add you right now.”
“Thank you, Harman. I will see you when I am in Jalandhar next weekend.”
Atharva tapped the red button and set his phone down. The battery was 2%, as was his head. An ache was incoming too. He glanced at his surroundings and realised that the sun had already set. Had he seen the sunrise just an hour ago or what?
He got to his feet and stretched, not feeling lethargic at all thanks to his gruelling workout routine.
He switched off the single light and bounded down the stairs, now navigating this complex labyrinth of spiral blindly. As his feet hit the ground and he stepped inside the hall, the hustle stilled him.
“Baba play!” Yathaarth came skipping to him, bat in hand. Atharva grabbed him and flung him over one arm and those happy howls were the best thing he had heard all day.
“Where is Mama? What is happening here?”
“Qureshi is coming! Qureshi is coming!” Noora ran helter-skelter in the hall.
“Kuleshi coming!” Yathaarth parroted.
“Noora, stop,” Atharva glared at him. The man-child froze on his spot but kept repeating — “Qureshi is coming, Qureshi…”
Atharva glared at him, reaching for the bat in Yathaarth’s hands. He couldn’t pound Noora in front of his son but the man had to stop teaching Yathaarth these things.
“Arth, uncle is coming,” Atharva corrected, turning him over and setting him on his feet. “Who is coming?”
“Kuleshi…”
“Uncle,” Atharva pressed, holding his solemn stare down at the naughty glint in his son’s eyes. Noora!
“Uncle,” Yathaarth repeated.
“Good, now go call Dani bhai.”
He made a dash into Daniyal’s room like that was the den he wasn’t allowed into. At some hours of the day, he wasn’t, because Daniyal was supposed to study. Now, it seemed he was done with his exam.
“You,” Atharva snapped at Noora as he tried to escape.
“Sorry…”
“You can do all your crazy things but do not teach Arth anything like that again.”
He nodded.
“And what is this about Qureshi coming?”
“Sarah bhabhi called Iram to ask if she can come to meet Dani and Iram said she can come and eat dinner with us so she said that Qureshi will also be coming with her…”
“Why was I not informed?”
“You were busy upstairs so Iram said she would tell you once you come down.”
“Where is she?”
“Gone up to get ready.”
Atharva peered at the kitchen window, heavenly smells wafting out, Shiva scuttling around.
“Atharva Bhai?” Daniyal came padding out of his room, Yathaarth slung over his arm like Atharva had slung him.
“Did you just wake up?”
“Huuuuh…” he yawned.
“It’s seven. How was your exam?”
“Gooood,” he finished yawning.
“Wash your face and get ready. Ammi and Abba are coming for dinner. And this evening napping stops now. Exams are over…” Atharva trailed, seeing his face drop piece by piece.
“Arth, go play with Noora.”
“Baba play.”
“I’ll change and come to play, you go and start. Put on your mosquito patch. Noora?”
“Come on, Artha!”
Atharva waited for them to rush out of the hall and out of the house. Then he covered the distance between him and Daniyal.
“You finished your graduation exam today. It’s a big day for your parents,” he clasped his shoulder.
“Are they even welcome here?”
“Of course they are. They have come here before also.”
“I know what’s going on between you and him.”
“What’s going on?”
“He is keeping you away from Srinagar.”
“It’s not in his hand.”
Daniyal glared up at him. The eyes of a grown young adult, not a just-passed teen that he could manipulate. Atharva sighed. “You and Abba have fought a lot. Isn’t it enough now, Daniyal?”
“No.”
“When will it be enough then?”
“I don’t know.”
“Don’t you want to go home?”
His mouth compressed. His lower lip wobbled. Atharva held his gaze steady.
“When was the last time you spoke to Maha? She is now in secondary school. Do you even see how she is growing? What she is doing?”
“I speak to her.”
“And Ammi?”
“She is on his side.”
“She is not. She is caught between you two.”
“You don’t want me to live here? I will go. But I am not go…”
“Don’t make me thrash you right here.”
“Atharva!” Iram’s holler came from somewhere upstairs.
“In the hall!”
“Coming.”
He stared at Daniyal — “They are coming here to be happy for your final exam. Give them that. I will not stand by you if you fight this time.”
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Qureshi came. And he came with his CM’s convoy, which would not fit in the porch of Briarwood Bungalow.
“Atharva.” He nodded, smiling, walking inside in his patent pheran and pathani, more whites interspersed in the greys of his beard, eyes anything but trustworthy after the stunts he had pulled in the last three years.
“Qureshi,” Atharva nodded. “How are you, Sarah?” No point in asking Qureshi that. The four of them, the founding members spoke on a regular basis nowadays thanks to the final leg of the election campaign in Kashmir.
“I am very well,” she shook her head, a smile playing on her drained mouth. “You have kept Dani here with you and made sure he finished his graduation…”